PADDINGTON

I had been working on a thoughtful piece about prayer, but it remained unfinished when I went off to the Synod Assembly. I could write a blog on the fiasco of depending on online electronic equipment to run a meeting, but I’ll forgo that pleasure. After a week of dealing with credit card fraud (my card got skimmed at a gas station) and then getting a fake phone call threatening me with a law suit by the IRS and having to deal with an insurance company to get my car repaired after it was rear-ended for the second time in a year (in between it was also sideswiped in a parking lot), I decided I needed a break.

One advantage of being retired is that I can go to the summer kid’s movies at the local theaters. So for $1 I saw “Paddington.” I had wanted to see this because I found the trailer so inviting, but I didn’t want to pay $8 or $9 when it was first released. (Yes, I am a skinflint.) 

I hadn’t read any of the Paddington stories, but I have a soft-spot for Teddy Bears. I understand that the film takes some liberties with the Paddington story, but is well within the spirit. The character of Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw) is a computer-generated figure who interacts flawlessly with the live actors. (I probably should mention that Paddinton’s voice was originally to have been done by Collin Firth, but his voice never quite worked right so he stepped aside.  I don’t think he really needed the work anyway.)

The cast was amazing. The British have so many great actors who can perform anything. It’s almost like a giant repertory company. You get big-name actors playing relatively minor roles. Mr. Brown was played by Hugh Bonneville. That’s right, the Earl of Grantham himself not only performing comedy, but doing one scene in drag. His wife, Mrs. Brown, was portrayed by Sally Hawkins. I had not seen her before, but she is a very talented actress, the winner of a Golden Globe award for her role as Poppy Cross in “Happy-Go-Lucky.” 

There is Nicole Kidman playing an over-the-top villain assisted by Peter Capaldi (the latest Dr. Who) as a cranky neighbor.  For the Harry Potter crowd there was Michael Gambon (Professor Dumbledore) voicing Paddington’s Uncle Pastuzo, Imelda Staunton (Dolores Umbridge) providing the voice for Aunt Lucy, Jim Broadbent (Professor Slughorn) as an eccentric shop owner Samuel Gruber, and an almost unrecognizable Julie Walters (Mollie Weasely) as Mrs. Bird, the Brown’s live-in housekeeper and nanny. The casting is not surprising when you realize that David Heyman, the producer if Harry Potter, also produced Paddington.

The film takes place in London, and all the exterior shots seem to look quite normal to my eye. The interiors are something else. The Brown’s house has a touch of whimsy to it, not what you’d expect from someone like Mr. Brown who is a straight-laced risks analyst. A multi-storey tree is painted behind the spiral stair case. The Geographer’s Guild headquarters combines dated computers with and elaborate vacuum tube system that could have found a home in the Ministry of Magic. At Mr. Gruber’s shop, tea is delivered in a toy train. These are the fantasy touches that make the film even more enjoyable.

Mike Reyes wrote of Paddington in CinemaBlend “Paddington is an impossibly charming affair, going down as one of the best family films since Hugo.” I  agree with that. Like Hugo, this is great family entertainment and the sort of thing an old curmudgeon like me can enjoy immensely. 

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival. 

Wayne

THE OLD GRAY MARE SHE AIN’T WHAT SHE USED TO BE

Say “Ocala” to anyone in Florida and they will reply, “Horse Country.” The 1960s saw horse ranches replacing farms and cattle ranches in central Florida. It was actually a rather short-lived change since by the 1980s the ranches were being sold off to developers who stuck up houses, apartments, and shopping malls. I live in an apartment complex called Paddock Park after the ranch it was built on. (I just discovered that the new management is changing the name. Shame on them.)

When I arrived here in 1998 there were ranches on three sides of the main intersection. At night I could hear the horses whinny. Saturday mornings I would walk over to see the horses at one of the ranches. Things changed. One ranch gave way to a Catholic High School. It’s a nice school, and they have to build them somewhere with enough land. Last year another ranch became a shopping mall. Don’t know why we needed that since it just meant the grocery store moved from a location about a mile away. Now there are seven empty stores in the old mall and about the same in the new one. That’s progress of some sort, I guess.

It’s now final that the last two ranches, Red Oak Farm and Ocala Stud, will go the way of the developers. The locals fought against the re-zoning. The planning board recommended against it. The city council, which is in thrall to the developers, overruled the decision. So a couple of thousand more houses and apartments will be sprouting up soon.

Housing developments seem to be the only going concern here. The leaders of the local guv-uh-mint manage to jinx every attempt to bring in businesses with good paying jobs. There may be some logic behind this. More jobs would increase the need for workers and raise the pay scale. That would increase the demands of the grossly underpaid  EMTs, firefighters, sheriff’s deputies, and teachers for raises. The guv-uh-mint can’t allow that because it would mean higher taxes and higher taxes means not getting elected again. 

Allowing more houses and stores, however, means more tax revenue without raising taxes. Everybody’s happy–until they get stuck in th traffic jam near the new development  That’s going to require a bigger street to replace scenic Shady Road. And if we add thousands more people, where are we going to find room in the already overcrowded emergency rooms? The result is that everything gets uglier, services worse, but the good ole boys keep getting re-elected. 

I understand the problem. It isn’t profitable to run a horse ranch, at least not so many of them. Nobody will make money putting the land back into agricultural production. The only choice seems to be sell to the developers, but do thy have to pack in so many houses and apartments and strip malls? That was the planning board’s objection. The usage was too intense. 

I don’t know if you have ever seen Riverside, a suburb of Chicago planned by Frederick Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1869. It’s a gorgeous community. I suppose it couldn’t be reproduced today, because most people would be able to afford living there, but it is at least an inspiration for what might be possible. I’m fortunate to live in a place where there was some imagination. They kept the old trees. The buildings are staggered so that you don’t look out your living room into someone else’s. The probably could have crammed 50% more apartments in here if they had laid out the property like a military barracks, but they didn’t. 

I believe that designing ugly developments with people living cheek by jowl makes life more unpleasant. Surely we can have the sense that some people had 150 years ago in how to plan communities. If only the little minds could dream of something better without looking first at the bottom line. As Robert Kennedy said paraphrasing George Bernard Shaw: “Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not?”  Sadly, the satire of Carl Hiaasen comes closer to reality: “Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others see things that might be and ask: How much?”  

May he Lord bless you on your journey and great you on your arrival. 

Wayne

Pictures from top: Red Oak Farm, Ocala Stud, Paddock Park as an apartment complex.

THE FIFTH DAY OF RETIREMENT

Today brings me to the fifth day of retirement. This week wasn’t typical of the weeks to come since I have had lunch with people three times. That won’t be happening regularly. 

One thing everyone who is retired has told me is that you wonder how you ever had time for work before you retired. This has quickly proven to be true. Monday the new management at my apartment complex reached its first day of collecting rent. It was utter chaos. I spent hours trying to find the new online portal. (It seems the name of the complex has changed as well as the management, but nobody told us that.) Then I couldn’t register so I could pay my rent online. Tried at least ten times, but it wouldn’t work. The leasing office finally opened and they told me you have to put a 1 in front of your apartment number to make it work. How was I supposed to know that? Now if I had been working, I wouldn’t have had time to get this sort of thing done so I might have been evicted for non-payment of rent. 

It is strange only having four keys on my key ring. For years I have been dragging around keys for all sorts of places, but no more. I could cut it down to three keys if I removed the one mystery key. I fear, however, that as soon as I discard it, I will encounter the lock that it is designed for. 

It is also strange not going into the office every morning. You’d think that would give me more time, but it so far has given me less time because my old morning routine is disrupted. I don’t have to have things done by a certain time. I suppose I will get a new routine established soon.

I suspect the real issue for me will be Sunday morning worship. I will be in the pews and not up front leading. Actually that may take awhile to sink in since I am scheduled to supply at churches four Sundays out of the next two months. I am aware of the difficulty, however. This past Sunday I was in Orlando and went to a Lutheran church there for worship. Very big, impressive place. They have four services on weekends. The liturgy was traditional, just what I might have seen 30 years ago. The sermon was sound. The problem? It was a festival, The Holy Trinity, but there was no Communion nor did the sermon or hymns fit with the festival. Everything was part of a series that had been running since the beginning of Easter. I missed something important. God doesn’t care if we observe the Holy Trinity on the First Sunday after Pentecost, but I have lived by the liturgical year for a long, long time. At least from Advent through Pentecost it shapes my devotions and to some extent the way I live. I feel the loss when that disappears. 

Most of the Lutheran churches here in Ocala won’t present this sort of problem–now. However, I know all too well how a change in Pastoral leadership can cause radical changes in worship styles. Saw it happen years ago to one church where the pastor effectively drove out all the “traditional Lutherans” in favor of Charismatics. 

At least this past Sunday there was a redeeming grace. At 4 p.m. I attended Evensong at the Cathedral of St Luke with the Orlando Deanery Girl’s Choir and Boychoir participating. A couple of sections of Vivaldi’s “Gloria," Bach’s "Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring,” and a setting of the “Magnificat” by Samuel Webbe (a new piece to me) made it wonderful service. Add to that some incense and singing two Trinity hymns “Holy God we Praise thy Name” and “Round the Lord in Glory Seated,” and I was at peace–except I had missed the Eucharist for the first time in years. 

Listening to the choirs also gave me a pang of regret. I have missed working with a children’s choir for the past 40 years. Singing with the Carol Choir and the Choristers in my youth helped to cement me in the life of the church. After graduating from college I directed a children’s choir for a year and a half. Then the responsibilities I had as a seminary student made me leave that behind. It is a truism that saying “yes” to one thing means saying “no” to something else. There is no way to go back on this. I don’t have the musical skills anymore. I haven’t kept up with the repertoire (although I do know that “Firefly” by Andy Beck is a must). More sadly, children’s choirs at churches are largely a thing of the past. Oh, there are groups that get up and shout songs at congregations, but not children’s choirs that learn hymns, learn anthems, learn how to read music, learn how to use their voices well. That’s gone. The days when a large church would have three or four children’s choirs is past.

Time moves on and sometimes leaves good things behind. It’s not always for the better. It’s like the moving van that somehow leaves a box of old photographs behind. You have memories, but how much better it would be to have the actual photos. I suspect retirement is a time for nostalgia.

The Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne