The above picture contains, not just my wife Amanda, but also an anniversary gift she so thoughtfully made for me although I do not remember when.  I am gonna go out on a limb here and say, “on one of our anniversaries.”  The gift is a custom planter.  And it was as they say in horticultural circles, “Tom Proof,” meaning it contained plants I could not kill.  And it is on display at my professional office downtown.

The planter  originally contained 5 (five!) carefully chosen succulents, which in my experience at least, I have discovered I am very proficient at killing.  These “you cannot kill these” plants I secretly  replaced 3 different times.  It was difficult because I was always trying to remember what the originals looked like, but they are harder to identify after they have crossed that “photosynthesis bridge.”   So I finally brought it home and made my confession.

The result, which was months ago was three cacti (yes correctly plural as I looked it up).  One on the left, another in the center, and one on the right of the same planter.  Two more hearty succulents took positions two and four, between the three cacti which I have now chosen to call a “prickle,” which is the proper terminology for a group of porcupines.   The picture above contains my last two victims, which Amanda is smiling and posing with, as she helped me fix this and came to my office to deliver it, as well as to deliver a personal inservice on the care for plants you cannot kill.

So as in the case of a very simple novel, perhaps a mystery, as you have likely predicted, the succulents did not survive.  So the perpetrator of these plants demise  was not Professor Plum, with the candlestick, in the library, but rather me, in my office, with better intentions.

So I am sharing, or better yet confessing, that I have covered up my crime, with my “next to last solution.”  Any detective worth their weight would also be able to discern that the see that the current solution is now a prickle of five, which as prickles go seems pretty impressive.  And although I am no Acanthochronologist, (yes this a verified title), I am pretty certain you still should not trust me.

Anyway, I am obviously just rambling about things I no nothing about, like keeping plants alive.  I just felt like posting.  I will share that I am conflicted about all of this as I feel I have to mow every 15 minutes, but as I have read, lawn growth as it relates to the exhaustion of a homeowner has no correlation to keeping houseplants alive.  Once again, I find myself far my area of expertise.

So this is all for now.  In conclusion, I can state with complete confidence that the grass is my yard will continue to grow without my intentional care, and that my many cactusesuses (or something similar) will digress towards “cactus heaven” (which is where I imagine the Chicago Cubs through the majority of my life).

But for now I will just focus upon what is before me, which at this point has nothing to do with these more famous succulents.  (Yes, I am good at killing the “lesser” succulents, but not as successful in killing the “famous” ones.).

In the end however, I just want to have my anniversary gift display plants that “look” alive.  So yes, you are quite right, if this fails, I am heading to plastic.

At this point, I am not sure that anyone has been able to jack up a plastic display, but if it is possible, I am surely their man.  Keep checking back……you have to be good at something, and maybe I have found my niche.

Blessings to you all !!!!!

Tommy+

Well, I guess I should not be surprised that life changes.  I mean it has changed all along and pretty consistently too.  But this past weekend provided a little more change than I cared to experience, and it did so all at once.

First off, on Saturday I turned 60 years old.  In truth, I did not look or feel much different than I did on Friday, but I did find myself being a tad bit more reflective.  I truly appreciated all the birthday wishes, but I sensed that I had crossed the line into people’s (everyone on earth) perception of “old-hood.” Maybe it was just my perception, but a lot happens generally in your sixties.  Retirement and going onto Medicare are just a couple of those things, as well as developing the ability to mozy.

Secondly, Sunday was Father’s Day.  Scotty’s birthday was on the 16^th, and he is now getting used to, like I have, having his birthday and Father’s Day falling so close together.  It always turns out to be too much food and cake.  I like hearing from everyone, but as a now 60-year-old trophy husband, I really get uncomfortable with gifts.  I already own my own cane, and we also have a wheelchair, so I am pretty well set for the necessities.

But my thoughts on Sunday really did not center on me, instead they went back to my father.  He has been gone now for a little over two years, and as I always hear from my kids on Father’s Day, I have had tremendously conflicted feelings as I want to call him.  So this is what is missing, and although it is slightly irrational, I just want to be able to call him.  I mean I could try, because I have never taken his number or contact information off of my phone.  I just don’t because it is nice to see him come up when I hit “my favorites.”

And, to make matters even stranger, his birthday was June 3^rd, and our family has A LOT of June birthdays.  I always reminded him of birthdays, (okay I pre-warned him as he would often forget) so June was a particularly busy month to be talking to him or seeing him.  I did tell him Happy Birthday and Happy Father’s Day, but I no longer remind him of birthdays…..I figure he is now responsible for remembering those himself!

So back to me.  Like so many others getting older, sooner you get to the top of the food chain, and here I am.  I am on top “age-wise” in terms of my dad’s living children, and clearly also on top in personality, IQ, and good looks (this is through my entire family as I discovered this through my own research) and of course I am clearly on top in humbleness.

But despite all these amazing attributes, time still flies. I miss you dad, and lucky for the world, your twisted Tirman humor lives on through Anna, Mike, and myself.  We still talk about you often, and remember you each day.  And each one of us knows we were your favorite.

Thanks for being you dad.  We miss you and love you. And we will see you soon…….as I am now 60, you can plan on seeing me much sooner.

Tommy+

For those of you who have read this blog over the course of the past 12 years, you are aware of my staunch belief that I write it really only for myself.  It began as therapy following my stoke in 2008 because I could not write or think coherently and if I did it would be two identical sentences or paragraphs that perhaps you could see, but I could not.  And my posts were an almost daily thing for many years until I thought I was better.  I re-entered grad school for two additional degrees which sort of took the blog’s place.  All of however, in all honestly it helped me not just retrain, develop, and heal my brain, but it helped me grow,  There were no great theological insights beaming from these writings, although had I been concerned about a potential following the blog that would perhaps might have those expectations. None of that happened, and here I am again.

I have clearly been on a long hiatus  from posting, but sadly, much in my life has changed,  I am not challenged by the everyday intellectual stimulation that would lead me to those words of inspiration convincing us al that I was always in school on some sort of athletic scholarship and not academic.  This is not to say that I am not well-read (My apologies to Thema Martin, my high school English teacher for the double negative) be cause I am indeed fairly intelligent.

I have my issues.  I struggle currently with the state of our country.  Yes, read back 5 minutes and you will discover I am a conservative, nit a republican although I tend to vote that way, but I am really a Constitutionalist.  I respect you for your beliefs, and I would like you to respect em for mine. I did not break into the Capitol and I am pretty sure you did not loot and riot in the cities all over the nation.  Do I hate you? ……….no!  Do you hate me?…….Lord I hope not.  I just wish we could talk and do it civilly and cordially, rather than threatening each other across divides.

As most of you probably know I have been in recovery for well over 7 years.  And staying in it, as well as helping others to do the same is our primary purpose.  I could care less if you hated priests and wanted to revoke all out gym memberships till the end of time, I would still want to work with you to help you stay sober.  Principles before personalities you know.  And if you want that, I am all in to help you.

Things are not as important as we are to each other.  I would not be where I am without the people in my life. Very few of them agree with me religiously or politically, yet not one of them feels the need to draw a line in the sand with me.  Love wins when it I offered free ly and received freely.

Tonight and over the past few days I have struggled.  It is unfortunate.  I am contemplating some life-changing moves.  I do not know that they are all necessary.  But what I do know is that I have to take in mind my recovery and sobriety first.  For without it, I am not worth a thing to anyone else.

Blessings to you all……

Tommy+

Fr. Tom Tirman OSM

Like many people, I struggle remembering what day it is, let alone what time.   I would like to blame it on all the changes Covid-19 has brought, but really even without the excuses I do poorly with my memory.

Case in point, my family met on Saturday to inter  my dad in a niche at Trinity Episcopal Church on N. Meridian in Indianapolis.  It was the one year anniversary of his death, and I really didn’t even have a clue.  I knew it was around the time, but I was there to support my family.  And support them I did.

 You see, we were there and we were together, and ultimately we were all doing something for us.  My dad wanted his ashes spread in three places, in the Gulf of Mexico where his mom, my grandma’s ashes were spread, on his father’s, my grandfather’s grave in New York, and then somewhere in Liverpool, but he was not specific.

I suppose you could say that my dad did not want to be in a graveyard or columbarium like he is now.  I think you should understand that this is what he implied quite a few times.  But he had heard from me many times how ridiculous I felt going out to Hudson beach with people in bikinis and swim shorts having a blast while I was there remembering my grandma.  She used to take me to that beach as a kid, so it is the only place on the Gulf that has meaning to me.  I was not taken to her funeral, so it really left things unresolved for me. I am now just resolved to look ridiculous.

Before you think I am complaining, please know I am not.  We intend to spread his ashes in the manner he requested.  In usual Rich Tirman style however, he gave us our instructions, but he did not give us a plan to carry it out.  We all live here in Indiana, and now WE have three big trips to plan.   There is no doubt we will get that done.

But what we now have is a place to go, and it is a place familiar to us all.  It is a place in which we all have decades of experience praying ,  and it was the church in which his funeral was held.  Mike and Anna also went to school there and our dad also taught there after one of his many retirements!

I was taught to visit graves by my grandfather on my mom’s side.  He said to come to the grave, and remember the good things, remember who they were to you in life.

I am a big fan.  I am on record as saying there needed to be a place even before he died, and in all honesty, we all wanted a place to go.  We have that now, and it is beautiful.

I am certain I will forget the dates, just like I always do.  I will leave that to Debby, or Anna, or Mike, you know, someone with a working memory.  But I will stop by, likely often, to just sit, remember, meditate, and pray.

If I wear my clericals there I would not be out of place, but since it is my dad, just in case, I will have my swimsuit in the truck.

Blessings to you my friends!

Tommy+

First of all, let me inform or remind anyone reading this other than me, that I write on this blog without the expectation of anyone else reading it.  I have found it to be the best therapy I could possibly find for myself.  I still believe that to be true.

So I started writing shortly after my stroke, which I was told was probably my second one, some 11 years ago.  I was pretty backwards at the time, and I found that writing helped me.  Yes, as I am an Anglican priest and 11 years ago was probably one for about 20 years at that point (now 30), this blog barely re-dates the stroke, and at the time I thought that I could blog in a public manner with my brilliant theological mind!  Both my hopes and my mind exited right around the same time.  So I only blogged when I was having trouble, which if you go back you can see I had trouble for over five straight years.

There has also been a hiatus.  I decided to go back to school and get a couple of extra degrees to add to my obsessive needs to over achieve.  I “retired” from parish work in 2013 shortly after I sent myself to an addiction rehabilitation center in California where I stayed for 30 days.  I have remained clean and sober for over 6 years now, but seem to be also clean and sober of parish ministry as well.  It is funny how valuable you are until you disclose a personal issue that those in ministry above you discern as a moral or character problem.  I will not deny I had a pretty serious problem, but in all honesty, no one even knew about it until I disclosed it.  I certainly did not have to.  But the problem was interfering in my life and healing in an issue totally unrelated to my addiction.  I sent myself away, not only to treat the addiction from getting worse, because it ALWAYS does, but to better be able to deal with what I needed to in my personal life, and with a clear head.

It amazes me, as when I stopped writing this blog and went back to get a couple degrees to become and addictions therapist and a mental health therapist, at how hostile the recovery community is to “organized religion.”  And I want to let you know that I totally get that.  As long as there are people in positions of authority throwing stones in the name of morality (even though I personally know most should not….and for good reason), there will always be this chasm.  Am I a drunkard or an addict?  Yes, I suppose by a lot of standards, but the judgement leaves out a lot of things, especially restoration and redemption.

I left the Diocese of the Great Lakes six years ago and transferred into the Diocese of Quincy.  I handed over the entire ministry I had help build and remained the head of the small Holy Order that built them.  I have kept the vows of my priesthood, and have kept the vows I made in that Order every single day.  A few years ago, we changed the Constitutions of the Order to accommodate each brother’s own ministry, rather than to focus on the idea of planting new congregations, which was all but given up.  Granted, we planted a lot of new works, and many still are doing good work.  But the focus left the OSM and planting.  The churches now are regular churches.

So the Order has been in a long season of furrow, which I hope to see change soon.  I still pray for all of us each day and for our ministries.  I know who we were changed and that in that change, God did not bless us at all.  We freely gave what we were freely given, but when we lost that, a lot changed.  The idea that we were not all church planters was significant.  You cannot put a square plug in a round hole.  And you can also not support a growing ministry expecting people to do so.  But per the agreement 6 years ago with the Diocese of the Great Lakes, the OSM remains ready to re-emerge from that furrow.

During this time of furrow, my life and ministry has changed drastically.  I stopped writing because I went back to school and now also work as a mental health and addictions therapist.  As I also have done extensive work in the world of revitalization, conflict, and change (my doctoral work was in this), I feel I a very well suited to help both congregations and clergy work through hard issues.   I hope to start a new parish here in central Indiana soon, and with God’s help we will, but for now it is enough to help those I can in private practice and in life.

Changing subjects, the picture at the top of the blog is of my dad, who we lost this year.  And when I say we lost him, I mean that he died, not that we misplaced him as so many may think knowing us.  He looks happy in the picture, which he is, and although I am not in the picture, so was I.  He was happy because he was heading to Noodles and Company, and I was happy because Ben, who was then 11, was pushing his chair uphill and I was not.

Quite interestingly, we held his funeral in the Episcopal Church of which I was a member for my entire life and a priest serving 18 of my 30 years.  Unlike many of my peers in the Episcopal Church, I was a conservative (meaning evil).   I retired from my ministry as an Episcopal priest on December 31, 2006.  I transferred to the Anglican Diocese of Bolivia at the point of my retirement.  So I never left the priesthood.  I also did not take a parish out, nor entered into any lawsuits, nor any of the other nonsense.  Yet later in that year the Bishop of the Diocese of Indianapolis (not the current one) held a trial for a priest that was not hers.  She “defrocked” me for abandoning the faith.  I would assert that she had it quite backwards, and she wasted a lot of time and breath.  It was funny that I never ever have stopped being a priest since I was ordained, nor have I ever worked to coerce or convince a soul from leaving the church I grew up in.  I never have nor ever will.  But I do wish to thank the Rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Indianapolis, where my dad and family were members, for her compassion, generosity, and care for us all.

You can probably see how I might connect the treatment I have had with the church, as many struggling in recovery do, considering my experiences.  In fact I do see and feel it very strongly, but in truth I can also share my experience of how it is when it works.

The Church I know, and the one to which I belong, is always with me.  It was present to me when I was growing up, quite often in just the conversations I would have with an occasional monk or nun I would run into anywhere in the South Bend area.  I ALWAYS would say hi, and not only did they always acknowledge me, but if I went up to talk with one, they would always just talk to me.  My family, at least in my memory, was never nuclear. My experience of that which I associated with God however, was always hospitable to me.

Ironically, my Bishop is a Benedictine monk.  In fact, much of the Diocese is touched by the Benedictine way of life.  In the Diocese of Quincy we are “rooted, missional, and compassionate.” Life in Christ does not need to be complex.  It often involves just doing that next right thing.  I sometimes have worried about where I am heading, but in retrospect, God puts me in the places He wants me to be.

Back to my family to end this today.  At the beginning of the year, my dad was diagnosed with cancer and needed a lot of care, treatment, and transportation.  We all stepped in.  My relationship with my dad has not been the greatest over my life, and in fact as grouchy as he was sometimes during his treatment, I could have pushed him off a cliff in that wheel chair.  I am certain we all could have.  But we all came together and did what we were supposed to to support and care for him at the end of his earthly life.  We were all there together in the hospice center to give him the Last Rites.  I used a 1979 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, and as we all left that night but for my sister and her now husband, I told her knowing dad was going to hang around for days, “if he happens to go, then read this prayer.”  Pure to family form, she had to use that prayer less than 20 minutes later.”  We all turned around from heading home and returned.  He had left us.

I know one of my dad’s goals was to get to walk Anna down the aisle

at her wedding in October.  My Uncle Al, my dad’s oldest and last brother, did the honors.  In fact we all did our parts, together again as we had be
en the first few months of the year.  Dad would have loved it.  I know we all did.  And we did it without the fear of handing him a microphone and worrying about getting one of his colorful ad libs.

But there are a couple of extra days left in the year, and what they may bring I am not sure.  All I was sure of is that I needed to write.  I have put it off because I felt i was okay, and that was even knowing when I was not.  Hopefully I can work on being a bit more honest with myself and see some progress heading into next year.

Blessings!

Tommy+

 

I have spent the last week at a retreat for the clergy of the Diocese of Quincy in which I am canonically resident.  That may seem confusing, but what it means is that I am a priest in the Diocese of Quincy, and by any measure, that is my home.

And it pleases me very much to confess that, as the people I have met in the Diocese over the 5 or so years I have been there have been some of the finest I have ever known.  In fact, when I come to an event I am eager with anticipation, and when I leave an event, I am steeped in a bit of disappointment, if not depression.

I did not make this retreat last year, and it was hard on me.  I was working as an addictions and mental health therapist at Fairbanks Hospital. and it just did not seem okay to ask for the time away less than 90 days after your start date to head to a retreat.  But I am convicted that I was wrong about that now.  The very fact that I am a priest AND an addict in recovery make the importance of staying connected to my priesthood vital.  And as I am still a priest, and in my 30th year of ordained and successful ministry, compared to almost 40 years of active use/addiction, make the priorities far clearer.

I really do not think God wants to judge me or discard me into the trash heap.  But I do think he has raised up a shepherd to show others how to recover from a call to a place from where many do not  return.  You can judge me if you would like, but I am among those who have stared the Devil in the face, rejected him, and have lived.  And I can teach you to do the same, and have many others I walk with who possess the same skill.

Do not walk this road alone, and do not think that all God’s saints wear wings, or halos, or robes of gold.

God will provide us with what we need.  We only need to be willing to see and accept what He offers.

If you need help, please contact me.  I have been called to offer myself, and I hang with many others who have been called to do the same.

Faithfully,

Tommy+

 

I suppose I could write this on a card and give it to Ben, but at 11 you only think you will save things. It is important for me to say to him, so my guess is at some point in his life someone may bring this up to him, and perhaps even provide him a copy.  At 11, I am still his dad, bordering on the edge of somewhere between Superman and that guy who does not know much.  What I want him to know is that even at 11, he is more of a man than I can ever remember being.

These past three years have been full of change, and challenging.  Three years ago, on the day before Thanksgiving we had to put down our beloved Viper, who was not only the best Golden Retriever ever, but among all the dogs who have ever lived, one of the greatest.  Scotty has named him, and he was technically Scotty’s dog.  

He never became a Champion but was a popular dog in the show rings, as he was one of the few dogs that fans were allowed to pet and make a fuss over.  For us, it was never about getting something from a dog, they were instead family. Ben was 8 when we had to put Viper down. Steph stayed home with Ben, and Scotty called Viper in an emotional goodbye that I can still hardly even think about.  Viper is still on my nightstand in his urn, and I have never been of the mind to inter him. 

What has never been in question is how Ben has felt the entire time.  Viper had been in Ben’s entire life, and he has always been upset that he was not with him at the end.  In truth, I believe him, although I would have made the same decision.  I love all of the kids and losing a dog is not something even adults handle all that well.

But over 17 years ago, Steph and Scott got me to visit the Humane Society.  They wanted to look at cats.  I said we could go an look but we could not buy as we could not afford the adoption fee of $60.  

There were a lot of cute kittens there, and they were very attracted to this little grey and white kitten that could not stop meowing.  It was cracking them up, and they wanted her.  She was a kitten of a litter of two feral cats found on the east side of town, and I said we could not get her because we did not have $60. I had apparently been set up. They produced $60 that their Uncle Al, my dad’s brother had sent them, and that kitten, Puddy, continued meowing all the way until this past Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, three years after Viper had to be put down.

Puddy had been sick years earlier, and we thought it was the end

then, but it was clear that it was coming suddenly now.  Her kidneys were failing, and the soonest appointment was at 3:20 the day before Thanksgiving.  

Ben did not remind me, he told me he was going to go.  He said that Viper was his dog and he was not there for him, and that he would not do the same to Puddy.  

So Amanda and I took the day off and prepared for the worst.

Ben helped us the night before and all day with Puddy.  He was loving and caring and intentional.  When the time came for us to leave, he helped put her in the crate, and he carried her to the truck and sat with her in the back.  

He carried her into the vet, and even back into the medical room.  As she was put down, he moved towards her, hand on her head, and he comforted her. He loved her, and he made sure she knew that till the last beat of her heart.   He cried, and he isolated much of the rest of the day.  But I am convinced even at 8 he would have done the same for Viper.  I want to protect him, but in truth, I have learned from him.

My son Ben is far braver than I have ever been.  Yeah sure, I can show up and do the right things, but Ben shows up with heart.  He feels it and then he lives it.  What that produces is a man who will never regret it.

I was there for him and my wife and for Puddy.  He was there for Puddy alone.  I believe she knew that.  She never closed her eyes, she kept them on him.  She crossed the Rainbow Bridge and in doing so allowed us to discover something amazing about our youngest son……sometimes doing the right thing doesn’t involve anything complicated.  Sometimes it just involves showing up and being there as who you have always been to comfort your friend, or your life-long pet in need.  

I have three amazing kids, and with Ben I am only sorry I did not let him come three years ago. Both Viper and Puddy were there through his whole life.  He knew he would be in pain, but he chose the good portion.  As I said, it has been a hard week, but the lessons have been learned by me more than anyone.

Today Ben and I picked  up Puddy’s urn together, and Ben at this point wants to keep it in his room.  And that is where she is.  He is concerned about the dogs, particularly mine who were all very close to her, and will decide what to do when he brings her home. But I am proud of him.  He is mature beyond his years, and mostly likely mature beyond mine.  

Blessings to you and yours……

Fr. Tom+