Dear Friends,

In my short lived career as a street performer, I would take the streetcar to the French Quarter and perform on the corner of St. Louis and Dauphin. It is less trafficked than other corners in the Quarter, and I found it was one of the few where I was not harassed by other buskers who wanted prime spots with the most tourists.

There are so many talented entertainers in New Orleans – the painted man, the man on steps, dancers, musicians, the frozen walking man, a chess master, unicycle knife throwers, and so forth. When I was trying to make a splashy entrance into this competitive field and developing my act, I wanted to be both entertaining, educational, and edifying. So, as any self respecting Episcopalian would, I chose to perform a play I had written called “Iranaeus versus Ebion.”

I dressed in second century garb – garb that was recommended by a Church history professor at Yale Divinity School who kindly responded to one of my letters asking, in more words than this: what did they wear in the second century? Mother helped make my costume. To let my audience know who I was playing at a certain time, I made two hats (both were purchased, like my streetcar conductor’s hat, at Meyer the Hatter). Each hat had a small rod poking out with an attached sign reading either Iranaeus or Ebion.

Once a crowd would form, Ebion on St. Louis would give a long-winded and utterly false attack on Jesus’s divinity. Monotheism this, monotheism that. I did my best not to laugh with glee when I put on my Iranaeus hat, knowing I was about to humiliate the weak minded Ebion.

Iranaeus would always get the last word. The closing line, a slam dunk, was always John 14, those words from Jesus’s parting speech to his disciples in the Upper Room the night before his Crucifixion. “I am the way.” I pointed at a Cross I had on a staff. I would pause. “I am the truth.” Another pregnant pause followed with me holding up the Bible. “I am the life.” I then lifted with both hands in a slow, deliberate fashion a Eucharistic cup and a loaf of bread. The longest of the pauses in words came with me holding the elements of Communion. “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Sometimes my crowd of two or three people would respond with clapping. Other times they would look at me with baffled expressions and walk away without donating to my bucket, which was a collection for the Ozanam Inn. Other times, there was no one watching, but I performed with the same gusto as if I were performing at Shakespear’s Globe.

The word Jesus uses for the way is hodos. It is a path, an entryway, a road. For Jesus, he claims he is the road to God, for he himself is God.Hodos is the same word that gives us the odometer, “measure of roads,” and odology, “study of roads.” I have never met a professional odologist, but I guess all those who walk the way of faith are in a sense odologists.

Roads, paths, ways play both literal and figurative roles throughout the Old and New Testament. Sarah, the mother of the faith, is past the orah or path to childbirth, so God creates a new orah and Isaac becomes the miracle to a 90 year old woman. The Psalms are replete with warnings and exaltations of paths. The first psalm, for instance, teaches that God guards the path of the righteous. The 23rd psalm is perhaps the most well known psalm of the path. The stories and teachings of the Bible use paths again and again.

We have spent this holiday weekend at our cousin’s estate in Florida. It has been such a wonderful time that I wanted to help in any way possible. I had noticed that cousin, shall we call her, Cousin L for lady, had laid out some bricks in a disorganized way from her garage to her stable.

It was an unkempt, uneven pathway, littered with leaves and debris perhaps 100 feet in length. Only a drunkard or one suffering from labyrinthitis would suggest it was level. Yesterday afternoon, I decided I was going to fix this pathway for her.

I am not terribly handy and no one taught me as a child or teen the difference between a flathead or Phillips head screwdriver, how to change a tire, or when to use a circular saw versus a jigsaw (or what either is). What little I know of home and yard improvement has come from on the site learning as an adult. So far I have lost no appendages, glory be.