memoryandspirit

Thank God for Satan

2010-02-19T05:03:00.001-08:00

THANK GOD FOR SATAN

Yes, thank God for Satan. Now, now don't panic—I trust that you think saying that is a bit weird. But again I say thank God for Satan, for the tempter. Those of you have read John Milton's Paradise Lost need to get Milton's theology out of your head—and not just because he didn't like women, but because it distorts the Scripture. The Book of Revelation is helpful here for us to understand the really vital contrast between the demonic or radical evil on the one hand and Satan on the other.

Revelation 13.1-5 describes the beast from the sea, rising up to make war on the saints. This is the demonic. This image of the beast from the sea, this war making, blaspheming, haughty monster is radically different from Satan as the tempter. Remember one of the other places where we met Satan was at the beginning of the book of Job. `Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan (or the adversary) also came among them.' Satan, the adversary, the tempter is God's right hand spirit—at least that's what the book of Job says.

Surely, this is the Satan that we meet in the temptation story. Remember Jesus has been baptized—what an incredibly joy to baptize Josh and Kipp and Jason this morning. Through his baptism the Holy Spirit flows into him and he hears the voice of God—you are my beloved son. Maybe everybody heard it and then felt—Wow, isn't this wonderful. Tender event. A moment of intimacy, of adoption, of birth.

Bam! Mark's telling of the story says the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness to face the tempter and to face the tempter alone. He was with the wild beasts—I guess that is supposed to be comforting. And the angels ministered to him.

So, when we feel the Spirit upon us, when the wind of God blows upon us, when are hearts are strangely warmed, then we probably will get sent out into the wilderness—to meet the tempter, the adversary, the devil's advocate.

Augustine said `Thank God for my temptations for they tell me who I really am.'

Imagine a conversation among some high school senior guys late in the spring. `Heah man, come on man, I know I a little wasted, but I can drive. Don't wimp out on us and call your Dad for a ride. Come on man, have some guts.'

Middle aged couple. `Honey, you talk about that new guy in your office, you know the divorced guy from Atlanta in a funny way. There is a little quiver in your voice. Your neck reddens a bit. It's great to welcome him to the company, but be careful.'

Or how about something like this. `How are things going? I know you are doing the audit for my travel expenses and some of the documentation is missing and the amounts seem high, but if you could overlook that I would appreciate it.'

Thank God for our temptations—for that is how we find out who we are—where are deepest loyalties lie—how our love shapes our life—how our justice commitments bring us to the battles and barricades of justice.

Jesus is led, Jesus is driven into the wilderness. There to be tempted. First temptation. Do a miracle Jesus, make a little bread, aren't you hungry.

Like God said to the Israelites in the wilderness, I am more than my body—I am the blessed, body-soul incarnation of the God of love and justice.

Heah Jesus, how about this deal. I will give you authority and power over everything. The book of Moses says to worship God and God alone. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. That is true even of me, the beloved son and yet still the servant of God. That's what the Scripture says.

Heah, Jesus watch this. Here are some scriptures for you. Come down from the pinnacle of the temple. Come swooping down like some cosmic eagle. Then the people will worship you.

That's what they want. They want miracle, mystery and authority. They want you to razzle dazzle 'em.

And the soul of Jesus shouts out—you shall not tempt the Lord your God.

Hidden in these temptations is that one powerful, powerful little word. The temptation of Jesus is in the word `if'. Heah Jesus, you didn't really hear voice, the voice of God. You aren't so special.

And the soul of Jesus explodes onto the soul of the world. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me—he has anointed me in baptism to preach good news to the poor and release to the captives.

Jesus is not coming to fulfill his mission thru razzele dazzle. No, first off, the beloved Son will create clean and contrite hearts in his disciples, in us. Thru his disciples, thru then us,the beloved son will build the beloved community. He will build it with his life and his teachings and his healings and he will build it with his death and so his body broken for us, his blood shed for us and he will build it with his eternal presence by the Holy Spirit in us and thru us and for us.

And that is why we thank God for Satan, the adversary in the wilderness.

Dreaming of a community of faith and justice

2009-07-23T17:33:00.001-07:00

SEEKING AFTER GOD

Eph.3:14-21

John 6:1-21

Psalm 14 includes this marvelous phrase. `The Lord looks down upon us to see if there are any that act wisely, that seek after God.' We are here because we want to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly. We want to love and be loved. We want to act wisely. The Psalm says that to do all that requires of us that we seek after God.

But how do we go about doing that? Simon Dettleback was taking a piano lesson from Tom, he finished and came down stairs and we were winding up our Older Adult Ministries meeting. He wanted to play the sanctuary piano, but Tom thought maybe the meeting was still on so he told Simon to ask me if it was ok. But I see the piano as Tom's province, so when Simon asked me, I said he would have to ask Mr. Tom. With a sweet, puzzled look he said—Mr. Tom says to ask you and you say to ask him. I didn't have the heart to tell him that `Well, yes, that is just how we do things in the church.'

Isn't that sometimes just how it feels as we do indeed seek after God. Or in these great phrases from Ephesians that we enter into the mystery of Christ that we might be strengthened in our inner life. The particular mystery Paul is talking about is how the love of God, given in his theology first to the Jews, has now flowed out into all the peoples of the earth—so that there is finally no distinction. All are one in Christ Jesus our Lord—slave and free, Jew and Gentile, male and female. What are revolution—not only are the dividing walls of hostility broken down but the coming culture of radical equality in the Kingdom is proclaimed and embodied.

So this is part of the mystery of Christ. When Paul writes about the mystery of Christ he is not using the word mystery the way we commonly do.

Summertime—Jersey shore or our backyards or porches and people are reading murder mysteries by the millions. Something happens—through a variety of steamy and clever adventures the hero or heroine will assuredly figure it all out. In the end, problem solved. Case closed.

But this mystery of Christ is far different. Indeed, we are seeking after God—Christ, by the power of the spirit is rooting us in love and giving us power to understand that we may be filled. This mystery is to be embraced—it is not a problem to be solved.

Years ago there was a book about transactional analysis called Born to Win. The cover photo showed a little girl at the ocean with the waves washing over her feet and her arms outstretched like she was welcoming the ocean and all of life into her soul. Somehow that photo speaks to the power of embracing, welcoming and accepting the mystery of God in Christ flowing over us and around us and through us.

So again how do we embrace this mystery? How do we seek after God—knowing that this God is not a problem to be solved—but a transforming reality to be embraced?

One of the ways is traveling. Jesus feeds the 5000—withdraws to the mountain and then comes down to the Galilean Sea. The story says that in the night the disciples are crossing the sea when the wind comes up. Jesus miraculously comes to them. The Scripture often tells of journeys and encounters with the Holy.

We travel partly to see ourselves and to see others and to see the world with new eyes.

`Every journey has a purpose that the traveler is not aware of'. Put another way, God is working around the fringes of our journeys. I was born in the Latham Sanitarium in California Missouri in 1945. My father and 36 year old brother are buried there. We stopped there on the way to see my mother 3 weeks ago. While traveling I had a dream. (The Scripture says that one way we can seek God is to listen to our dreams and that at least some of them speak to us about the deep things of our spiritual journey.)

In this dream I am visiting a beloved professor. It is like he is retiring and this is the end of the school year. He is packing up books. I noticed one book which is about the theologian Paul Tillich and the noble prize winning author Albert Camus. I say how much they have stirred my soul, especially when I was young. He concurs. I am a Jungian Christian—I believe in the God of the soul, in the self not in the God who supposedly controls history, directing how nations shall rise and fall.

Another female faculty member asks me what I will do after graduation. At first I say I don't know then I realize that I want to go back to Mississippi and to live in a community where we were inspired by Fannie Lou Hamer and worked together sacrificially for justice and sang and lived together. Immediately, I feel overwhelmed by emotion, leave and walk down the stairs near tears.

How do we seek God? Tillich and Camus and Borg and Lamott and Mary Oliver and Wordsworth and Nouwen.

How do we seek God? Do justice—at least give it a shot. Equal Exchange. FISH. Casa Ezperanza, ASP. Erin, JPKang, Mike and Deanna Womack.

How do we seek God? We remember the saints, the old professors who taught us and touched us, who helped us embrace the mystery.

How do we seek God? We come into the sanctuary wanting to make music and we don't take no for an answer.

We do justice, love mercy and walk humbly—turn our face to the rising sun and sing joyously.

Saints, Heroes, Role Models

2009-06-25T04:26:00.000-07:00

I remember Charles Barkley saying emphatically star athletes are not role models. They are athletes and that only. He insisted that kids should look to their parents for role models.

With young people in confirmation class, I would ask for names of movies they had seen about the lives of real people. Usually, it was a very short list. Some had seen Gandhi. Several had seen movies in school about Martin Luther King. Most had seen a Jesus movie in church. But that was usually about it.

Last weekend,my wife and I attended the ordination to the priesthood of the son of long time friends. One of the aspects of the service of ordination and the mass the following day that struck me were the prayers for the saints. Those prayers began with the apostles and ranged through 10 or 12 names of the martyrs of the 1st and second century. We did hear the name of St.Francis and Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. Sisters of her order were in attendance. But no other names from the present except the Pope and the Archbishop.

We all ponder this question of who are the saints, the heroes, the people who offer us spiritual inspiration.

Who are those people for us?

Clearly, that list cannot end with Christians martyred for their faith 1900 years ago. How do we as parents, as people, as church folk share with others those real life people who have been an inspiration to us? How do we remember and honor those whose lives inspire and challenge and bless us and who are clearly part of that mighty cloud of witnesses who surround and support us.

Giving Money Away

2009-06-15T05:02:00.000-07:00

On a recent trip to Nicaragua, I met a professor who is active in a progressive Catholic parish in Philadelphia. He said that the priests of the church urged people to tithe by giving 5% of their income to the church and 5% to other causes. That is great and probably alot of us church types try to do that or something like that. If we belong to a Church, we know how to give to the church.

But how do we learn to give away that other 5% with efficiency and effectiveness and joy?

I guess I am feeling the need for a workshop or class or discussion on Giving Money Away. How do we find the right partners--especially as we look internationally? What kinds of accountability can we expect? If we are major donors, how do we use our influence in ways that are helpful and not paternalistic?

In the Chronicle of Philanthropy years ago, I read an article that argued persuasively that the reason more money wasn't donated was that there was a shortage of people who were fundraisers, who were actively seeking to create that flow of money from those who have(and often know that they have too much) and those who are in need.

Now, we don't just want to give to beggars, whether in the form of little kids on the street or organizations, that just appeal to our sympathies. I am amazed at today's Star Ledger which includes at least five ads pleading for people to donate their old car or boat and always to help children. These organizations almost always have obscure names and addresses, but a tax ID number. Smiling children draw the reader in. But they feel like quasi scams or at the very least organizations that spend an enormous amount of money on advertising.

So we know some of the kinds of organizations that we don't want to support. But we need to find those that are very powerful, cost effective and that call forth our soul's joy as well as our checkbook's power. How do we do that? Do you all know any helpful resources?

Gracias

2009-06-12T05:25:00.000-07:00

Coming back from Nicaragua for perhaps the 15th time, I feel that painful and poignant mixture of hope and despair. Some of the kids that we visited at Inhijambia will die--of drugs or AIDS or despair or violence. Doesn't it make you angry that we human beings are both so cruel and so selfish. and yet there are these incredible, really mind blowing beacons of hope shining out into the storms of despair and death. and sometimes, even we aer those beacons. My wife, Gail, was a guidance counselor and guidance director for many years. She had innumerable families and students tell her `we couldn't have made it without you.' We each really need to celebrate those places where our work helps change people's lives for the better.
at the same time, certainly we have deep admiration for those who work in environments that are so difficult, we cannot imagine how they do it.

So every time I visit Inhijambia in Managua, I am deeply humbled by the courage, tolerance for pain,energy, hope that flows from the staff but also flows from the children, one to another. they sang a song called Casa Abierta. I will seek out the words.

What will it take for us to prepare our souls and minds to really address the global crisis of poverty and death? That crisis is personal and political--it is about the greed of many of us westerners, but also of wealthy Nicaraguans. It is about political structures that enrich a few rather than serve everyone. The global economy impacts Nica with great power. And culture--how can people work together across different cultural divides in order to build the earth rather than destroy it.One of the more depressing sights in Nica was to see the long lines all the time at Western Union. How are we going to live better in Nica--send one of the kids to America or Costa Rica and have him/her send money home. Ok--partly hopeful, but also sad. Cant we build a world where there are decent jobs in Nicaragua.

I am back to being committed to blogging five times a week, basically Monday to Friday. I appreciate your feedback.

No Gracias

2009-06-11T04:42:00.000-07:00

Years ago, my wife and I visited Acapulco. We wandered the town. Saw the cliff divers. I tried para sailing, but when your eyes are really bad and you have to give up your glasses you can't see much. Mostly though, we relaxed on the beach. The beach was beautiful but the children selling trinkets, jewelry and shells just came at us in waves.

No, gracias. No, gracias. Over and over again we would say no, gracias, trying hard not to look them in the eyes.

I once asked a Dominican Republic pastor how he dealt with beggars as we walked through a congested market in Santo Domingo. He said he never gave to children as that encouraged them to be beggars. But since there was really no adequate provision for handicapped people or old people he would give to them. That seems to be a good guideline.

I have never had my shoes polished at a shoe stand in the US. But when kids offer to polish them on the streets of Santo Domingo,or Guatemala City, I occassionally have said yes. How do you deal with those situations?

so the challenge of being able to comfortably say No gracias, but also not having a greedy and hardened heart is upon us. when Christians travel on mission trips, they probably should contribute at least as much money to the cause of the organization that is hosting them as they spend on themselves.

we need to find our voice that enables us to say No gracias comfortably so that we can also say--Gracias, gracias for everything.

Nosotros Venceremos

2009-06-10T04:14:00.000-07:00

I organized a group of 15 people that visited Nicaragua recently. We included friends from the church I currently serve as the interim pastor and 7 people from Drexel University. Only 3 of us had ever visited Nicaragua before. In part, we were tourists and so off to the Masaya Volcano and the Laguna de Apoyo and the markets and restaurants we went. But more importantly we were working with partners and searching for new reliable organizations where we could share goals and resources. So we visited cooperatives, schools, a cancer treatment center and a factory that builds concrete, prefabbed houses. We helped build one such small house one morning.

For ten years I have worked with a friend in Nica, who created and operates a center called Inhijambia, that works to save the children who are the throwaways of the society. About 4000 children live on the streets of Managua including 400 who live in the sprawling Oriental Market. Inhijambia works to get these children food, health care, hope and healing. Virtually all are addicted to glue. They have been physically and sexually abused. They are continuing testimony to the sin that abides in us and the evil spirits that throb through our cultures.

From a half dozen previous visits, I knew the children would sing for us. The boys song was particularly moving as they stood with their arms draped around each other shoulders. Two young homeless boys probably about 6 or 7 years old had entertained with dancing.

I had decided that we should offer a song for them. We will sing We shall overcome in English and then in Spanish. I asked our group--have you ever sung it in Spanish. Almost no one had. Three college students hadn't sung it in English.

But we remember vaguely Tiannemen Square on the 20th anniversary of the student democracy uprising. The Chinese sang We shall Overcome. We rejoice in the freedom won by the countries of the former Soviet block. The Poles and Hungarians sang We shall Overcome. What is it with us that we have stopped singing it and other songs of hope and struggle and solidarity. And that we haven't learned to sing it in Spanish along with De Colores and Gritare and other songs. Hearing Pete Seeger sing We shall Overcome before the inauguration should have been enough to stir up our singing souls--so that we can be strong and joyous in the battles for the lives of the precious children of God who live in the streets of Managua

Some Scriptures on Sexuality

2009-03-13T07:35:00.001-07:00

Some Scriptures on Sex.

I remember in the early seventies hearing about this wild and wonderful chaplain at Vassar College who had decided that the church had for too long not addressed one of life's most basic issues, namely human sexuality. So he boldly titled his sermon—It's Fun, Funny and Faithful. He was fired—just took a couple of weeks.

Bob was a middle aged man in my previous church who suffered severely from muscular dystrophy and had had over 20 operations as a child and adult in order to just be able to walk laboriously with crutches. He had very limited eyesight. One Sunday morning he was struggling up the seven steps to get into the Parish Hall. I said Good morning Bob. He replies Good morning Rev. Brooks—may the peace of Christ be with you today. He paused and then added—you are really going to need it. Wow—what did he know that I didn't know? Then with a smile I decided that Bob was right on about that day, that Sunday and in fact about everyday.

So in this spirit let us hear some of the Scriptures that speak to some of the issues of human sexuality. This sermon is mostly Scriptures—with a bite of commentary by the preacher—may the peace of Christ be with him, he is really going to need it.

I Corinthians 6.19-7.8. Paul speaks this powerful word to us that it is good to be single. Paul is single, celibate. Jesus is single. Mary Madgalene. There is holiness, a glory about living and standing before God as a single person. The Message translation says so beautifully God gives the gift of the single life to some, the gift of the married life to others.

And Paul proclaims sexual equality in marriage. Bring your mind back into the world of first century Roman Empire. In that context then, we hear Paul proclaim one more step in the Christian revolution.

John 8.1-11. When we hear this story, our inquiring minds are immediate fascinated by one question. Where's the dude—takes two to tango. So where is the guy? But we understand that the scribes and Pharisees have no real concern for this woman or the adulterous man, they are trying to trap Jesus. They are trying to squeeze Jesus between the rock of the law and the hard place of love and forgiveness. Jesus condemns there self righteousness—and ours.

And Jesus is both forgiving and firm. You have sinned. Go—repent—change—sin no more.

Matt.5.27-28 Famously, Jimmy Carter was asked by a reporter about this verse and whether he had ever lusted after someone other than his wife. Jimmy Carter took his religion seriously and told his truth by saying yes. Yes, he said, I have found other women very attractive and have always kept my marriage vows. Some people said O my God how he could say that. I say Thank God he had the honesty and courage to say that.

Song of Songs—To their surprise , the choir was asked to sing and has blessed us with an anthem from the Song. These loves poems are sometimes attributed to Solomon. Remember a little about Solomon. Wise—built the temple—rather heavy into slave labor—rich. The children were studying Solomon in Sunday school and a mom asked her son what they learned that day. Mom it's amazing—Solomon owned hundreds of porcupines.

Listen to parts of the Song of Songs. We hear powerfully the voice of a woman, a man and a chorus. We hear words of love and longing—we understand that the author celebrates the communion between human love and divine love. In the Song of Songs, they walk hand in hand.

2 Samuel 11.1-5 David the anointed one, the king, the great military hero is not in the field with the army. He is smitten by Bathsheba—is it lust, is it love, is it boredom, is it all of the above. We don't know but he has power and uses it to command Bathsheba to come to him and his bed. We cannot hear Bathsheba's voice in the story—did she come willingly or reluctantly. Was she terrified? The story tells us of power being used to control and abuse another person. David and Bathsheba do seem to grow into love for one another.

Ruth 3.1-10 Ruth remember is a foreigner, a woman of Moab, a refugee. She has returned to Israel with her mother in law, Naomi. Ruth has been gleaning the fields of Boaz, a well to do relative of Naomi. Boaz noticed Ruth and was kind to her. And Naomi says, Here is how you can seduce him. Go and lie down beside him at night and then say Marry me. Does is amuse you that Ruth has a blessed place in this sanctuary. Remember too—she is the great grandmother of David—and is one of only four women who are mentioned in Matthews's genealogy of Jesus. So Matthew thought she was a wild, wonderful woman of God.

Gen.17.9-11 Well, what can we say in response to this text. There is only one word—OUCH.

What does to mean to the world when you move from circumcision to baptism as the rite of initiation into your religious tradition. Revolution. Revolution.

Gen 1.27-28 the first creation story celebrates the mystery of us being created male and female, equally reflecting the image of God. We hear the command to be fruitful, to have children—and how good all of creation is.

Gen 2.24-25 This text is from the second creation story. Eve created from Adam says the text and therefore their coming back—cleaving to each other—is returning to a primal unity.

Blake, Ghostbusters and the Will of God

2009-02-19T16:24:00.001-08:00

THY WILL BE DONE

2Kings 2:1-12

Mark 9:2-9

To share the mystery and power of Elijah's life the author of 2^nd Kings brings us into a world of legend and miracle. Elijah is going to be taken up into heaven, without dying. Elijah knows his earthly life is ending and says repeatedly and plaintively to Elisha—Tarry here, I pray you. Watch with me—stay by my side. The end—well a new beginning is so near. Then Elijah takes his cloak and strikes the waters of the river Jordan, dividing the waters just like Moses divided the red sea and like God at creation had separated the waters from the waters.

Then the heavens opened and a chariot of fire separated Elijah and Elisha and in a whirlwind of the Spirit, Elijah, says the text, is taken up into heaven.

Then the mantle of Elijah falls upon Elisha and he strikes the water—it divides. The sons of the prophets shout out—the spirit of Elijah, the spirit of the Lord has fallen upon Elisha.

William Blake was an artist, printer, writer and poet. As a child he came home and told his parents that he had seen a vision of angels in a tree. His father beat him for lying. Blake kept on seeing and hearing and sharing. He wrote a poet titled Jerusalem.

Bring me my Bow of Burning Gold

Bring me my arrows of Desire

Bring me my spear: O Clouds unfold

Bring me my Chariot of Fire

I will not cease from mental fight

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant land.

This movement from vision to action is the same movement we experience as we go from transfiguration down off the mountain to confronting the problems of everyday. First though let us live into the transfiguration.

While Moses speaks to us of the law and the covenant, Elijah evokes the mystery and power of the Spirit. Their aura, their spiritually presence will surround Jesus in the vision of the transfiguration. They are blessing him and communing with him, confirming his identity as the Messiah, the beloved Son, the Christ of God—and perhaps too comforting him as he enters ever deeper into the wilderness of God.

Jesus ahs brought his closest disciples up the holy mountain. We enter this imaginal world in which a mountain brings someone closer to God. As Peter and James and John watch and wonder Jesus' form changes—he is transfigured, transformed. Pushing through his fear Peter offers to make temporary shelters for Jesus, Elijah and Moses. Here again fear walks with revelation. The Book of Hebrews says `it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.' To love God is good, to fear God is better, to love God while fearing God is best of all. These moments of revelation in our lives are awesome, and awe inspiring and in some ways terrifying. It is looking into the depths of the Grand Canyon or watching millions of gallons of water come over Niagara Falls or just feeling the total glory, mystery and fleeting nature of life.

Into these moments of fear and fascination, comes this voice of God saying Beloved Son—this is my beloved son. So the question comes to us—have we heard the voice, experienced the power, sought and fuond the revelation that tells us that Jesus of Nazareth is Beloved Son—human face of God—window opening into the Divine—the door to eternity. We stammer back, Well, yes I think so. I believe someday with great faith and fervor and some days with a little fuzziness and frustration, but yes Lord I believe, help my unbelief.

Now we had experienced with the disciples this vision of transfiguration and the voice of proclamation. We have been to the mountaintop. Now we must come back down the mountain. Back to our village, back to work, back to the crowds with their questions and need for healing and hope and their battles with demons.

As I was thinking about this process of coming back from the mountaintop, a song kept going through my head.

For sure, there is something very strange in the neighborhoods in which we live. Remember in Ghostbusters, the guy who just comes into their office that converted fire house. The guy just needs a job and Bill Murray, Dr.Venckman, hands him a ray gun or something and says welcome to our world where we catch ghosts and ghouls and demons and devils. I am sure he thought something like `This is outrageous, you guys must be nuts, wackos, weirdos, psychos.'

Wait a minute though. You know something of the challenge and charge that God in Christ lays upon us as we come down the mountain, back home, back to work. Love God, neighbor, self. Love your enemies. Heal the sick. Cast out the demons. Battle the principalities and powers. Trust and believe with all your heart that I am with you to the end of the age. Return no one evil for evil. Good news to the poor—recovery of sight to the blind—release to the captives. Do the will of God.

We pray every Sunday thy will be done. O god, I want to see a world where you will becomes our way. And God says, Son, you do your will. Take care of business.

Especially those of your with little children, get guardians. Name em and talk to em. Take care of those precious little ones. And all of you, be generous with your accumulated resources. Find ways to live out the Gospel even after your earthly life. And of course you want to do the best you can controlling the end of your life—write those advanced directives and name your medical power of attorney. Don't just pray to me—do your part. We need each other—we work together—we are partners.

Don't just love in word alone but in deed and in truth—and that means do your will with faith and foresight, with grace and generosity. There is this glory in bosom of the Lord that transfigures you and me and gives us the call and the courage to march on into eternity singing and living Glory Glory Hallejuhah.

Brooks Smith

Spirit Crisis and Healing

2009-02-09T16:32:00.001-08:00

SUFFERING AND SCIENCE

Isa. 40.21-31

Mark 1.29-39

Sometimes the Scripture bore us, sometimes it confuses us, and sometimes we are amused or inspired. Sometimes, we feel God speaking right to our hearts and lives. This text from Isaiah really connects to my reality. When I was about 11 years old, my mother took me and my brothers ages 8 and 7 to get our polio vaccines. My brothers were whimpering about how scared they were. I said—be brave. It won't be that bad. I'll show you. I'll go first. The doctor gives the shot—and I pass out and collapse on the floor.

Giving blood in college I fainted once before I gave and then once after. So when the text speaks about God giving power to the faint, I say Hallelujah—thank you Jesus for coming to my rescue—for reviving me and calling me back to life and consciousness.

This text from Isaiah resonates with the story of the healing of Peter's mother in law. Peter's mother in law is healed of her fever when Jesus takes her by the hand and lifts her up. Precious Lord, take my hand. Jesus, call me by name. I want you to know who I am—I want you to call me, and hold me and lift me up that I might be made whole. At the close of the worship service, one of the Caring ministers and Linda and I will stand at the communion table. If you would like to be prayed for by name, come forward. Perhaps you would like prayers for a loved one or for ice storm victims in Kentucky or homeless people in Gaza. We will ask you what you like to have prayed for today and then Linda or I will offer a prayer for you and for the burden of your heart. If you would like to be anointed with oil, that ancient symbol of blessing, then approach the caring minister and indicate whether you prefer to be anointed on the forehead or on your palm. We bless on another with our prayers, our love, our claiming the gifts of God's healing power coming into us.

Let us pray.

Dick McKenna was an extraordinary biology teacher at North Plainfield High School. He was scheduled to have spinal surgery that involved fusing several vertebrae. Fairly dicey stuff. When I visited him in the hospital, we began talking about evolution. He said that he knew teaching evolution was contrary to the Scriptures, but he believed in evolution and felt called to teach it. I felt blessed by the opportunity to talk about the Scriptures and the two creation stories and the way the first told an amazingly accurate story of the creation of the earth out of the watery chaos, the emergence of life and the eventual emergence of the human being. We then talked about how the second creation story was in fact the story of the birth of moral consciousness, the knowledge of good and evil.

Yes, evil, the power of the demons was real as it is real in the story of Jesus casting out those demons. But clearly thanks be to God for the birth of moral consciousness and therefore, of course, to Eve as the mother of moral consciousness—at least according to the Scripture.

My friend Dick had never heard of Teilhard de Chardin, the paleontologist /mystic theologian who embraced fully the mystery of the earth, who believe in the truth of rocks and all that rocks revealed and who believed in and experienced Christ present in the evolving universe. Teilhard wrote `If as a result of some interior revolution, I were successfully to lose my faith in Christ, my faith in a personal God, my faith in the Spirit, I think that I would still continue too believe in the world.' Teilhard died in the mid fifties. Thomas Berry one of his interpreters and the author of Dream of the Earth said in the spirit of Teilhard, `The earth is the only thing we know for sure.'

Being a scientist, a biologist like my friend Dick McKenna, doesn't mean that one is automatically religious or irreligious. Certainly, in Isaiah's image we can look into the heavens stretched out and for those with eyes of faith we can see the mystery of God. At the same time, as we study the universe with our mind and we learn from the universe, we know those learnings shape our understanding of faith, of our sense of what God is doing in the universe. Teilhard said that evolution is so true and so glorious that it is the arc to which all our thought must conform. As a scientist he rejoiced in the truths that the rocks spoke—as a Christian, he rejoiced in the truth spoken by and through the Rock of Ages.

When I was in the last year of high school, I decided that I was no longer comfortable calling myself a Christian, based on my understanding of the Christian story. At the time I rebelled intellectually against Christianity for two reasons--Suffering and Science. There was no explanation as to why a loving all powerful God would allow such suffering in the world, so God must not exist I thought. And like Dick McKenna and many in our culture I had come to believe that one had to choose between religion and science, between creation in 4004BC and evolution.

In Copenhagen, Gail and I visited an incredible church built I think in the late 18^th century. The church proper was on the bottom floor. The inclined walkway led to a second floor that housed a library. The third floor was an observatory.

At the General Assembly last June, I was standing in line to buy breakfast and wandered into conversation with a delegate who was a professor emeritus of physics from Stanford. After a little chatter about upcoming GA business, we started in on religion and science. Born in Switzerland, a life long church goer, he was currently involved in a research project to discover what happened to the anti-matter that is present somewhere in the universe. With my 45 year old memories of high school physics class fading a little bit, I listened intently and humbly. He explained how the universe contained as much anti matter as matter. Ok—whatever you say. And I thought—by God I am proud to be a Presbyterian. One of our national organizations passionately explores issues of Faith, Science and Technology.

Science challenges theology—and too theology challenges and informs, but hopefully does not distort science. There is the possibility of a blessed partnership. Again, Teilhard blesses us.

"Throughout my life, through my life, the world has little by little caught fire in my sight until, aflame all around me, it has become almost completely luminous from within…Such has been my experience in contact with the earth—the diaphany of the divine at the heart of the universe on fire…Christ: His heart: a fire: capable of penetrating everywhere and gradually spreading everywhere."

Sufferingandscience

2009-02-04T19:29:00.001-08:00

SUFFERING AND SCIENCE

Isa. 40.21-31

Mark 1.29-39

Giving blood in college I feinted once before I gave and then once after. So when the text speaks about God giving power to the feint, I say Hallelujah—thank you Jesus for coming to my rescue—for reviving me and calling me back to life and consciousness.

Let us pray.

Science challenges theology—and too theology challenges and informs, but hopefully does not distort science. There is the possibility of a blessed partnership. Again, Teilhard blesses us.

The soul felt its worth

2008-12-24T05:32:00.001-08:00

CHRISTMAS EVE

Holding on and Letting Go

Bienvenidos. In Spanish, the word means welcome. Bien means good and venidos means coming. So bienvenidos then means something like good coming here. So bienvenidos to you—blessings on your journey to this place, on this night. Some of us have been coming here to worship for decades. Some came as children and now bring grandchildren. Some of us have been here for years, we feel at home, but still know ourselves as relative newcomers. For some of us, this is our first Christmas Eve service. Welcome to all—and blessings on our journeys that brought us to this place.

Christmas is partly about holding on to our memories of who we have been on our journey. We remember who we are with a special intensity and focus at Christmas. Maybe we remember baking cookies with our mother or grandmother. We find our mind carrying us back to buying a Christmas tree and as we smell that fresh pine smell. We are again a child helping our parents decorate—I remember especially the feel and mess of those shiny icicles that we put on our tree. Some gifts, some songs, some foods carry our hearts into our childhood and hopefully we find happiness there. I suppose one of the spiritual disciplines is for us to look for the happiness that is there in our story rather than focus on sorrows.

When our two boys were about 9 and 11, they worked together for weeks preparing their own secret Christmas decorations. Red and green construction paper and clue and tape disappeared into their room and their creations were then hidden from parents' prying eyes. On Christmas morning, they got up early. Their purpose was not to open their presents but to decorate for us. They had fashioned elf hats for all of us. Construction paper chains draped over the banister. They were delighted with the great surprise. We all felt richly blessed.

Our hearts thrill to see children dressed up as angels and shepherds and sheep and goats and donkeys because we remember and hold onto to those memories of when we were children, when we were in the Christmas pageant. The children's joy gives us joy. We thank God and life for the opportunity and honor of being with our children and having them bless us so richly.

On this holy night, we hold on to holy memories that define us and shape us and nourish us and, yes, that sometimes burden us.

But this good coming to Christmas, to the celebration of the birth of the Christ, who comes full of grace and truth among us and for the world, this coming requires that we let go.

In the birth stories, only Caesar and Herod are simply trying to do business as usual. For everyone else, the stories are about adventures of travel, of leaving home, of leaving the sheep to go up to see this marvel proclaimed by the angels. Certainly, the Incarnation itself is about God leaving behind the old way of doing things. Right. God is not going to rely any longer just on the law and the prophets—God is going to leave that reliance behind and come to dwell among us full of grace and truth , full of hope and risk.

The birth narratives flow with people letting go of their old securities, of striking out to new places to discover God. So tonight in that spirit, I would like to ask you to let go. First of all, we are called to let go of some of our rationalism, our skepticism about angels and miracles and virginal conceptions. If that imagery perplexes you, you can always choose Mark's birth story. The question is not whether or not you or I believe in angels, but whether we first of all believe that life has a spiritual dimension to it. Whether we know ourselves as body and soul. Let go of angels if you need to ---but hold onto the mystery that you and I are body and soul, matter and spirit. We are that now and will be that—forever.

Beyond this intellectual letting go, there is also a spiritual challenge. I think it was on the TV show Malcolm in the Middle where the phrase `You're not the boss of me' was used and then got popularized. The phrase became a catchword for youthful defiance. Heah, I don't have to listen to you—you're not the boss of me—I am my own boss.

But now, we sing and believe that Jesus is lord at his birth. He is the boss of us. We are his followers, his disciples. Sweetly and tenderly Jesus is calling us to come home—and he will insist upon it. So we have some letting go to do. This is a letting go of our own sense of power and control over our own life. We are worshippers to be sure –O come let us adore him. But we are followers as well. Our lives and how we live them are different now. In fact nothing is the same.

Meister Eckhart, the 13^th century Dominican preacher and mystic, wrote about the challenge to us believes and followers. He said "Get yourself out of the way—meaning let go of your ego's desire to control and to be the boss—Get yourself out of the way and let God be God in you."

Tonight then, we who believe passionately in the spirit dimension of life are preparing room for this Christ child, for this Jesus, God with us, our hero and leader, lord and savior, the true and eternal boss of us. We are preparing him room by holding on to powerful and painful memories of who we are. And we are preparing him room by letting go of some of rational resistance to the message of the Christ. We work to get ourselves out of the way—so God can indeed be god in us. So our souls can feel their worth—as the soil and seedbed of the savior—as the hearth and home of the Christ—as the reflected light of the Light of the World.

Last Lecture

2008-12-08T07:05:00.000-08:00

I just saw the video of Randy Pausch's last lecture. What a gift to us all.

2008-10-30T05:55:00.001-07:00

The last issue of Wesleyan magazine included an inspiring article about John Maguire and David Swift as early sixties freedom riders. I was a freshman when John Maguire brought Martin Luther King, Jr. to speak in McConaughy Dining Hall. This was in the fall of 1963, a couple of months after the March on Washington and the Birmingham church bombing. Of Wesleyan's 1200 students, it seemed like half were crowded into the dining hall. King was inspiring, but I was especially moved and challenged by a senior, Ron Young, who had spent a year working in Memphis with Rev. James Lawson. `Test your beliefs in the fires of the hells of this world.' Those were his closing words. I promised myself that I would do that.

In the spring of 1964, John Maguire put out the word that students were being recruited for the Mississippi Summer Project. He interviewed me and others. Five of us, I believe, were eventually recruited. We were told that our room and board would cost $10 per week and that we needed to have access to our own bail money. With 200 other students, I set out for training in Oxford, Ohio. Bob Moses, James Foreman, Stokely Carmichael, Vince Harding and many others trained and challenged and scared us. In the video Eyes on the Prize, I am shown briefly looking very nervous after we had gone through an exercise simulating a mob attack at a court house.

In Ruleville, Mississippi, Len Edwards, Wesleyan class of 1966, was my roommate and we had the honor of living next door to Fannie Lou and Pap Hamer. Fannie Lou Hamer was the charismatic and outspoken leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the 1964 Atlantic City convention.

Charles MacLaurin from SNCC was in these early twenties, but already an experienced civil rights worker. He was the project director in Ruleville. I visited Charles last year. He now lives in Indianola, Mississippi. Laughingly, he said, ` You know people always wondered why I wore sunglasses all the time. I didn't want any body to see the fear in my eyes.' He was bold and cool headed and patient with us good hearted and courageous but naïve students.

Going door to door promoting voter registration and membership in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was my task. We would often encounter fear and indifference. The fear we could partially understand since we were often threatened, teens who worked with us were jailed, and our church meeting place was unsuccessfully firebombed. In early August, I was working by myself in the town of Drew, Mississippi. The police arrested me on trumped up charges and threw me in the little town jail for the night. I was sentenced to 90 days on the county work farm. I posted bail and my lawyer appealed my conviction. A year later when I tried to find out what had happened to my case, I was told that there were no records of it and my $500 bail money was not to be found.

I realize now that the experience of being arrested and jailed alone traumatized me. I returned to Wesleyan for my sophomore year feeling wounded and angry and hopeful and blessed. And very grateful to John Maguire and David Swift.

Joseph Brooks Smith Class of 1967

Letter to the editor

2008-10-06T05:38:00.001-07:00

To the editor:

We should be terrified at the thought that Sarah Palin might become president of the United Sates. In the debate with Joe Biden, she repeatedly failed to answer the questions put to her. Whatever the issue was, she touted her energy credentials and then attacked Obama/Biden. Does being from Alaska make you an energy expert? Is everyone from Maine an expert on lobster? Yes, she courageously opposed some of the corruption related to oil and gas revenue in the Republican Party in Alaska. She is feisty and folksy. But can you imagine her leading the most powerful nation on earth through the terrible economic and military challenges we now face? Can you imagine her negotiating face to face with the Vladimir Putins of the world? Don't worry, someone might say, other people would run the government. But the ultimate power of the presidency would be in the hands of someone who can't answer basic questions about American domestic and foreign affairs.

Brooks Smith

Forgiveness

2008-09-19T06:00:00.001-07:00

THE `R'S' OF FORGIVENESS

Sept.21,2008

From last week's reflections on the Scripture, we understand clearly that Jesus commands us to be forgiving—to have in our hearts a spirit of forgiveness. When we reflect on Jesus' own war against those who abused him and others, we also know that clearly we are called upon to resist evil, when we or others are the intended victims of that evil.

Jesus battles those who oppress people—he challenges us to fight both internal and external oppression. Think of the woman at the well, the Samaritans, the paralytic let down through the roof, Mary Magdalene, the Gerasene demoniac and Peter and the disciples.

When other people or when institutions seek to abuse us, we are called to resist. We are called to create barriers and boundaries to protect ourselves. Kingdom building is about creating some of those same kinds of systems of protection of vulnerable people. Nothing in Gospel or in common sense or in the US Constitution says people should allow others to abuse them. Of course, we are not called to hatred. But we are called to self defense.

A little over a year ago, a delegation from Elizabeth presbytery visited CEDEPCA in Guatemala City. CEDEPCA provides training in Bible, theology, pastoral care and church organizing for men and women throughout Guatemala. They are also highly committed to fighting the epidemic of domestic violence in Guatemala. Last year, over 500 women were killed by their husbands/partners. Cedepca operates one of the very few safe houses in the city.

Their roots are ecumenical, now embracing Catholics and Pentecostals as well as Presbyterians. There are in fact a substantial number of Presbyterians, divided into often competing sub denominations. The Guatemalan pastor who hosted us took our group of 14 up into the hills to visit a congregation made up of people who are all been evicted from a plantation for a labor action. On the way to this small church we passed two other Presbyterian churches. These terrible divisions create weakness. We gathered for pray and singing and testimonies with the members of the church in this marginalized resettled community. Proudly, they served fried bananas and then offered us a drink of mixed fruit juices and water. On behalf of the group, I explained that we couldn't drink it because we had stomach problems.

What are the problems in your community, we asked? Well, the water is bad and often people get diarrhea. Do the children sometimes die? Yes, one mother replied, two died last week. Her voice carried sadness and resignation. This community of God's beloved children faces then, the abuse of some individuals, like the plantation owner, as well as the oppression of larger systems of poverty and exploitation. Of course, then, we Christians are called to resist evil against God's children.

The focus of our reflections today will be on the process of our seeking forgiveness. The Prodigal son is the iconic parable of Jesus speaking to us about the mysteries of soul's journey away from God and then back home. I have long believed in the 4 R's of the forgiveness process—forgiveness requires Remorse, Repentance, Restitution and Restoration. So with those aspects of forgiveness in mind, on Monday a group of us looked again at the Prodigal Son story. I daresay we had all read it and heard it preached and studied it many times. But the glorious power of much of Scripture is that the Spirit so often unleashes new insights, new ways of seeing, when we hear the Word, listening together.

So we came to this phrase about the son, in his sate of misery, `coming to himself.' How did that happen—for him and perhaps then how does it happen for us. Well, of course, he is in a desperate situation—but he is also reflecting back on his past, on his father and the way the father ran the farm and probably the way the father treated even his servants. He sees his father with new eyes.

Now the cynic in us maybe just says he needs some money. But the parable points to a new awareness of who the father is in relation both to the servants and potentially again to the prodigal. The son remembers his story. And remembering in the context of his present desperation, he Reframes. Now I know that is a 21^st century word, but it describes the prodigal's experience. He sees his father and himself potentially in a whole new way. Remembering has offered the possibility of reframing.

Remember the Emmaus road story—and` their eyes were opened and they recognized him'. The gospel is about our seeing others and ourselves in a new light, the light of the Spirit. Seeing with new eyes. Remember that folk gospel song about putting your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee—it included lines that said you can look at yourself and look at others differently, when you put your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee. To say that Jesus is Lord and Savior is to say that we believe that is not only possible—but it is our promise.

But now the going gets really rough. When the going gets tough, the tough use duct tape. Now is the time for Remorse—this is not that wimpy I'm sorry that we sometimes offer up and that others use to try to placate us. No, Remorse is closer to the Biblical image is of repenting in sackcloth and ashes. This is that deep painful knowledge of how much we have wounded someone and of course, the pain is particularly profound when we wound someone we love deeply.

One summer evening during a violent thunderstorm, a mother was tucking her son into bed. She was about to turn off the light when he asked her with a tremor in his voice, `Mommy, will you sleep with me tonight?' The mother smiled and gave him a reassuring hug. `I can't dear, 'she said, I have to sleep in Daddy's room." A long silence was broken at last by his shaky little voice, `the big sissy'.

We are all big sissies when it comes to remorse and then the long journey of repentance. Repentance means turning around, going a different direction and that is what the son must do, in order to get back home. Let us hope that he feels sadness far more than shame—so for us too. On our lonely journey of repentance may God grant us and may we accept the pain of sadness for our past, rather than be infected with shame.

In the 12 Step movement, one of the steps involves restitution. Those making truth filled and sincere repentance are called upon to offer apology, a gift, some sign of sincerity to those they have harmed when appropriate.

In looking at the issue of Restitution, we can turn to the glorious story of Zacchaeus. He is a tax collector in a system of exploitation—he can skim the profits for himself and become rich. Beyond that, those taxes pay for the Roman legions that keep Israel in bondage. He is using the global economic system for his own benefit—if people die on the fringes, up in the hills of Judah or of Guatemala or Lebanon or Zambia, well, I Zacchaeus didn't do anything wrong--directly. But then he meets Jesus and his world is turned upside down. I will make restitution, says Zacchaeus. What does making restitution look like for us??

Often no restitution is possible. Humpty dumpty sat on a wall and humpty dumpty had a great fall and all the kings' horse and all the kings' men couldn't put humpty dumpty back together again. We can't undo what we have done—some things, some relations, some hearts, some bodies are broken. We can only hope and pray and work to put them back together—a little bit, more or less. But we can seek to make restitution.

Now, we come to glory. The father with joyful abandon and almost shocking generosity welcomes the son home and creates a party in his honor. Restoration. So too with Zacchaeus. Jesus says let's have a meal together. Radical hospitality —Jesus going into to eat with a tax collector and sinner. We too are invited again and again to come home to the table—to take our body/soul journey through the R's of forgiveness. We travel from Remembering to Reframing to Remorse to Repentance and then Restitution and finally joyful bountiful overflowing Restoration.

Brooks Smith

Forgiveness—Part I

2008-09-15T05:16:00.001-07:00

FORGET, FORGIVE AND FORGET

Texts:Exodus:14:19-31 and Matthew 18:21-35

My grandfather was a Southern Baptist pastor who served for many years in Kansas City, Missouri. He was involved in creating a number of churches, a seminary and a Baptist Retirement home. I went to the dedication ceremony at the retirement home where they honored him for his contribution. I was sitting next to one of the resident's and realized that even with my nametag, she didn't connect me to my grandfather. So I asked, do you know who I am? Well, she said, if you don't know who you are, just go ask the nurse over there and she can tell you.

Yes, don't forget who you are. Remember. Remember. Jesus calls us and commands us to `do this in remembrance of me.' To be a Christian is to remember over and over again—day by remember the life, death and life again of Jesus, the Christ of God, Lord and Savior, hero and leader, our judge and our justification. We gather to fill our souls with personal and communal memories of who Jesus was and is—of who we are and who we shall be.

The Hebrew Bible text is the story of Exodus. We remember Charlton Heston and the inverted waterfalls where the Israelites walked through on dry land and then Pharaohs army was drowned in the mighty flood of the waters of God. Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one. And remember especially who this God is—the mighty God of hosts, the warrior God, who brought your slave ancestors out of Egypt, the God who tore them from Pharaohs' bloody hands and made them into God's people. And remember you were once slaves in Egypt.

How we remember our story and what stories about ourselves and our people we remember are crucial to our identity. How do you tell the story of your life? What stories of the people of God speak deeply to you of your identity? When you think of America, what stories, what images dominate your consciousness and mine?

Because you see that is of course what is at stake here. Memory shapes consciousness—out of our consciousness of who we are, we make choices about friends and careers and partners and money and politics and religion.

Memory is the lifeblood of our soul.

Now as we think about forgiveness we come up against this peculiar but popular phrase—forgive and forget. But since you already know the sermon title—we are going to forget about it. We are not going to forget—what has happened to others or to us. We are going to remember.

We are not to be about remembering to the point to bitterness—we seek healing for ourselves of some of the pain of past evil done to us. William Blake's poem Poison Tree describes our soul's dilemmas. We will come to that, but let us now turn to parable of our Lord. Some of the details of this parable are not quite realistic. How could a servant accumulate such an enormous debt, the rough equivalent of $100,000? In 1^st century Palestine, families couldn't be sold into slavery for the debts of one person. So we have to stretch our minds to discern what Jesus is saying to us.

The debt is enormous—this is an incredible amount of money. We are called to identify with this unforgiving servant. This is our story—even though it is one we would rather forget. The wealthy master represents God and so the image is that we owe God this huge debt.

So we hear the words of the Lord's Prayer—forgive us our debts, but also in other more powerful translations, forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

The image then is telling us that we come before God—on the day of reckoning—with an enormous debt, an enormous weight of sin. Is this just fundamentalist theology? After the Renaissance and especially after the enlightenment didn't we chuck this kind of nonsense? We are rational beings—check out Michelangelo's statue of David. Great bodies—well, some more beautiful than others. Watch this—we human beings can control nature in dramatic ways. Aren't we wonderful? This week we celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the computer chip and started up the Hadron Cyclotron.

Yes, yes, we are. Certainly, reflections of the glory of God. Created in the image of God—male and female created God them and us.

And yet Calvin wrote about total depravity. Freud had that catchy phrase saying that human beings were polymorphously perverse.

Four weeks ago, Gail and I were walking the grounds of Dachau prison camp. Dachau was opened shortly after Hitler took power in 1933. Being there, and remembering the story of us human beings, of our cruelty and barbarism, we know that there lurks a deep, deep capacity for evil in the human soul. This is beyond everyday normal sin and selfishness—we all battle this. No, this is what the Bible would call demonic possession or what Paul might call the principalities and powers. At any rate, would you acknowledge with me that there is within us human beings, potential for great evil? And so we carry a great burden, and we owe a great debt.

And the parable say that God is prepared to forgive us—when we come in deep remorse and when we change our ways of relating to others. The deeply indebted servant is in fact himself forgiven—but he turns to squeeze his fellow servant who owes him a piddling amount compared with the million dollar debt. When the other servants hear of his heartlessness, his unforgiving nature, they turn him in. The parable ends with a painful punch. The unforgiving servant is turned over to the jailers or in some translations to the torturers.

Auden's great poem September I, 1939 includes a line that says, we have been silent witnesses to evil deeds. In our most painful spiritual clarity we can acknowledge our capacity for evil and I daresay all of us have done things that at the very least we are ashamed of. We are not that far from Dachau or Wounded Knee or the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory or My Lai.

But we remember who we are and whose we are and we hear the Lord Jesus invite us, all of us to the table. He says something like I know you my sister, my brother, come in remorse and in true repentance, receive then the Holy Spirit—be washed and cleansed in Baptism and refreshed and fed at the Table. Now—forgive one another as I have forgiven you. Remember this—your life depends upon it. Remember. And forget, forgive and forget. Brooks Smith

The Democrats and Dachau

2008-08-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

With the excitement,hope and anxiety of the Democratic National Convention swirling around us and the world, it somehow seems a bit strange to be reflecting on Dachau and its place in our consciousness. But not really.

Some of the speeches are boring.Some have punch. But Barack can always stir me. What a sense of hope flows through him. I see him as a post-racial candidate--but that is another discussion.

Every election is a identity crisis--certainly at the presidential level. Who are we and how will we relate to one another and the world? I certainly hope and pray that we are more like the vision Obama offers.

But Dachau--one commentator on my previous blog obviously knows far more about the history of Dachau than I do. In the movie we saw there though they did indicate that the doctors were from the SS. It is interesting to think of Night as a fictionalized account of Weisel's experience. Creating particular scenes to offer deeper insights in the horrors of the whole concentration camp world was undoubtedly something he found necessary. Clearly, he has been able to speak to the world. Ken Kesey at the beginning of his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest wrote--Everything in this novel is true, whether it happened or not.

The spiritual challenge I see is how do we face the evil of humanity. How do we see that evil not just in the other--in our enemies but in ourselves? Demonic evil is in the world and in us and we are called to battle. The concentration camp system and the final solution brought about 11 million or so deaths including the death of hundreds of thousands of children. That is demonic. But we are so tempted to say that all evil is in the Nazis--and then in anybody we can somehow associate with them. `You see my fellow Americans, we good and righteous people(true Christian believers more or less) are battling Satan again in the form of the Axis of evil.' We Americans have rooted in us so deeply the images of WWII--where we see ourselves as the righteous heroes to the rescue. In many ways, there is truth to our self image, but self righteousness can blind us to the deeper truths of our own story.

Somehow, we in America need a spiritual revolutinon to look in the heart of our own story and stories to know better our glory and our shame. What would be the equivalent for us of requiring high school students to stare into the face of some of the evil aspects of the American story. Do American students know who Emmett Till was--on this the anniversary of his death?

Dachau is inspiring

2008-08-24T05:09:00.000-07:00

A comment regarding my blog on the Presbyterian General Assembly asked about the cost of such an event in light of the Gospel. Presbyterians moved to meeting biannually several years ago primairly to save money. But the GA meeting is certainly worth the cost. Democracy requires people gathering and listening and struggling with one another and in this case with our sense of God's will for us and for the church.

Several days ago my wife and I returned from visiting friends in Germany. I was surprised by the crucifixes that visually dominated most of the beautiful Protestant churches we visited. My rusty memory of the Reformation reminded me that the Lutherans took over Catholic churches and used them for their own, so it should be no suprise that crucifies are prevalent.

We attended services in Grailsheim with our wonderful German hosts. We were about an hour west of Nurnberg. The communion service and the singing and the spirit of worship were energetic. We met the pastors and I asked them about what theologians spoke to them and they said Jurgen Moltmann. I resonate with Moltmann and in particluar with a book called The Crucified God. In that book Moltmann retells a story by Elie Wiesel from his book Night. Three men are being hung in a death camp. A young boy is among the three and since he weighed less, he struggled to die for many agonizing minutes as the camp inmates watched in numbed agony. Someone said within Wiesel's hearing--God, where is God now? Weisel replied--God is there. Being in Germany,I thought especially about that terrible tension between those who believe in God as controlling all events and thus a God who controls the crucifixion of Jesus on the one hand and God who is radically and eternally present in Jesus. Is God the crucifier or the crucified.

In college and seminary and in my own reading over the years, I had engaged the experience and issues of the death camps. I had read William Schirer and Alan Bullock and Wiesel and Bonhoeffer. Still, I admit that I wasn't eager to see Dachau, but my wife urged our visiting. So on our last day in Germany, we drove 200 kilometers through gorgeous countryside and beautiful small towns to Dachau.

Dachau opened as a prison/concntration camp in 1933. Tens of thousands died there. Some were tortured. Some shot or hung. Some died in barbaric medical experiments conducted by SS doctors. Many died of hunger and disease. We visited the crematorium and the SS had installed a gas chamber, but is was not heavily used. Dachau was a place of death, but was not an extermination camp, like Auchwitz. Still the old films taken by hte SS, photos and just the feel of the prison barracks evoked the demonic terror that ruled for 12 years in that place. So, yes, Dachau is a horrible place that speaks to us of the demonic evil unleashed on the German people and on the world.

Sometimes, we distance ourselves from that evil and from our own potential for evil. We Americans are tempted to self righteousness as a nation when we remember Nazi Germany's evil, because we are the heores of that story. We are the liberators.(I love the Band of Brothers videos). And yes, we fought a great battle and many of our fathers and grandfathers and some mothers and grandmothers fought, sacrificed and died in this righteous struggle. But we have the log in our own eye. We,like every nation, havve the issue of our own exploitation, brutaliztion, murder of others for our own gain. Yet, still, from slavery to wounded Knee to My Lai to the Phillipine war to Nicaragua and Indonesia, no evil of our nation is as profound and pervasive as the death camps. So what can be inspiring about Dachau?

German school children are requried to visit concentration camps to remember what happened in their country. The phrase Never Again is emblazzoned on a memorial on the parade gound at Dachau. But Never Again demands remembering what once was. Never again means remember the past, your story and the story of others. Don't turn away. Don't gloss over the ugly truth. Face realtiy. Trust the words of Jeuss that the truth will make you free. So within Dachau we saw children visiting with their families. And we saw earnest and attentive groups of German young adults who were being guided through Dachau. The guides for these groups were themselves young adults. Something painful and very hopeful was at work.

At the far end of the camp, Jewish, Catholic and Protestant memorials stood defying the forces of evil that confronted us when we first entered the grounds.
The Protestant Memorial was also, incredibly a church. A small congregation worhsips each Sunday at 11am. Martin Niemoller, a Protestant pastor, who had been interned at Dauchau preached the first sermon when the chapel was dedicated in the sixties. My wife lite a candle and placed it on the communion table with other candles. Pray and worhsip here also in the face of this great evil--don't let evil take your soul. And strengthen yourself for the battle. Evil is not just back in the past, it is not just about the Nazis--it is about us, our world today and the struggle to Never Forget and dedicating ourselves to not allowing evil, however subtle, to triumph.

The Carmelite Sisters built a monastery right outside the walls of Dachau. They pray daily for the soul of the world in the war against demonic evil.

So that is why I find inspiration in Dachau.

The Presbyterians Assembled

2008-07-06T06:11:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday at about 5:30am I returned home from being a commissioner at the Presbyterian Church(USA) General Assembly in San Jose for a week. Every two years about 700 commissioners elected by their presbyteries gather to make some policies for the denomination,receive and act on overtures that come from churches, elect leaders and generally just have a grand old time. Yes, it is exhilarating and inspiring as well as being utterly frustrating.

The moments of inspiration come from just meeting incredible people from all over the church. In line for breakfast one morning, I struck up a conversation with an extraordinary physicist who teaches at Stanford. I explained my interest in science and my limited knowledge and he began to talk about a new project he was developing. With physicists in Switzerland, he was searching for the anti matter that somehow disappeared after the big bang. So here was a world class physicist who was also a Presbyterian. Great energy. Glorius people. The Holy spirit at work.

But also great leaders for our denomination. We elected Gradye Parsons as our new stated clerk and Bruce Reyes-Chow as our moderator. Youth advisory delegates have voice and vote in committee and voice on the floor. What an energetic, and impressive group. Many of them spoke with passion and clarity before this audience of more than 1000. Strong leaders are coming into the church.

We disagreed on many issues. And we processed those disagreements both through prayer and through Robert's Rules of Order. We believe that this is the best means avail be now for us to be respectful of minority opinions and also to allow the majority to act

But one very big problem is that the GA tries to do way too much. Too many issues come onto the floor--huge issues like abortion, gun control, poverty, Iraq, Palestine/Israel, homosexuality, housing and health care. And the Assembly tries to respond to them all.

By the end as we were having a 30 minute discussion on universal health care and then voting for a single payer system, I identified with a speaker who said that he was a health care analyst for his company and had spent a career in the nitty-gritty of balancing money and quality of care. The issues are extremely complicated he argued persuasively. Someone called the question and we voted for a single payer system anyway.

One deep irony is that the theme text was Micah 6 which calls upon us to walk humbly with our God. We weren't humble when advocating social policies. I don't know if that is the fault of our system or our personalities. but we ended up making glib statements about complex issues.

Antonio Machado, the Spanish poet, said,`It is more important to make things well, than to make things.' at GA, we make alot of statements, but many are certainly not made well.

The Holy Catholic Church

2008-06-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

When we use the word catholic in the Apostle's Creed we understand it to mean universal. Certainly, in 2008, especially in the US we rejoice in the spiritual and practical partnerships between Protestants and Catholics. I had a priest friend that I worked with for 26 years in providing affordable housing for our community. I joyously supported Father Joseph, born in Uganda, when he came to organize a Spanish speaking Catholic community. For all our cooperation, we still sure are different.

The son of very good friends of ours was ordained as a priest this past Saturday. The service was beautiful, dramatic, inspiring. The archbishop's homily was forceful and faithful. Wonderful music. Powerful rituals. I certainly honor the dedication and spirit journey of the six men who were ordained. After the service, our young friend Ted seemed very happy, blessed, radiant with the spirit. He will be a wonderful priest. Once again,though, I was glad that I am a Presbyterian, however, much I grumble about it.

The service was at the Shrine of hte Immaculate Conception in Washington. This glorious and imposing building is dedicated to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, a strange 19th century creation. The Immaculate Conception implies that conception is normally of course not immaculate. Being conceived by human means is to be born into sin in this theology. Mary must be sinless in order to be the proper vessel for the Christ child. So Mary is really not a human being in this theology. But why? And don't we know all the more the glory of her life and the power of the incarnation precisely because she is a human being.

On the pulpit, an unusual phrase was carved. "The seed is the Word of God." Now, that is not a biblical phrase, but it is powerfully interesting. It combines the image of the seed being planted in Mary by the Holy Spirit with John's proclamation that the Word was with God and in God and then with us. Then too Paul says Jesus in the resurrection is like a seed that dies and then lives in new form. Jesus as the seed as well as the Sower. Wow--I am still pondering that.

Those being ordained promised obedience to the Bishop and his successors. I was grateful, really grateful for being a Presbyterian. God does speak through communities of folks and their elected leaders, at least more or less and over the long run. Call no one father, but God, who is your father in heaven says Jesus according to the Scripture.

Finally, though,seeing maybe 50 or sixty male priests together, and the archbishop and a cardinal, I felt sad and angry at the way part of the the church has marginalized women. I loved asking confrimands if they believed in the equality of men and women before God and therefore in the chruch and in the world. When they say yes, I remind them that that means they were in a minority among Protestants in the US and a small minority among Christians in the world. So they are called to the struggle for justice and equality.

My life has certainly been deeply enriched by the Catholics I have known and worked with. My personal pantheon of saints includes Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero, Bartholomeo de las Casas, Mesiter Eckhardt. But I am happy to live in the Presby part of the universal church.

Unexpected Blessings

2008-05-29T06:49:00.002-07:00

On Pentecost, I returned to the church that I had served for 29 years for the Sunday morning worship. That Sunday was also Mothers Day and our fortieth wedding anniversary. We married when we were both in graduate school and had no money. I told Gail that I would hitch hike from Chicago to Albany for the ceremnoy because I didnt want to pay for the bus.She insisted that I take the bus and sent me money for the ticket. Our reception was in the church basement. The caterer charged us $2.95 per person for food.

We were in love--times were tough. We moved to an illegal apartmenton the south side of Chicago. Robert Kennedy was assassinated a month after our marriage. King had been killed in April. Times were tough and yet we celebrated as we remembered loving each other and caring for one another through those days and weeks.

So we went to church together. Pentecost was also special because the confirmation class was leading much of the service.

Sixteen months ago, after I announced that I would be retiring in July of 2007, I met Patrick, one of our wonderful junior high youth. He said that he was bummed out that I wouldn't be there to teach confirmation. His concern brought joy to my heart and a decision to create a extra short term confirmation class. So this wonderful group of young people joined the church in 2007--with the understanding that they would continue studying and working together through 2008. So on Pentecost, 2008, they led worship again. When they were planning the service, Pastor Doug, the interim pastor, asked jokingly who was going to preach(he was planning on preaching, since he assumed no one would be willing). Everyone said Patrick should preach. So Pastor Doug asked Patrick, and Patrick said yes.

Patrick is the youngest of four. His parents had divorced and his father had died, when Patrick was about 9. He preached a sermon that he wrote himself on Mother's Day/Pentecost. He spoke powerfully and gratefully about how his mother had helped the children through such difficult times--and proudly said the his brother was now getting his Ph.D. at Harvard. See, mothers care for you and then when you are 18, you have to go out into the world and make you own way. In the same way, Jesus had been with the disciples in human form and then as a resurrected presence and now he has gone away. So the disciples have to act and live and serve based upon who Jesus taugth them to be.

Wow. What a joy--what a blessing to hear Patrick speak so eloquently and so comfortably. His slight nervousness simply reminded us all what a challenge it is to speak before other people and preach the word. I felt so blessed by the opportunity to love and lead this beautiful group of confirmands. I felt blessed and in truth a bit amazed at the throughtullness and grace and faith that flowed from Patrick.

Sometimes, life is filled with pain and distress. Sometimes, blessings just flow down upon us like a mighty river.

Unexpected

2008-05-29T06:49:00.001-07:00

William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition fo Slavery

2008-05-01T05:36:00.000-07:00

All on Fire is the title of Henry Mayer's thorough and inspiring biography of William Lloyd Garrison. As I read it, I thought to myself that I had really missed out by not reading about Garrison years ago. Anyway, isn't it exciting to find people whose life and struggles just thrill your soul.

In 1840 Garrison attended a meeting of the British anti slavery society and refused to come down out of the balcony to the main floor because women were not allowed to fully participate. Not only did he lead the abolitionist crusade but he helped nurture the early stages of the women's movement. He was an anti imperialist. Like Lincoln, he saw the Mexican War as part of the slave power's efforts to create more slave states and thus resist the efforts of the Northern states to limit slavery.

His newspaper, the Liberator, was initially supported mainly by black subscribers. Blacks and whites together tested the levels of tolerance on the trains in and around Boston in the 1850's. They were freedom riders a hundred years before heroic folks went south to face angry mobs and be jailed and have buses burned in the early 1960's.

Garrison knew the Scripture and called for Christians to live out the Gospel and come out from the oppressive Babylon of the church's support or tolerance of slavery. He called the church to repentance and many heard the call.

He advocated disunion. Better to have states that were truly free than be united with the slave power. Create a northern bastion of freedom and in the long run slavery would be undermined, he argued. In 1854,to dramatize his commitments and to call for greated dedication to the cause, he burned a copy of the Fugitive Slave law and the Constitution at the 4th of July gathering of the New England Anti Slavery Society.

He became a pacifist, believing in the power of resistance to evil by means of moral suasion. He was opposed to war, even though one son served wit the black Massachusetts regiment. Before Tolstoy, before Gandhi, before King, Garrison advocated and practiced non violent resistance. He was jailed, vilified, threatened--and he was praised and lived to see his lifelong struggle culminate in the legal end of slavery.

We live in awe of the universe's vast, fiery and empty beauty. But we live too in awe at the human struggle for justice and for love and for happiness. Garrison's life witnesses gloriously to that struggle.

Iraq and the Valley of Elah

2008-04-16T06:20:00.000-07:00

My friend Jim Roselli is an extraordinarily gifted photographer and a great human being. He has given me permission to use some of his photos on this blog. The photo evokes the beauty and tranquility of the world. It somehow is where we are called to be. Not that all nature is tranquil, but that nature is not besmirched with the demonic evil of us human beings.

This blog is not about beauty, but about evil. The evil of the war in Iraq. We despair of hearing words of repentance and truth from George Bush and his cronies and really those who continue to support this war. I am appalled about McCain talking about more tax cuts--let us bribe the American people with a few dollars, of course the wealthier you are the more dollars you will get. That is the American way. But how can we talk about tax cuts when we face this 3 trillion dollar price tag on this war, so far. That is the number that the award wining economist Stieglitz puts on the war. But that is just the money and just the beginning if we end up with continuing this war.

The human cost though--the death and maiming and destructing of Iraqis. Oh, but we have the power of the US government and the co opted media to prevent us from seeing that very much. And too we really don't want to think about it--who cares if starving Lazarus is at the gate, I just want to eat well myself. Please give me another helping of tax cuts please.

And then we come closer to home. The deaths of over 4000 Americans should appal us. The physical maiming of tens of thousands should outrage us. The psychological and spiritual and emotional crippling hundreds of thousands should anger and energize us.

Recently, I saw the movie In the Valley of Elah starring Tommie Lee Jones and Charlize Theron. It is about the mind/soul wounds of returning combat troops. See it. You will not look upon the Iraq war or American troops who have fought there in the same way. I am angry--again and again. Hope has two lovely daughters--anger and courage, said Augustine. I have anger--we have anger. But where is our courage?

Not inconvenient enough

2008-04-09T04:44:00.000-07:00

AL Gore's movie surprised me. He brought some dynamism and certainly great conviction to the the issues of global warming. But after his stirring description of the problems, his actual suggested action steps seemed wimpy.

Global warming requires drastic steps but drastic steps are politically improbable. The movie would have served the world better if it at least forced us to consider that we in the US should look at some of the following kinds of actions.

In Sweden, gas costs about $7 per gallon. People buy smaller cars, ride bikes more, live closer to work and generally drive less. Let's urge our government to tax gas heavily to provide strong incentive for us to change our habits and use that money for mass transit.Or you go put all that money into developing alternative energy sources.

Immigrants who come to the US consume more typically than they do in their sending countries. Limiting immigration into the US and other high consuming countries will help the world consume less.

Al Gore lives in a big house--but he bought thousands of dollars worth of solar panels to generate his own energy. Solar panels are great. And clearly eventually, maybe now, the world needs people to live simpler, in smaller houses. Why don't we put a luxury tax on all single family houses over a certain size. You could have the tax gradually increase. But isn't it finally obscene when you see these huge McMansions being built? Do two people really need 10 rooms and 3 baths to live in. Oh, but what about choice. Sure let people choose that if it is that important and then let them pay a luxury tax on the extra space and the excessive energy consumption that their life style calls for. Tax them above and beyond local property taxes, because of course in many high income communities those taxes are absurdly low. Dont allow people to deduct mortgage interest payments above a certain amount each year--hard to know what amount would be fair--but we could search for it.

Inconvenient Truth to my remembering never addressed the issue of population. We live in the disastrous era of so many Bush policies that we may have forgotten that one of them prohibits providing family planing assistance through any international organization that facilitates abortion. Family planning needs to be available globally. For our own self interest we need to put money there.

How do we encourage people especially in high energy consuming countries like the US to have small families? Should we for example only provide tax credits for the first two children in a family? Certainly, we want education and opportunity for all children(my family of origin included 6 children). But at the same time, we know all too well the limits of the world's resources.

At a meeting the other day, an executive in the food industry told us that the price of a truckload of flour had gone from $8000 to $20000. As we enter this recession, as we seek to survive economically and spiritually under the burden of the 7 trillion dollar debt created by Bush economics and the war, we will be called to drastic steps, to sacrifices. Now we comfortable Americans don't like to hear those words. Sacrifice is what we expect others to do--but that time has come again for us.

Changing a light bulb or two is not enough. Buying a hybrid car(which my wife and I did) is not enough.

Oh, Jeremiah!

2008-04-01T08:50:00.001-07:00

Taking a few quotes from Rev.Jeremiah Wright's sermons, the media created a firestorm for Barack Obama's campaign. I was privileged to hear Obama's speech on race, on his former pastor and on America. Being mixed race himself and being one great speaker, Obama has pushed forward and blessed the national discussion.

Like Obama, I find some of Jeremiah Wright's statements just absurd, wrong, nasty. And I find that he articulates some of the righteous anger of people who have been abused in America; and yes, he sometimes played to the petty prejudices of some in his congregation. He was sometimes inflammatory in the name of God. Many Christians find that kind of challenging, prophetic, even angry preaching to be unpleasant, even unacceptable. Christians don't read Jeremiah much anymore. I don't read Jeremiah very much, because his writings as the word of God are too challenging, too distressing. So part of the problem that a lot of Christians have with Rev. Wright is that there is simply too much Jeremiah in him.

But, of course, the issues of race come at us in a fascinating and frustrating mélange. Amongst those issues swirl our emotions of pain, guilt, shame, joy, pride, despair and hope. The capacity to address conflicting emotions, the ability to speak to some of the deep and abiding issues is a great gift. It is however not just the political candidates who need to step up to address these issues, but it is all of us.

Part of our challenge is to remember the larger story of religion and race. Christianity, like other religions, has been one of the bastions from which the evil armies of racism have sallied forth. Remember the movie Amistad. The priests blessed the slave ships as they set off with their cargo from West Africa. That is but one symbol of the ways in which the church acquiesced in and profited from slavery and racism. A wonderful modern hymn from Africa has a refrain in which the congregation sings about our loving and serving and `we did it all in Jesus name.' Christians have done great evil in Jesus name. Let us remember the truth of that. The truth and only the truth remembered and told and struggled with shall set us free.

The movie Amistad also shows Christians opposed to slavery, fighting for freedom there in the early 19^th century. The film Amazing Grace is not only about the beloved hymn but about William Wilberforce and his lonely, heroic, Jeremiah like struggle to abolish the slave trade in England. The abolitionist movement in 19^th century American and the civil rights movement in the 20^th were fueled by Christians and Jews and people of faith of all colors. Let us remember our story.

When I was in Mississippi for Freedom Summer in 1964, Charles MacLaurin was our project director. He was a 24 year old veteran of the movement, having been jailed and threatened numerous times. Our lives were in his hands. One day, with a teasing twinkle in his eye, he told me to go down to the end of this one road and talk with the bright lady there. I went. Had a pleasant conversation and a glass of cold water. When I returned he asked what I thought of the bright lady. She was very pleasant but like everyone else, I said—I didn't notice that she was especially bright. Charles laughed and explained that he didn't mean bright as in intelligent or well read—he meant bright, light skinned. Since I tan easily I had noticed that, yes, her skin was a lot lighter than mine. So how is she a Negro and I am white—or in an even stranger use of language, how is she black when her skin is white and I am white when my skin is light brown.

If a woman of Irish descent and a man from Kenya marry and have a child, how is that child black, instead of mixed race? Why in New Jersey do we have a Black Minister's Council? I thought we are working for a world in Jesus name where people are judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin? Is the very idea of race not somehow inherently racist? How are we now mixing our racial prejudices and our religious prejudices?

Repent. Repent says Jesus. Remember and repent. And we sing Jesus loves the little children all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world. Jesus calls us over the tumult of the chaotic seas of the issues of race and racism to follow him, to witness truthfully and hopefully to his vision for a world of honesty and love, of reconciliation and justice.

Eventually, the people of Israel were deeply grateful for the harsh truths spoken by Jeremiah.

Brooks Smith

Our Safari

2008-03-27T09:07:00.001-07:00

OUR SAFARI

Our son Drew spent 10 months traveling in Asia and Africa. Being an intense educator, his journeys purposes included visiting and studying nongovernmental schools in different cultures. In Africa, his travels were to begin in Nairobi, Kenya and down through Tanzania and Zimbabwe to South Africa. I met him in Kenya and we signed up for a 3 day safari to the Massa Maara Wildlife Reserve.

We meet our Kenyan guides in downtown Nairobi and boarded the minibus for an 8 hour drive. A very wealth Kenyan joined us. He too was on safari. Having studied at New York University and lived in London for a number of years, he expressed his deep frustration at being called back to Kenya by his family. They needed someone to manage one of their shopping centers. Our Kenyan friend was immaculately dressed with nails manicured and a friendly, but very aristocratic manner.

Night life in Nairobi is almost nonexistent he insisted, because anyone with a fancy car feared getting carjacked if driving home late. I had wandered around Nairobi, often on foot for a week before Drew arrived. After visiting the Karen Blixen house, I had walked past country club in a wealthy neighborhood. I asked him about whether those once all white organizations, like country clubs, were now integrated. How did white and black Kenyans get along? Oh, fine he said. Sure, the country clubs would be mixed. Our family owns a house in that neighborhood. No problem. Whites will sell houses to black and blacks would sell to whites. But we would never sell to an Indian. Astounded, I ask him to explain. Indians only sell to Indians and they live separated from whites and blacks. It is just the way it is. What a weird world we live in.

Being on safari was a joy. Drew insisted that we save money by living in tents instead of in the small hotel. That meant that we could hear all the better sounds of the night. The lions' roars and the hyenas cries broke the dark silence. Then out on the plains,we saw hippos and alligators in the rivers. Cheetahs and giraffes and elephants and zebras and wildebesst were in abundance. After two exhilarating days we headed home.

Three hours of travel brought us to a rest stop. We hit the bathroom and buy some water. As we prepare to leave, we realize that 5 minibuses have arrived heading south toward Masai Maara. So the dirt parking lot almost overflows with buses and people. These tourists are Russians. Suddenly, I notice one heavyset woman who is feeding pieces of popcorn from a bag to Masai children in their blood red clothes who have crowded around her. It is as if she were feeding chickens. She has a bottle of soda with two straws inserted. Two children are drinking form the one bottle. My anger demanded action.

I went over to her and said, `you are acting like an ugly tourist.' No response from her. Then I said,' if you cared about these children at all, you'd give $100 to their school.' Her face is blank and yes maybe she didn't speak any English, but she could read my anger. Our well-to-do Kenyan friend chimes in saying `we feed the children in our country'. The woman heads to her van and I begin to follow her. Tall, broad shouldered Drew grabs my arm and says, `come on dad, let's get out of here.'

Yes, I guess that does make a lot of sense since it is 3 of us and forty Russians. We get in the van and drive off. I say something like, `Man, I am so angry at the way that woman treated those kids.' Our Kenyan friend says, `yes, and besides that she was carrying one of those fake Louis Vuitton bags.' Confused, barely knowing who Louis Vuitton is, I say, `what do you mean?' ` You know those fake Louis Vuitton bags—I just hate those things.'

We don't all believe in the same God

2008-03-14T04:42:00.000-07:00

The Apostles Creed proclaims `I believe in God the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth'. But of course our understanding of the scope of the universe is dramatically larger than just the earth and the sky above it. Teilhard, the Christian cosmologist, believed that matter and spirit were present from the moment of creation. That way of stating our belief in the reality of the spirit(or God) works for me. The Genesis account celebrates the mysterious dance of chaos and spirit as the land and the plants and animals are formed.

As we think of a Creator present to reality 16 billion years ago or so, we face another perplexity. Overwhelmingly, the creation is emptiness--interrupted here and there by light, glorious light and with the tiniest speck of life. Within the natural world, there is to our awareness of the even smaller presence of consciousness. Within the small realm of consciousness, we experience the great power for better and for worse of human consciousness. Wow--isn't life glorious and isn't human life very lonely in a cold, empty universe.

What I want to talk about though is the friendly guy I met in Nicaragua who was of the Bahai faith. Briefly, Bahai's honor the major religions and their fairly few temples have multiple doors and are built in the round. Symbolically, they assert that the different major traditions are all valid ways to come to the one God--the one Creator. All major religions, say they, believe in the one Creator. So the Bahais honor the different traditions, read from the various Scriptures and seem as open to others as one could be. They have been persecuted throughout their 150 years history and currently face persecution in Iran. So we are called to admire their courage and love for others.

But something doesn't quite compute. I read a pamphlet on the Bahai's offered by my friendly, gently evangelising hotel mate. It comes down to the understanding that we all believe in One Creator and Baha'ullah, the founder of the Bahais is the best interpreter of how we are to live and worship. Isn't that the rub. that is the key quesiton is who is the most authoritative interpreter of the faith for you or for me.

In interfaith dialogue we often hear this nonsense that we all believe in the same God. Even if that were remotely true, the question would be how has that God revealed himself(or is it herself or is it a trinity of selves or is it as God and Satan and so on) to us. How do we experience the revelation and who is the prime interpreter of the revelation? We all believe in the same God as Creator and Moses will tell us what that God is like, no Buddha, no Jesus,no Krishna, no Paul, no Muhammad, no Joseph Smith(the founder of Mormonism),no Baha'ullah.

We must learn to speak the truth clearly to one another before we will ever really learn anything about one another's religious experience and traditions. We need to stop making nice, pretending that we agree, when we dont even understand what one another mean by the word God. Rodney King's plaintiff call rings out--Why can't we all just get along. Sure, we want to get along. The world is desperate for us to not get along and to stop killing each other in the name of God. But we must first learn to understand ourselves and our religious experience and traditions. Then we must find clear words and maybe not so clear, but powerful images to share our understandings with others in our community and then possibly in other communities. This is a very long and tortuous road. Telling the truth and acknowledging our deep differences in experience and expression is absolutely essential if we are going to journey along the way.

Don't make nice. Be who you are. Think, pray, journal,live deeply into your own religious experience. Learn your tradition and wrestle with it, like Jacob.Certainly,reject part of your tradition, mabye reject it all. Let your tradition wound you and bless you. Then share with others. Of course, listen and be respectful.

And I say that the only way forward is to turn our backs completely on this foolish and facile notion that we all believe in the same God, the same Creator.

Housing in Nicaragua

2008-03-06T13:38:00.000-08:00

I am in Nicaragua visiting a dynamic organization that builds housing for very poor people. Houses cost only $1500--Jahayra Tapia is an architect and the coordinator of this great program. Pictures will be up next week when I return.

When the Saints Go Marching In

2008-02-29T05:04:00.000-08:00

Our junior high basketball team played the tune When the Saints Go Marching In as they came onto the floor. We were the Cardinals, so it was easy to sing about the Cards marching in. Recently, at the church's Jazz and Jambalaya fundraiser for Katrina rebuilding, the wonderful band play this great song and we enjoyed prancing around the Parish Hall with our beads and bangles.

For many centuries, Christians read about the lives of the saints and were called to emulate them. Sure, many of the stories were undoubtedly fabricated--but still the saints' life stories had power.

So who are saints for us? Who are people who have lived their lives with grace and courage, with humor and hope, so that we feel challenged and blessed and encouraged?

The film Coach Carter was on TV last night. Samuel L.Jackson portrayed the coachand former basketball star who fought despair in a tough and worn down inner city high school in Richmond, California. His leadership and decisions revolutionized the lives of his basketball players and through them of the community. Here we have an inspiring true story.

How are we helping ourselves and our children to know the true stories of flesh and blood saints. I once asked our confirmation class that question and they had few answers. Heroes and saints--o, you mean Batman or Superman or Dirty Harry or Hulk Hogan.

No, I mean Oscar Romero and Roberto Clemente and Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Fannie Lou Hamer and Mother Teresa and some incredible people in our neighborhood. I love the Batman movies--but real saints need to have some flesh and blood, so that you and i can feel truly blessed and deeply challenged by their life, word, and witness.

Kabir was a Sufi Poet

2008-02-26T06:20:00.000-08:00

The Iraq war has exposed us to these deep divisions between Shia and Sunni Muslims. But there are other branches of Islam. Thomas Merton, the Catholic, mystic, social activist monk studied and honored the Sufi tradition within Islam. One of the Sufis that Merton quoted had written --'if Jesus cannot find the wound within you, how will he apply the cure?'

The poet Rumi was a Sufi and continues to be one of the best selling ports in the US. Kabir was also a Sufi, writing in fifteenth century India. Robert Bly translates his poetry into English. Here is a Kabir poem.

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive.
Think... and think...while you alive.
What you call'salvation' belongs to the time before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you are alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten--
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City
of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life
you will have the face of satisfied desire.

While I love that poem, I still believe that the next reality includes the blessing and burden of change. In the next reality, memoryandspirit continue to simmer.

Well, he is in a better place now.

2008-02-24T05:21:00.001-08:00

Yesterday,we saw the play titled The Seafarer in New York. I knew nothing about its themes or structure, except that it had received great reviews. I was surprised to discover that the play was about God and the devil and death and sin and forgiveness.

On Christmas eve, the devil shows up for a game of poker with 4 harddrinking Irishmen, whose lives flow with pain and turmoil and some glimmers of hope and love. The setting is a poor community on the coast, north of Dublin. A painting of the Virgin looks down on the conversation. The dialogue is quick and clever and ladened with profanity. In the end, in the context of a lot of remembered misery, hope is miraculously clawed out of life.

The Devil has come in the guise of a well dressed gentleman to play a game of cards for the soul of Sharkey. In explaining his presence, the devil proclaims the gospel of the Incarnation, while voicing his scorn of God, for loving human beings and not him, the Devil. In a searing monologue the devil describes hell. The images of hell would strike terror into our souls, if we really believed that we were confined to that kind of reality for eternity. But we are watching this play in New York City in the 21st century. We don't really buy into that three story universe stuff with earthly life floating between heaven and hell? Do we?

Actually when the character embodyinhg the devil described hell, it sounded like how people sometimes experience themselves in this life, when they feel so deeply and desperately trapped in fear,isolation,and self loathing.

Certainly, the nature of our reality in the next life does perplex us. Paul Tillich years ago referred to this perplexity as the problem of finitude. We are finite. Our earthly life will end. Is there something more?

The Seafarer contrasted starkly wiht our usual imagery of life after death. At funerals and wakes, Christians of various strips will sometimes be heard to talk about the deceased person being in a better place now. Bereaved family members will comfort themselves with images of their loved one being in heaven. People are seen as living in pain free comfort.

A poet once wrote about eternity in terms of God's justice requiring htat he and all of us sit alone with our conscience, that he said would be judgement enough. somehow, in eternity, in the presence of God and those whose lives touched ours, we would wrestle with an enlivened conscience and its calls to remorse,repentance and restitution. This concept is closer to Dante's vision of purgatory--in the next reality we would progress through stages of remembering and re experiencing our life and being purged or cleansed or forgiven of that which is evil.

If we don't generally believe in hell, if some of the popular concept of heaven is just wishful thinking, then what truly is your or my image of our reality after we die?

Who are your heroes?

2008-02-17T11:15:00.000-08:00

Those who are heroes to us, those people we deeply admire shape our souls. Our admiration helps grow us in the dirction of those we have lifted up. Admiration nudges us toward emulation.

A couple of years ago, I visited Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. Besides shops and restraurants, the Colonial Zone includes the first cathedral built in the western hemisphere and the house that Columbus' brother built in about 1510.

To celebrate the 500th anniversary of the landing of Columbus on the island,the Dominican governmet built a large museum called the Faro de Colon, tehhe Light of Columbus. The Faro de Colon looks tired and weather worn now.

But I went to the Colonial Zone in Santo Domingo to honor someone who is a hero for me,Bartholome de las Casas. Las Casas came to the island around 1502 seaching for fortune in the new world like other young Spaniards. He became a merchant and landowner. Natives worked his land as slaves. Las Casas could look forward to a life of wealth and luxury based on the power of the conquest to take the land and enslave the native peoples.

Then the gospel of Jesus Christ intervened. Las Casas began prepartion to be a priest and shortly afterward the Dominican order arrived in Santo Domingo.

Now, of course, it is often the case that the church and its priests and preachers are expected to simply bless the empire, to bless one nation's conquest,use and exploitaiton of another nation. But something different happened to Las Casas. He went to worship at the Monastery of Sinners and heard the sermon of Antonio Montesino in 1511. Montesino denounced the torture, maiming and murder of the native people. He told those leaders of the worshipping community that oppression of the natives meant being condemned to hell.

The spirit struck Las Casas. He freed his own natives. He became a Dominican and spent his long life in defense of the native people. Tragically, he briefly condoned the Aftrican slave trade as a way to continue to exploit the land without brutalizing the native people. But he soon repented of that evil as well. He journeyed back and forth to Europe many times until he finally succeeded in obtaining a declaration from the pope that the natives were human beings,not animals. He wrote the History of the Indies and is truly one of our great spiritual heroes.

In Santo Domingo, a statue of Bartholome de las Casas stands proudly and peacefully in a small park. Hies head and eyes are raised slightly, looking both to heaven and out over the new land. One hand covers his strong and compassionate heart. The other hand is clenched in a fist of courage and strength. But the park now is padlocked. Oh, you can see Las Casas and he can see you, but you cannot get into the park. Or maybe those intent on exploiting others are trying to keep his spirit and message locked away.

Columbus or Las Casas? Who is the real hero? But if in school or church people never hear about Las Casas, how will they be able to make a thougthful or faithful choice?

Do we want change or repentance?

2008-02-12T05:16:00.000-08:00

Of course, we want change after 7 years of the Bush presidency. I still get in arguments with people about George Bush's leadership immediately after 9/11. I think he was extraordinary, while friends attack him with a Michael Moore spirit. He was down to earth, sincerly compassionate,grieving and angry.

Unfortunately, catastrophically, he took his anger and the anger of the nation and launched a crusade, a holy war against terror. He decided that it would be handy to have an enemy taht was both focused and diffuse. You can justify all sorts of policies based on our battle against terrorism. What does the word mean though?

Did you ever wonder about those thirty Afghanis who gathered for a wedding celebration several years ago and then were killed by a smart bomb because the US thougth they were Taliban. Is that terror? Is terrorism something that only we and maybe the British can be victims of. When bombs rained down on the people of Baghdad, we called it`shock and awe.' Yes, we don't deliberately target civilians, but do those Afghanis know that?

I wonder too in our real struggle agaisnt the evils of terror tactics, will we remember our use of those tactics and repent. When our government supported the death squads in El Salvador and Guatemala, were we not supporting terror. When the CIA sponsored Contras killed teachers and health care workers in rural Nicaragua, what should we call that. It certainly was a war agaisnt civilians as well as against armed forces.

Anyway, I admired George Bush in those early painful days after 9/11 and believe that the Afghan invasion made sense. Then disaster,evil, the arrogance of power, the use of the presidency to deceive and destroy in Iraq, the trashing of America's image and reputation. He even publicly used the word `crusade', stirring images of us holy Christians battling the evil Muslims.

So please check out the inspiring Obama video at www.yeswecansong.com

We need change in our international and domestic polciy to try to get off the disastrous course that Bush and company have led us on. Hopefully, Americans will continue to awaken to the urgency of the strugle agaisnt the many corruptions of the Bush years. But this word change is a slippery.

For Christians, the season of Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. Yes, a lot of Presbyterians now impose ashes for those who want to receive them. One of the persistent themes of the Ash Wednesday service is repentance. Repentance is also about change--but it is change that starts with self knowledge and self examination and leds into turning around, living life differentlly, experiencing a transformation of values. Living in the mystery of God in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I repent of my selfishness,my stupidities, my indifference, my laziness--and I dedicate myself to living a new life with new values and priorities. So, here is the rub. We hear a lot about change. But almsot nothing about repentance.

All too often change means that we hope we can get someone else to pay for our lunch. Remember under Reagan we had the tax simplificaiton act. After passage of the act, the tax code was just as complicated. There were fewer brackets, but the wealthiest Americans got a huge tax cut. `Change the tax systme--fix the IRS--make it fairer--cut taxes.' It is mostly all a smokescreen for shifting the tax burden away from one group, usually higher income tax payers, to another. Look at the scandal of this government eliminating the estate tax which is paid by only the wealthyest 1% of estates at the time of someone's death. Eliminating that tax shifts a burden of $30 billion to the rest of us.

Yes, we all want change. But beneath that slogan lurks the danger. We much prefer that others change. Let them sacrifice. Let's put our heads together and figure out how we can get others to pay for our lunch.

The yeswecansong is fun and inspiring,like the candidate that it hilites. But real change means sacrifice and repentance and renewal and rebuilding people and systems. Real change means empower people, groups and movements to demand justice and to build justice. For Christians real change is rooted in the encounters of Ash Wednesday.

Please, don't give me that old time religion

2008-02-06T11:49:00.000-08:00

When I was in seminary a few years ago, we read THE ROMAN EMPIRE by M.P.Charlesworth. The book's price was $1.35. I reread it recently and want to share his descripiton of religon as practiced in the Roman Empire.

"All these people(of the Empire) mostly thought of the gods as invisible beings, of great power, immortal and ageless: they were normally beneficent to mankind, an as man needed their help and portection in all the business of daily life, their favor could be obtained and their help secured, if he honored them by regular worhsip and by appropriate sacrifices according to the traditional rites of his country. For the gods were national, invisible and powerful citizens as it were of the country they favored, and the centuries old rituals were the proved means of gaining their support....for as the Roman people had extended its dominion, so their own national Jupiter extended his. Roman gods, if propitiated in the right fashion, would protect Roman citizens, thereby securing the immensity and the eternity of the Roman realm."

This is religion as magic, as a way of controlling the gods. This is religion that calls for the gods to bless us and our nation and curse our enemies or perhaps just be indifferent to them. This kind of religion has captivated and enslaved millions of Christians--but it is not the religion of Jesus.

This kind of archaic religion was the religion of the temple and its sacrificial system. That system said,`Oh, you did this wrong or you are somehow ritualy unclean. Offer this sacrifice and you will be restored into the community of God's people.' This kind of religion was the object of Jesus attack--you have made this house of prayer into a den of thieves. This kind of religion, selfish, archaic, nationalistic, killed Jesus.

The sufferings of God

2008-02-05T06:01:00.000-08:00

Thanks to anonymous for the comment on my last blog. How blessed we are when we feel and act on gratitude for others gifts to us, for our being gift to others and for the mysterious gift of life itself.

In 1964 when I was arrested in Drew Mississippi and jailed by myself and convicted, I came home traumatized. I returned to college and was fortunate to find a history professor who helped heal my soul. He introduced me to books and thinkers and people who lived out the deep truths of their own journey, sometimes at great cost. Specifically, he led me to a book called Letters and Papers from Prison, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pasotr and scholar who had the option of staying in the US right before the beginning of WWII. But his people were in Germany and he returend to be with them in the struggle against Nazi domination of the church and society. Participation in anti Hitler plots led to his arrest. Jailed for 18 montsh, he was executed in April of 1945.

Bonhoeffer's words come at us with such power because of his life and witness. As we journey through the dessert of this world, drink in some of the healing words of one of our great souls.

'The man who despises another will nverv be able to make anythign of him. Nothing htat we despise n the other man is entriely absetn from ourselves. we must learn to regard popel less in the light of hwat they do or omti to do, nad more in the lifght of wath they suffer.'

'we have been silent wintesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms;we have learned the arts of equivocaiton and pretence...are we still of any use. What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics or misanhtroupes, or clever tacticians, but plain honest straightforward men. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough and our honesty with ourselves remoreseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straigthforwardness?'

'What is bothering me incessantly is the question of what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today.'

'Man is called to share in God's sufferings at the hands of a godless world.'

We are called to decide whether we believe that indeed God suffers with us or is God indifferent to us or perhaps the source of our suffering. It is Job's question over and over again. It is the question of the cross.

Think on those books and poems and songs that have sustaining power for your soul. And give thanks.

Gold's Gym and Franz Kafka

2008-02-01T14:07:00.000-08:00

I went to the gym this rainy Friday afternoon. Felt good--good workout. While on the treadmill, I saw some Super Bowl hype shows. Judge Joe Brown was dispensing justice more or less on the other TV. While working on various pieces of equipment, the music videos didn't divert me.

Earlier today, I had been writing about my experiences 40 years ago in the civil rights movement in Mississippi. Tough times. Firebombings. Jailings. Deaths. I thought to myself what a strange contrasting day moving from the struggle for basic justice in Mississippi to MTV, hundreds of millions spent on the Superbowl and $25000for Britney Spears ride to the hospital with a 20 vehicle police escort. This is indeed a strange, strange trip we are on.

Somehow, we are each called to hold together the contradictory images and exerpienes of our life. Don't loose your soul, whatever is going on around you. Hermann Hesse writes in his novel Siddhartha, that his hero decides to seek in himself the secret of his own life. But when we find that secret or part of it, what do we do with it. Or rather how can we hold onto each piece of the secret of our life and carry that with us througout our life. Somehow, the world often distract us and we lose at least for a time some of those deep truths about ourselves that we had once found. We almost forget who we are.

I believe in the great power of remembering and reflecting on our own stories to find again and again the pieces of the secret of our life. At the Watchung Ave.Presbyterian Chruch we called it spiritual journaling and a group of us with joyful, fear and trembling would share precious, secret pieces of our story with one another.

That strange saint Franz Kafka wrote: "The early church fathers could go out alone into the emptiness of the dessert because they had richness in their hearts. We with richness all around us are afraid of the dessert, becasue we have emptiness in our hearts." But that is only parlty true. Yes, the richness and dazzle and distraction of the world around tends to drain our lives and hearts. But we each have soul richness--in abundance. Seek and ye shall find. Remember your story. Savor it. Mourn for that which calls for mourning and rejoice in the grace filled moments. Let us find richness in our hearts.

The Hallmark Hall of Fame and Spit Happens

2008-01-28T04:19:00.000-08:00

Last night, my wife and I watched `That Russell Girl' on the Hallmark Hall of Fame. Well-acted, tender, teary,strong story line.

The story centers on a young woman who returns home, while trying to get into medical school. Her parents welcome her warmly, but the family across the street is hostile. We eventually learn that she was the babysitter six years before when a tragic accident led to a child's death. That Russell girl keeps asking whether people believe in karma. She seems to be convinced that she has contracted a life threatening disease, because of her actions.

So we circle around to several of the age old, but ever new and challenging questions. Does God or some life force control all that happens? If that is the case and bad things happen to me, then am I being punished for something I did in this life(or a previous life)? But if God punishes bad people and rewards good people, how come God does such an atrocious job of figuring out who is who and what is what? (Blessedly, the Bible addresses this issue straight on, especially in the Book of Job and in the life of Jesus).

It seems that the Russell girl likely believes that her disease is somehow a result of her actions that led to a child's tragic death. But some bad things, some horrible things, just happen. We must reaffirm our faith in accidents. I saw a child's bib once--remember how little kids drool, especially when they are teething. On the bib, in bright red lettering, it said `Spit Happens". Some of the bad things, even like death, that come upon us and upon those we love and upon strangers and enemies come for no reason at all. Spit happens. It is not that God is punishing you or me or us for our actions or the actions of our ancestors.(Now I think that sometimes God does discipline us--like a loving parent disciplines kids, but that is different. Yes, trying to figure out that difference is a major challenge to our soul's.)

In some part of the Scriptures, the idea that God rewards the good and punishes the wicked is affirmed and promoted. But in the book of Job and in the life of Jesus we find a thundering rebuke to that theology. If we think with compassion about our world, we clearly see the absurdity, even evil of that worldview.

No way can the death of children, innocent children, ever, ever be justified. If you sing and believe that revolutionary song about Jesus loving the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are all precious in his sights, then you know that God wills life and love and happiness for them. So the pain and suffering that children endure, is against the will of God. Why is there such evil in the world, you ask? Great question? We will think about that again.

We have some pieces of the answer. God does not control everything. In Creation, chaos is not destroyed, it is just contained according to Genesis. Spit happens. Some evil things just happen.

And while god may sometimes discipline us, all pain is not a sign of God's punishment. There is far, far too much inequity and injustice in the distribution of pain for that to be any consistent sign of God's will or way or love or justice.

Immigration--beyond Lou Dobbs

2008-01-15T05:56:00.000-08:00

Some candidate on the campaign trail said that they hoped we could secure the borders and come up with am immigration plan so we didn't have to revisit this issue for 15 years. Nonsense, that is.

The US is such a powerful magnet that people will be drawn here from all over the world for economic opportunity and for political and religious freedom. Three months ago I was worshipping in the English Speaking Protestant Church in Moscow. After a week in St.Petersburg, I had seen maybe 5 people of African descent. But in the church the congregation was gloriously diverse with folks from the US, Canada, Britain and Nigeria, Cameroon, Kenya and Ghana. One of the Ghanaians told me that a group of Russian thugs had beaten the ambassador while he was out jogging. A resuregent Russian nationalism unleashes racism.

We in the US of course have a long way to go in truly developing a joyous multi racial and religiously diverse nation. But we have made incredible progress and we are a city set on a hill. We are a land where by and large diversity is embraced--but maybe that is just my urban NJ perspective. But Barack Obama got a lot of white, Midwesterners to vote for him--because of the content of his character and the power of his voice.

I think we should expand opportunities for people fleeing persecution to come to the US. The Statue of Liberty should look over her shoulder and see the whole world and continue her promises but not just to those coming from Europe.

And I think Lou Dobbs is right when he says we should stop or at least slow the flow of people coming into to the US, solely for economic opportunity.(By the way I listen to Dobbs as little as possible.)

Many years ago, at the beginning of what would be a heavy snowstorm, two women came to the church right before dark. They spoke only Spanish. The younger woman was about 20 and pregnant.Neither woman had real winter clothes--they wore cotton dresses and light jackets. What are you doing here? We came from Mexico so that the baby would be born in the US and a US citizen. Do you speak any English? NO Do you have family here or connections? No.

I took them to the refugee center--but thought to myself, this is crazy. Very few countries in the world continue to tie citizenship to the land. Turks in Germany are not German citizens, just because they were born there. Guatemalans in Mexico or Nicas in Costa Rica don't become citizens based on the location of birth. This we must change so we are less of a magnet.

Many immigration issues abound. How will we learn to tax remittances so monies can be used for economic development in the countries where immigrants are sending back funds? How will the US take more responsibility for economic development in those countries from which immigrants come for economic opportunity?

If we ready want to take action on global warming, don't we want fewer people living in high consuming societies like the US? And therefore, shouldn't we work to slow the flow of peopeo into this society?

Somehow, we must wed compassion with common sense. Be a haven for political and religious refuges and less of a magnet for economic refugees.

Sometimes, Lou Dobbs is right

2008-01-09T07:03:00.000-08:00

This political season and the mood of the nation will be hostile to immigrants, especially undocumented ones. Lou Dobb's drumbeat complaints about our broken borders certainly has assaulted some of the good will toward immigrants that has often been at America's heart.

Congregations that i have served have assisted refugees from Vietnam,Poland,Bosnia, Dominican Republic and Slovakia. I helped create a center 24 years ago to support Central American immigrants who were fleeing violence. Often that violence was bought and paid for by the US government. Thousands of Americans reached out to folks who were victims of death squad and wars.

Surely, most Amercians hold deep compassion for those fleeing violence and persecution in the country of origin.

At Christmastime,some of us remember that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were themselves homeless refugees fleeing Herod's political violence and finding safety in Egypt according to the Gospel of Matthew. Amongst all those Christmas pageants that the churches offers, one seldom sees or hears of the flight into Egypt. We don't dramatize the death of the holy innocents.

Jesus was a homeless refugee. He taught us to be compassionate. We are a nation of immigrants and refugees.

And sometimes Lou Dobbs is right! Border fences are stupid--but immigration policy must change.

The Toughest Thing

2008-01-07T06:30:00.000-08:00

One of the joys of being a pastor is to be able to encourage people in their life's journey and to urge them to develop and share their gifts. Lisa von Bradsky is the mother of two girls.Her husband Mark is an engineer. She designs jewelry and writes from her heart.

One of Lisa's beloved friends, who was also mother, died of ovarian cancer recently. Lisa wrote tht following poem in memory of her, but also as an exploration into the mystery of motherhood and love and life and death. I share it with Lisa's permission.

The Toughest Thing

The toughest thing a mom can know
is when to hold on, and when to let go.

When the baby cries for her afternoon nap,
do you lay her down
or hold her in your lap?

As she learns to walk with helping hands
do you pull them away, once you know you can?

As she leaves the house for her fist play date,
do you close the door,
or do you watch and wait?

First day of school do you walk along
or wave from the door till you see she is gone.

when she is all grown up and ready to wed
you give her a hug and kiss on the head.

so you watch from afar and help where you may,
and hold on, but loosely, as your child finds her way.

And when you're called home, and you fight not to go,
It's because you're afraid, they don't know all you know.

But you'll be there to help them from far above,
Because finally,what a mom really is, is love.

Oh,Holy Night

2007-12-30T07:31:00.001-08:00

Oh, the beauty, the joy, the peace, the mystery of Christmas Eve Candlelight Services. At the Watchung Avenue Presbyterian Church in North Plainfield, the early service included the Children's Christmas Pageant. What is it in us all that just delights so much in seeing the children we love so dearly dressed up as angels and shepherds, as Mary and Joseph and the wise men? Singing` Silent Night', as candlelight fills the dark corners of the sanctuary blesses us individually and as a congregation—that song in particularly seems to bring the Holy Spirit into our lives, especially when we have prepared room for that Spirit—for the Christ reality.

After the children's pageant, a young soprano soloist offered up the great hymn, `O Holy Night.' Her voice was pure, lilting, just extraordinary. That hymn is rarely sung in the church, except on Christmas Eve. Musically, the hymn is a challenge with some notes that few people can reach. But the text of the hymn proclaims something of the gift and threat that come from the birth of Christ. One line sings out to the world—

Long lay the world in sin and error pining

Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.

Indeed for Christians, the Incarnation through the person of Jesus is partly about this glorious gift to us of knowing our own worth in the eyes and heart of God. We are the beloved son, the beloved daughter of God, called to transformation and discipleship. This is the good news, this is the Gospel of the Lord—thanks be to God.

But Jesus, the Christ of God, is more than the baby in the Manger. And `O Holy Night' moves on. The third verse proclaims to the world and all that dwell therein--`In His Name all oppression shall cease.' At first, we take a deep, deep breath and feel the life giving words flow into us. The power, the glory, the mystery of Jesus is dedicated to the elimination of all oppression. So that means, O thank God, that all those people and systems that oppress me are contrary to the reality of Christ and so contrary to the will of God. God's purposes are gradually being worked out so this also means that God is working to destroy those systems of oppression and to restrain and control people who are the oppressors. Our hearts are filled to overflowing with rejoicing.

Then comes the moment when we are shocked into a new realization. Jesus would have a word with us and speak to us about how we are the beneficiaries of various systems of oppression and how we consciously and unconsciously participate in those systems. The temple and Rome embodied oppression during Jesus earthly life. Speaking and living over against those systems of oppression brought Jesus to torture and to death at Golgotha. God is working to dismantle and destroy those systems of oppression and I as an educated, white, male, heterosexual, American, Christian pastor have benefited from those systems. I pray that I will have the gift of rejoicing at the destruction of those systems of oppression. `In His Name, all oppression will cease' and all God's people will sing `Joy to the world the Lord has come.'

Then Jesus shocks us again. By his mysterious life and glories eternal reality he infuses us with the understanding that God works in us and through us. So we who sing the songs of Christmas are now enrolled in the Jesus army—that army's just cause is to end oppression—our weapons are truth and courage and love and hope. The enemy forces are arrayed in frightening power against us as they were arrayed against Jesus and his disciples. The battle is painful—many will perish and part of us must perish. But finally, somewhat in this life and completely in the next life, the purpose of God will triumph. Every soul will know its worth—and all oppression shall cease.

Divinum Mysterium

2007-12-24T12:06:00.000-08:00

My brother reminded me of categories we had once used to describe the origins of religion. Religion has roots in Manipulation, Morality, Mortality and Meaning. Previous blogs have addressed some of the issues around Manipulation. Mike Huckabee has unloosed these issues with a vengeance--does his candidacy have the blessings of God? Is he God's will for America? Yikes!

The great gift of religion is to challenge and bless folks in their quest to find and form meaning in their interior life and their life in community. Last Sunday we sang Of the Father's Love Begotten--the music was composed in the 11th century with a beautiful monastic feel and carries the title Divinum Mysterium. Indeed, underlying and flowing in and out of all the other sources of religion is our hunger for and fear of and joy in the Divinum Mysterium.

Why fear you might ask? Reading the gospels, hearing and saying yes to the call of Christ, bearing witness to one's faith, listening to the stories of saints, we must be afraid. When virtually all the early leaders of your faith tradition are tortured and martyred, surely one has a right to fear. Certainly we may have faith in the next reality, but we don't want to put that faith to the test prematurely.

When I have had visions that I believe are of God, I am grateful and fearful.

Christmas asks us many questions. but surely one goes something like this--do you really want to experience even a little bit of the divine mystery, the divinum mysterium.

Pascal was a french philosopher and scientist. His journal from 1654 describes his encounter with the mystery. `From half past ten to half past twelve, Fire!'Not the God of the philosophers and scholars. the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Certitude.Certitude.Emoiton.Joy.Peace.'

Meiser Eckhardt says,"To serve god with fear is good, to serve god out of love is better, but to love God while fearing him is best of all."

at Christmastime,amongst all the activities and festivities, we celebrate finally one powerful expression of the explosive and blessed confrontation between humankind and the Divinum Mysterium.

Christian Resistance

2007-12-19T05:01:00.000-08:00

In the late sixties, I participated in the draft resistance movement as part of the effort to stop the war in Vietnam. Our symbol was the Greek letter omega, which also represented resistance in physics. So as a Christian, even one loaded down with questions and skepticism, I was part of the Christian resistance.

While religion can be and has been used to control and exploit people, it has also been fuel and fire for movements of liberation and resistance and revolution.

The film Amistad tells the story of a revolt on a slave ship bound for the Caribbean coming in the 1840's. The Africans are put on trial, somewhere in New England. The leader speaks with bone chilling power and says `I want free.' The film sears our consciousness with the pain and demonic evil of slavery.

As the slave ships were leaving Africa, priests were shown blessing them on their way. We know pieces of the story of the churches complicity with the evils of slavery. Religion has been and is now used to exploit and even enslave people. As I mentioned in the last blog, that is clearly one of the purposes of religion.

How do we do battle against those systems of exploitation that live in our society and in our consciousness?

At the trial of the Africans, Christians opposed to slavery, some Quakers and some Congregationalists, protest against the slave trade and work to support the Africans. Resist evil. Resist the draft and the war. Resist those systems of exploitation that brutalize God's people and God's world.

Jesus overthrew the tables of the moneychangers in the temple saying that the temple system had become a system of exploitation, a den of robbers. Follow Jesus into the temples of today's robbers and tear the place apart. I mean, isn't that what the Bible says. Isn't that what following Jesus is about? Indeed, remember what Jesus did and then go and do likewise.

In the Watchung Avenue Presbyterian Church, we faithfully and joyfully sang the great hymn O Holy Night at the late service on Christmas Eve. The lyrics include a phrase saying that this holy night is about the soul feeling its worth. The incarnation embodies the beauty, mystery and holiness of the human body/soul. All souls are worthy, honorable, redeemable, loved ultimately by the Creator even as they are being called to radical repentance.

And the song proclaims that `in his name all oppression shall cease.'

Of course, oppresssion continues to rage through the world. Of course, religious peole and institutions use power, sometimes hocus-pocus power, to exploit and even kill people. But that is not what the Incarnation is about. That is not why Jeuss came to dwell among us full of grace and truth. He calls us oer the tumult of life's wild and restless seas to resistance. Christian resistance.

History has answers

2007-12-11T15:41:00.000-08:00

Our question is why is there religion at all. Not many of you wanted to respond, maybe because it is one glorious and scary and dicey question to begin with.

Whether one considers oneself to be religious or non religious, it would seem to be helpful to know why this religion stuff exists to begin with. If we don't have some clear understanding of the various reasons that religion exists, of the various and even contradictory purposes that it serves, then how can we be religious with any intelligent self consciousness?

Part of one response to my previous blog, included the phrase, history has the answers.

Indeed, we can reflect on the history of the people's of the world and our own personal history and then discover one of the uses, the purposes of religion. Clearly, religion is used to control and oppress people.

Walter Brueggeman is a great biblical scholar, dynamic speaker and prolific author. He wrote a short piece about Joseph, Pharaoh and power. He reminded us, that Joseph used his powers of interpreting dreams not only to save his own skin, but to help Pharaoh. From Pharoah's dreams,Joseph had understood that there would be seven years of plenty followerd by seven years of famine. So Joseph stored up the grain in the good years and when famine struck, he brought under Pharaoh's power all the land and people of Egypt.Buy low--sell high. Genesis 47 says that "...as for the people, he made slaves of them from one end of Egypt to the other.Only the land of the priests he did not buy;for the priests had a fixed allowance from Pharaoh." Joseph who himself had been enslaved now becomes the enslaver--his actions are despicable, but he was just being a savvy businessman and a good Egyptian.

In the midst of this human and economic crisis, the priests were allowed to keep their land. Even then, said Brueggeman, the empire needed priests to bless its power and control over others.(Are we 21st century religous types guilty of blessing modern day empires/systems of oppression?)

When I was traveling in Russia, some of this was clear. The church during the Romanov dynasty was expected to bless the Tsar's wars, just like the state churches throughout Europe were expected to support their nation's rulers. That is part of the sad history of the West.

We remember other histories. The crusaders go into battle screaming God Wills It. In the movie El Cid, the Spanish battle the Moors and the battle cry is `For God, For King,For country.' The Klan lynch and burned Negroes defending white Christian civilization. The Catholic Church massacred the Albigensian Christians. Parents over children. Men have oppressed women. The priests/pastors/charismatic leaders have exploited the followers. The Tutsis over the Hutus. The Aztecs over the local tribes. And on and on it goes. People have shaped, created, exploited religion to justify their exploitation of others.

This is one of the reasons we do have religion. Pharoah and all his friends and fellow travelers find it quite useful to appear to have God on there side. Well,at least, that is what the Bible says.

Why do we have religions at all?

2007-12-05T11:20:00.000-08:00

Chris Gibbs holds a Ph.D.in history from the University of Missouri. During the Vietnam War, he served in the military police in Vietnam. He is a novelist and professor of history.Several years ago Chris was asked to respond to a paper given by a Princeton Seminary professor who spoke at our meeting of regional Presbyterian leaders. Chris's comments were quirky, off-the-wall,vaguely heretical. So I really liked him and what he had to say.

Chris attended a class for potential new members at the Watchung Ave.Presbyterian Church where I served for 29 years. I asked the class to share any questions they had about God, religion, the Bible, the Church, the person of Jesus. With a playful smile, Chris said he had a question. "Why do we have religion at all? Where does religion come from?"

Now I was both amused and challenged. "I will have to think about that question some Chris. Let's all think about it for the next class and then we will share our insights."

So the question, my friendly readers, is indeed why do we have religion--what are the sources of the religious impulse. Please send your comments or emails.

Father Charlie Hudson radiated joy and hope and love..

2007-12-04T05:16:00.000-08:00

Charlie Hudson,Catholic priest, created the Center for Hope Hospice with a nurse and friend of his named Peggy Coloney. He was a man of large soul. We became friends about 25 years ago and he would preach in our Presbyterian church and led retreats for us and counsel grieving individuals.

His friendship changed my life. In times of difficulty,I would remember that he was there, cheering for me. When life was abundant, his eyes rejoiced so deeply for me. His presence throbbed with the mysterious and generous love of God.

Charlie had had a heart attack and was a little overweight. He had excellent doctors who designed a cardiac rehab program. As instructed, he was exercising on a treadmill, when another heart attack came. He did not survive. Since he had served God and the people so long and energetically and joyfully, thousands and thousands came to his funeral. Those thousands offered prayers and remembrances and donations of money and time to further memorialze him.

Like Sean Taylor, Charlie believed that when your time comes, it comes.

Since I was jogging on a treadmill when I first read Sean Taylor's comments and since I have survived cardiac arrest, I thought of Charlie. Two of his brothers and his father died when he was in his early twenties. That pain was part of what led into such deep compassion. He certainly had wrestled with all these issues of God's will and death's timing and life's meaning for many years. Yet,we saw God and death and destiny differently. We loved each other none the less. The differences in our perspectives enriched our lunchtime conversation.

Somewhere, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: "But how can we find ourselves again? How can man know himself?... the youthful soul should look back on life with the question:what have you truly loved up to now, what has drawn your soul aloft, what has mastered and at the same time blessed it? Set up these things...before you and perhaps they will give you... the fundamental law of your own true self...for your real nature lies not buried deep within you but immeasurably high above you... There are other means of finding oneself...but I know of none better than to think of one's educators."

I rejoice in the Spirit's giving me Charlie Hudson as teacher of my soul, as friend of my journey.

Does the Spirit not give teachers of power and praise to all of us?

Sean Taylor is Dead

2007-11-30T05:12:00.000-08:00

Sean Taylor was an all star football player. He was murdered this week and died at the age of 24. Shot by an intruder, he was protecting his 18 month old child and the child's mother.

Wednesday I was on the treadmill at Gold's Gym. ESPN flashed words that Sean had spoken some time ago. "It is important not to fear death. when your time comes, it comes. I've been blessed by God.I'm happy."

His life had taken some rough turns and he had been involved in some dicey activities,even before his tragic death. Certainly,family and friends and those of us who only know him through the media, can find a sad contentment that he was happy in himself, before he died.At least that is what he said.

Is it true though that `When your time comes, it comes.' Does God, Fate,Nature allow each person only so many days of breath and life? If that is true, then why do we bother intervening in situations where we are confronting disease? IF God has already decided the number of our days, why bother with doctors or medicine or nutrition or exercise. I think the philosophers characterize this attitude as Fatalism--and yes, in some ways it may help us overcome our fear of death. But as I have argued in earlier posts, I certainly don't believe it.

We can overcome some of our fear of death by faith in some kind of afterlife. Of course, it may just be wishful thinking. But for some of us, we have confidence that something of our essence continues on into the next reality and that confidence is based on our personal experiences as well as the testimony of others.

I choose FAITH over FATALISM. What do you think? How do you choose?

Icons and Spirit

2007-11-26T12:51:00.000-08:00

My host in Moscow was a professor of linguistics and a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church. In the bedroom where I stayed, she had faithfully arranged a dozen icons on a wall. On the facing wall, at the same height, she had placed maybe 20 family photos. I found the juxtaposition inspiring.

I have come to believe that God is revealed to us more through the spiritual struggles and stories of family and friends than through the stories and legends of the saints. I believe that God works in our lives, giving us dreams and visions, guiding us and chiding us and blessing us along the way. Certainly, too, the world has been enriched, especially by the spiritual autobiographies of people from Augustine to Annie Lamott. But God calls us especially to look into our own story, our own memories, there to find the spirit.

God is revealed to us sometimes in icons--but especially in those photos of our family and friends and all that lives behind their pictures. My host's grandfather was murdered by Stalin--her father jailed--released to fight for 4 years in the tank corps during WWII--her mother at 84 is still energized and heroic. Our special photos speak to us of the long journey of family and friends to find meaning and happiness,love and hope.

Those photos too remind us of how people betray the image of God within them. Family and friends and we ourselves, sometimes, distort love and abuse one another.Sin and evil abide in us all.

But some days,some moments, sometimes the light of eternity shines through us. And some days, some moments, sometimes, the light of eternity has shone through others. That light has been light to us in times of terror and darkness on our journey.

As the light of God shines through other souls, we receive light for the path and then we sometimes become light for others. The light we receive and the light that guides us and the light we share is not constant like the sun. Nor is it fleeting like a shooting star. This light is intermittent, irregular, sometimes unavailable when we feel in desperate need, sometimes a surprising interruption when we feel complacent.

So yes, for some folks icons open their hearts and minds to the mystery of God. But is it not true that God comes to us, intermittently, through our family and friends, through our life's journey and so through those precious photos that tell something of who we are?

Chaos and the Bridge of San Luis Rey

2007-11-25T07:28:00.000-08:00

My host in Moscow gave me an icon of St.Grigory slaying the dragon of chaos. St. Grigory is the patron saint of Moscow. I became intrigued by the contrasting images of Grigory slaying the dragon and Peter controlling, the writhing, but still living serpent/dragon in Falconet's statue of the Bronze Horseman.

The dragon is an ancient symbol of chaos with the nuance that chaos itself is often thought of as evil. Does chaos sometimes come into our lives bringing disruption, destruction and sometimes even death? Does that chaos come from God or does it just happen?

Recently we rented a movie version of The Bridge of San Luis Rey, with Robert de Niro and Kathy Bates and a great cast. Published in 1927, the novel tells the story of a monk who investigates the lives of 5 people killed where a bridge collapses in Peru.

The movie was disappointing but led me to reread Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey. The book is only 117 pages--so please go for reading the book, because such a deep compassion for the human reality flows through it. Somehow, the movie just doesn't evoke that same deep emapthy for our struggle for life and love and meaning and happiness. The Thornton Wilder Society's website says that Wilder wrote the book partly in tension with his father's Puritan sense that God controls life, rewarding the good and punishing the wicked.

Wilder is quoted a saying "Strict puritans imagine God all too easily as a petty schoolmaster who minutely weighs guilt against merit.They overlook God's caritas which is more all encompassing and powerful. God's love has to transcend his just retribution. But in my novel I have left this question unanswered. As I said earlier, we can only pose the questions correctly and clearly and have faith one will ask the question in the right way."

One thing the movie does extremely well is to help us understand the political implications of this question about God's control of life. The viceroy and the archbishop burn at the stake the Franciscan monk who dares suggest that maybe God does not control and ordain all natural events and bless all power arrangements. God and chaos--is it a war to the death or is it a dance that embraces life and death.

At the end of the story, the Abbess who runs homes for the sick and orphans as well as for the sisters reflects on the lives of those who died. 'Now learn', she commanded herself,'learn at last, that anywhere you may expect grace.'

Chaos and unexpected grace!

Moscow

2007-11-24T05:09:00.000-08:00

Even more than most cities that I have been in, Moscow bursts with contrasts and contradictions. Under Stalin, the Russian government destroyed thousands of churches. Some were converted to swimming pools or warehouses or stables. Now the government is building Russian Orthodox Churches, including a new Cathedral downtown. I believe that this was the church originally built to celebrate the Russian victory over the Turks in 1877. A powerful statue of Tsar Nicholas II dominates the courtyard outside the church. Nicholas appears regal and in control of his mighty empire. Didn't quite turn out that way.

Riding the wonderful metro system, the traveler gets off at the Kropotkinshaya Station, named to honor Prince Kropotkin. Kropotin died in 1921 at the age of 78. He was an explorer and geographer and author--and also an anarchist socialist, who was jailed for his revolutionary activities in Russia and France. He supported the February Revolution and was dismayed by the Bolsheviks.

Kropotkin is buried at the Novedichny Monartyer. Visiting the monastery with a friend, we listened reverently to the sisters chanting the liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church in Chruch Slavonic, a language which most worhsippers do not understand. The music is glorious, the mood solemn and mysterious. From the icons, intense eyes watch the faithful.

One particular painting on the ceiling suprises me. Jesus and God are jointly crowning Mary, Queen of Heaven while the Holy Spirit in the form of the dove hovers nearby. Since the Greek word for spirit is feminine, the painting proclaims a dramatic balance between the masculine and feminine in the mystery and reality of God. I think Carl Jung would have approved.

An Orthodox priest spoke with us. He had become a priest after perestroika, when he was married and middle aged and established in his career. Then and now, with the church's resurgence, there was a high demand for priests. At his ordination, he removed his wedding ring symbolizing that he was now married to the church. I sensed parishioner's deep veneration for their priests.

Since I had seen icons in 5 art museums and a dozen churches,I asked him about their role in religious life. Without hesitation, he said that there are many miracle working icons in Russia today. Respectfully, I listened.

I had determined to come to Russia to observe and learn and especially to be reverent before other people's religious experiences. Feeling privileged, I had observed parts of 4 Orthodox services, including ones at Novedichny and the Nevsky Monastery in Petersburg. Now though I thought to myself, this focus on icons doesn't make sense to me. Yes, icons have a deep beauty. But those elongated faces, piercing eyes and lips that never smile don't carry spiritual power for me.

I remember the scene from Tolstoy's War and Peace. In 1812, before the battle of Bordodino,as Napoleon threatens to capture Moscow and destroy the Russian army, the holy icons are brought out of the churches to the battlefield. Officers and soldiers kneel and pray in reverence,yearning to be blessed and strengthened for battle. The battle is indecisive, but Napoleon's aura of invincibility is dispelled. The icons had been brought by the priests to the battlefield for the soldiers, for the army, for Holy Mother Russia.

The Tsars, of course, wanted people to believe that God blessed them and their cause in battle. God would lead them to victory. After victory, after the destruction of our enemies, we will say prayers and build churches.

Visiting the Russian Empire, I struggled as always to think about the dynamics of the American Empire. This crusader, holy war mentality in 1812 or 1877 or 2007 is just archaic barbarism,isn't it, and condemned by the revelation of Christ.

The Bronze Horseman

2007-11-21T09:05:00.000-08:00

While traveling in Russia, I had the privilege of speaking with a group of university students in Moscow who were majoring in computer programming and languages. Wonderful, bright, hope-filled young people. I told them that I had been blessed and challenged by the experience of thinking about the American Empire while I was traveling and reflecting on the Russian Empire. They seemed to understand.

Our topic was America in the sixties and the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement. They remembered hearing about the hippies. I assured them that yes there were some hippies, but really few in comparison to the total student population.

We were thinking together about empires. The week before I had been in St.Petersburg. In the evening, I walked from my small hotel on the Moika Canal to the square behind the Hermitage/The Winter Palace. On this plaza, Father Gapon and others led tens of thousands of people in the winter of 1905. With icons and placards they implored the help of the tsar. They sought food and work and hope and recovery from the humilaition of the defeat by Japan. But Nicholas was not at home. The Cossacks guarding the palace fired into the demonstrators killing hundreds.

I walked on along the Neva River. The city is lite in spectacular fashion. Awe is a great word. Be prepared for awe as you walk the banks of the Neva and look out to the Fortress of St.Peter and St.Paul. (Why would anyone name a fortress, prison, torture center after Peter and Paul?)

A long walk it is to the incredible statue of Peter the Great, called the Bronze Horseman. But coming up on it a nigth, having passed through the square where hundreds died in 1905, seeing the beauty and brilliance of the buildings along the Neva, I was stirred to see the statue of Peter. Only a few other people were there. My camera couldn't take a good picture and I didn't find one of the statue at night on Flickr. So maybe a friend will send us one; or I or one of you will have to go back with a better camera.

Peter sits forcefully astride a beautiful and powerful horse. A snake, still very much alive and so a threat, writhes under one of the horse's hoofs. Beneath the snake, carved in granite, are the powerful waves of the Neva and through them of all oceans, all watery chaos.

The symbolism of Falconet's sculpture,paid for by Catherine the Great is clear. A powerful ruler, a great autocrat, like Peter, and by the way like me,Catherine,masters the forces of man and nature, builds whatever the cost,in order to hold back the waters of chaos. Catherine's name on the statue is in the same size letters as Peter's. God bless Peter, God bless Catherine, as they lead us at whatever cost to victory over chaos, over the waters, over our enemies.

But the snake is not dead, only under the horse's hoof, for the time being.

The funeral director

2007-11-19T16:34:00.000-08:00

This morning I led a funeral for a very troubled man who died from a ruptured spleen in Hawaii. I had known him and his family for 30 and been in a variety of painful and difficult situations with him.

Riding to the graveside, the funeral director and I were talking. He said that the typical cost of nursing home care in our area ranged from $7000 to $10000 per month. When people have less than $2000 in assets, the government picks up most of the costs.

I said without hesitation that I had thought about the end of my life and costs for many years. Dr.Kevorkian is absolutely right, say I. People who are ready to die or choose to die now rather than drift into dementia or whatever should of course have the right to die. They should have both the means and the courage to move on to the next reality.

Jesus says I have come that you might have life and life abundant. When life abundant is no longer a possibility and given the faith in eternity that Christians supposedly carry in their hearts,of course, they are ready to let go.

Surely, people who believe that Jesus loves all the little children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, would not want to waste $10000 per month on health care from themselves when their quality of life is gone. Surely, Christians hearing the call of Jesus would say that they know that that money could mean life for maybe hundreds of children in Namibia or Bangladesh or maybe dozens in America. What we do with our money says more about what we really believe than a thousand prayers!

Love one another not in word alone, but in deed and in truth. Even when it is costly and scares the daylights out of you.

Tomorrow, we go back to Russia and religion and politics and icons.

Ibby's Cancer

2007-11-15T14:22:00.000-08:00

Steve Caputo is a long time friend. He is an attorney and we have worked together through a housing corporation and a refugee center. In August, his vivacious, well educated, compassionate daughter, Ibby, was diagnosed with Acute Leukemia. On September 25, she sent out the email that follows from her hospital in Boston. I share it with their permission and with the firm conviction that her struggle and compassion will touch your soul.

"Hi,

I wanted to share two experiences I've had recently. The first was a few days ago.

A doctor around my age came in during morning rounds. Brigham and Women's is a teaching hospital, so many of the doctors rotate, and I am one of their learning tools. Once I figured this out, I started to resent it and have not had much patience for the young, inexperienced docs. When I first got admitted and diagnosed and my carefree life suddenly snapped into something else, I was obsessed with the age of my doctors, especially the one who told me at 1:27 AM on August 27th that I had Acute Leukemia. She looked like me. Long brown hair, dressed well, young smiley, she even had on a turquoise ring. It was like the mirror was telling me I was sick.

Anyway,the other day a young doctor comes into my room an asks me how I'm doing. I respond by asking, "Mentally, physically or emotionally?" because I am never sure what they're asking after. She said all three so I told her: I woke up depressed,I had crazy dreams and my stomach is cramping.

Then she came around the other side of the bed to listen to my lungs, etc. and she asked me how long I've been here and how I was diagnosed. I told her the story you already know: I came in a month ago because of an infection and fever; I haven't left since.

Then the most amazing thing happened. She started to cry. The doctor. She put her hands on mine and then hugged me. She said she had a Buddhist prayer wheel she would try to find to give me. She hugged me again, still crying. I told her she was a good doctor. She kept apologizing for crying and after she had washed her hands and face at the sink, she stood in front of me and said,"It's just, I'm 28, and it could be me in that bed or one of my friends".

When she left I experienced an incredible stillness. I'm her and she's me. I suspect other doctors have had this thought and I suspect other have denied it--I can tell by the way they treat me--but this doctor had this thought and let me know it. She calmed something in me.

Now I have to tell about another experience.

I woke up yesterday morning tormented by such horrible anxiety, I couldn't lift my head off the pillow and yet I couldn't keep it still.

I felt like I was suffocating. Like I wanted to crawl out of my skin and escape. Be someone else. Be on a ferry to Marhat's Vineyard. Be working at the radio station or coffee shop. Be having a completely inane conversation. Anything else. It lasted almost all day long, until around 2 pm I curled into a crying ball with my head in the lap of my brother. I'm a strong fucking independent woman. I've never experienced vulnerable like this.

Steve stroked what is left of my hair. When the moment passed, he said, "See, you got through that moment."

I've been on a steady stream of Valium since then and I finally feel on top of the panic, at least for right now.

During that panic, though, for a moment while in the fetal position, my higher self kicked in and I realized how lucky I am: I'm suffering in a hospital, where people are nurturing me, where they are fighting for my survival, where I can get drugs like Valium, where I'm consistently being loved and supported by family and friends. I thought about all the other people in this world who are also suffering--experiencing intense claustrophobia in their pain. Most don't get the perks I get.

I shared this thought with a nurse much later on in the day and she advised me not to think about other people's suffering. I did not say this to her, but I think ignoring other peole's suffering is like ignoring the inevitability of death. Blink. It's still there.

These experiences are some of what being sick is like for me.

Love,

Ibby

Her website is ibbycaputo.com

Pete Seeger:the power of struggle

2007-11-14T09:04:00.000-08:00

For Pete Seeger to say the 'we' in 'we shall overcome' is everybody makes sense only after a lifetime of struggle. By his life and witness, by his sacrifices and scars, by his glorious successes, he has somehow earned the right to offer an image of all of us overcoming together.

But first of all, we must hold on to We shall Overcome as a source of energy and courage for people marching on picket lines and trying to register to vote and going to jail and joing hearts and hand in mass meetings. People sang it in Gdansk,in Tianimen Square, in Pretoria. Are they singing it today in Pakistan. People need to sing their souls into their various struggles for justice.

I do believe that somehow God is present in the world through Christ(and others) reconciling the world to God. I believe in ultimate reconciliation--ultimately, we shall overcome together.

In the meantime, find the songs or write the songs that give power to the people, that lift up the downtrodden, that give courage and comfort to the afflicted.

Hannah's song. Mary's song. Your song. My song.

Thank God and Pete Seeger for the power of struggle, and of song.

Pete Seeger:The Power of Song

2007-11-12T07:13:00.000-08:00

Pete Seeger stirs my soul. Listening to his songs and thinking about his life just challenges and blesses my heart. I am grateful to God and the spirit of life and love and justice that Pete Seeger walks the earth, breathing the air and making music.

Blessedly,I saw the documentary in New York City last week about Pete's life and love and song and struggle. The movie,"Pete Seeger:The Power of Song" gives energy and joy to our struggle--because it reveals so much of the life of a humble and happy and courageous and gifted human being.

Pete Seeger and the power of his songs and singing has lifted up the hearts of millions. Let us sing and take courage. Let us sing and in singing believe that we shall overcome. Let us sing the refrain about the troops in Vietnam--bring 'em home, bring 'em home. Pete wrote a song about the Vietnam War, called "Waste Deep in the Big Muddy." The song tells of an officer who leads his soldiers into the big muddy river and as it deepens, the officer, the big fool, can only say march on, march on. The officer marches on to his death and then the troops turn and seek to escape the morass of the big muddy. Seems like we better start singing those songs again. Sounds like a reality we know today all too well.

While Pete Seeger was being blacklisted for his prewar membership in the Communist Part and his associations with people like Paul Robeson, his musical group the Weavers recorded the hit song "Goodnight Irene". Later,desperate for work, the group agreed to do a commercial for a cigarette company over Pete's strong objections on ethical grounds. He left the band. .

The movie includes rousing scenes of Pete leading groups in singing justice songs. I was on a retreat with Pete Seeger at Kirkridge Retreat Center in Pennsylvania several years ago. Maybe sixty of us sang "We shall overcome" with both nostalgia and renewed energy. Whatever kind of personal or political mess we were in, we had hope, because of one another, because of Pete and his witness, because of the power of song, because of our faith that the Lord will see us through.

Pete was asked about the song "We shall overcome", since he had written some of the verses and done so much to share the song and energize it. Who is the 'we' in the song. Who is going to overcome? "Well,the we is everybody--finally, we are going to overcome together." That's what he said.

O deep in my heart I do believe that we shall overcome someday.

The justice movement urgently calls us to start singing together again--to lift up our hearts, to mellow our souls, to give joy and clarity to our minds and courage to our lives.

Journey

2007-11-11T05:35:00.000-08:00

Someone wrote,`Every journey has a purpose that the traveler is not aware of.' When I was anticipating traveling to St.Petersburg, I planned especially to visit the art museums and historical sites like the Cruiser Aurora and the Peter and Paul Fortress. The Aurora was part of the Baltic fleet that sailed around Africa to do battle with the Japanese Navy in 1905. The Russian fleet was destroyed and the mighty Russian Empire humiliated. As one of the few ships to survive, the Aurora returned to be anchored in the Neva River, which flows through Petersburg. The Bolsheviks won control of the soviet, the sailor's committee, on the Aurora in 1917; that control hastened the downfall of the Provisional Government. Walking the deck of the Aurora and looking across the river to the Winter Palace is to live among ghosts of war and revolution.

I think about religion and God and spiritual experience alot. I planned to visit some churches certainly. My hotel window opened onto a vista that included the cupolas of the Church of the Spilt Blood. I discovered that in Petersburg fairly recently a museum called the Museum of the History of Religion had opened. That museum featured incredible, life sized modern icons. I was so fascinated that I stepped forward for a closer look and set off the security alarm, which was designed to keep visitors at least a foot away from the icons. Musuem was sparsely visited--very quiet.I am sure that was more excitement than the staff had experienced in weeks.

In retrospect, what surprises me about my whole journey is how many worship services I ended up wandering into. I visited the Kazan Cathedral on my first evening in Russia and stood for a while with maybe 40 people as the priest chanted the service. The Nevsky Monastery complex includes Dostoevsky's grave. I went on pilgrimage to the grave site and visited the monastery chapel. I found myself in worhsip. When I arrived in Moscow, with a friend we visited and then worshiped at the Novedichny Monastery.

My heart has always been stirred by the questions of who are we, before God, and how does God dwell among us and how has religion blessed us and cursed us.

My Russian is limited. But the liturgy's carried me back to high school days, when our Russian teacher invited us to attend the Russian Orthodox Church where he was the music director. The Monastery reminded me that in those same high school years, we had visited an Orthodox monastery somewhere in upstate New York. Of course too, my thoughts turned to Father Zossima and Alyosha and the monastery of Brothers Karamazov.

Amused at myself, I thought well I have retired as a full-time minister, but I am and always will be a person on spiritual journey, pondering some and praying some.

One of the few parts of the Orhtodox liturgy that I could understand was Godpodie Pomelie. Periodically, the people would chant this phrase meaning God have mercy.I wondered how this phrase chanted over the centuries has shaped the souls of believers. Is God some kind of absolute monarch,like the tsar, and we God's humble people can only approach with an attitude of servility, pleading for mercy?

I'm sure me understanding is too simplistic. But the question of how is God really in our lives torments and blesses me and i hope it does the same for you.

Nikos Kazantzakis tells a story of an old Greek soldier coming to the gates of heaven,slinging his musket off his should and firring a shot. An angel says `Do you think God is going to open the gate, just because you fired a shot." No, says the old man,but I want God to know that I have returned from fighting the wars.

Where is god when we fight the wars? When we are on journey? When we are lonely? When we are ecstatic?

Geschichte

2007-11-09T14:20:00.000-08:00

As we think about God and history, I remember a conference at the University of Chicago Divinity School, which I had the privilege of attending from 1967-1969.

Scholars were addressing an audience made up largely of pastors. German theologians were very much in vogue in those days. Moltmann and Bultmann and Barth and Brunner. Their ideas and categories structured many academic debates. Did anybody finally care in the congregations? No one was ever really sure. Maybe, they did,maybe they didn't; but this was seminary and our task was to think deeply about religion and worry about the application later. A good task it was and is.

Anyway, the scholars were debating and discussing the issues of history and holy history. The German words were `geschichte' and `heilgeschichte'. Back and forth the debate sometimes raged, but more often just limped along.

At the end of the day, one seasoned, gravely voiced pastor stood and spoke briefly and to the point. He said,"We've heard today a lot about geschichte and heilgeschichte, but as far as I'm concerned, it's mostly horsegeschichte."

Symbols of Conquest

2007-11-07T03:49:00.001-08:00

The inscription on the small church monument in Moscow indicates that it was erected to thank God for the Russian victory over the Turks in 1877. With the cross ascending in triumph, the crescent is subjugated beneath.

While in Moscow,I spoke to a group of English speaking students about America in the sixties and the various movements that I had participated in.I shared with them how fascinated I was by the opportunity to reflect on the nature of the American Empire through the lens of my being in the Russian Empire. We worked our way into the issue of how nation's tell their story. One student said that as a young person he had believed that the Russian army never lost a war. Indeed, I saw no monuments to the Crimean War or the war with Japan in 1905. Yes, those Russians really just want to focus on their armies' victories.

Have you ever noticed that the History Channel offers maybe 8 or 10 times more programs about WWII than about Vietnam. When George Bush wants to drag and deceive the nation into war, he describes the enemy as part of the axis of evil. Remember the Axis, especially the Nazis--well, this is the new axis, but they are just as evil and we are as good as ever. So let's march. Onward Christian Soldiers. Wrap the consciousness of the nation as much as possible in memories of the good wars or at least the relatively good wars. Tell them the enemy is of the devil. God is on our side, because we are good Russian Orthodox Christians or good American Christians or whatever. Our cause is just and we will win. After victory, we will build some kind of monument to thank God for blessing us.

In the US, we sometimes sing,"God Bless America". I especially love the phrase where we urge God to stand beside us and guide us. But I am finally appalled at any implication that God's preoccupation is mainly to bless us Americans and to ignore or even curse those others.

At the end of Dickens' Christmas Carol, Tiny Tim cries out in joy and thanksgiving 'God Bless Us Everyone'. That's our prayer. That's our true song.

How can we come to tell the stories of all the nations, of all the people in such a way that honors everyone for are we not all children of the Creator? How do we tell our own personal story with truth and integrity? How do we tell the story of 'our people'? Who are 'our people'?

Conscience and History

2007-11-06T12:01:00.000-08:00

I believe we are called urgently to free ourselves from the idea that God controls history and chooses some people to prosper, to win the wars and chooses other people to die.

I share a quote from the beginning of Karl Lowith's book Meaning in History.

"History no more proves or disproves the incomparable value of a singe man's righteousness and heroism in the face of the powers of the world than it proves or disproves the existence of God. Of course, individuals as well as whole nations can be hypnotized in to the belief that God or some world-process intends them to achieve this or that and to survive while others are going under, but there is always something pathetic, if not ludicrous in beliefs of this kind. To the critical mind, neither a providential design nor a natural law of progressive development is discernible in the tragic comedy of all times. Nietzsche was right when he said that to look upon nature as if it were a proof of the goodness and care of God and to interpret history as a constant testimony to a moral order and purpose--that all this is now past because it has conscience against it. But he was wrong in assuming that the pseudo-religious makeup of nature and history is of any real consequence to a genuine Christian faith in God, as revealed in Christ and hidden in nature and history."

Lowith tells us the truth, but doesn't calculate the true cost of the belief that God intends people or nations or kings or dictators to achieve this or that. Millions have been brutalized and killed, controlled partly by fear and partly by that belief. I still feel the beauty and mystery of the St.Petersburg. Yet, I hear the anguish cries of dying peasants and soldiers and women and children. When our conscience sings yes to Lowith's perspective, then we are called to battle against the deep evil of the idea that God has chosen or blessed one particular group or nation to achieve this or that, to conquer this land or that land.

NO EXCEPTIONS. GOD IS NOT ON OUR SIDE.

No Exceptions

2007-11-05T08:05:00.000-08:00

Last Monday, I participated in a dialogue with Muslims, Jews and Christians. God knows, we need to work and think and pray our way into mutual understanding and respect.

In the mid nineties, I realized that the only mosque I had ever been in was the El Asqa Mosque in Jerusalem. Since then I have accompanied youth and adults 3 times to the Islamic Canter. I still feel very ignorant, even though I have studied Islam some and read much of the Koran. At this conference, about 50 religiously diverse folks gathered around the theme of THE LOVE OF GOD.

For decades, I have been preoccupied with the question of whether God loves one particular group of people more than other groups. Did God love Abraham and his descendants and promise the land to them? Did God love the Jews and say you are my special people and the others are second rate and second class? Did the Christian Church then receive that mantle from God and with it a mandate to evangelize with water and with the sword, when necessary. Does God have favorites? Are there exceptional peoples? Are there nations or groups who are so favored of God, that the rules of life and history don't finally apply to them?

When I was in seminary in the late sixties, we read a classic theological text by G.Ernest Wright called THE MIGHTY ACTS OF GOD. Wright claimed that God acted in history, freeing the Hebrew slaves from Egypt, creating the kingdom of Israel, rewarding and punishing the people and the kings. Having sent the prophets for guidance and judgement, God came to dwell amongst God's people in the person of Jesue. Out of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus arises the church. God intervenes in history. God can be known in the rise and fall of the nations. God ultimately chooses who wins the wars. Oh, the wheels of justice grind slow, but they grand very fine.

I believe the truth lies elsewhere. There are no exceptions. The love of God flows to all peoples(as does the judgement and discipline of God). If the love of God flows to all people then the claim that God chooses one group over another or blesses one group and really doesn't care much about the other is exposed as an effort to capture the mantle of God's blessing for a group's selfish purposes.

'God wills it' proclaimed the crusaders a millennium ago. God wills it proclaim all crusaders. In the interviews that Richard Nixon gave to David Frost, Nixon finally says with wearied frustration but with deep conviction, 'If the president does it, it can't be illegal.' This notion that I as a person am above the law or that Russia or Israel or America or South Africa is above the law has birthed great evil.

When Christians and Jews and Muslims talk together, we must address these issues or we are just being nice and wasting time.

Years ago, with a group of wonderful 5th and 6th graders, we were studying the story of the Exodus. So what to you think I asked about what the Bible says here. It says that God killed the first born children of the Egyptians in order to force Pharaoh to let the peope of Israel go free. Do you think that God would have killed children?

Their answer brought joy to my heart.

Depression

2007-11-04T05:07:00.000-08:00

At the end of Brothers Karamazov, Alyosha seeks to rally a group of boys whose cruelty has led to a child's death. He speaks to them and he speaks to us about cherishing those precious childhood memories of joy, love and happiness. The word is true. Alyosha has left the monastery at his spiritual father's urging to find his way and his soul in the world. He is in his early twenties at the end of the novel. So maybe it is particularly true for us in our early twenties as we launch off from the shores of our biological and spiritual parents that happy memories will sustain us.

But when we are in our forties or sixties or eighties, we need new and varied sources of sustenance. In midlife, I faced a time of significant depression. I didn't seek professional therapy and wasn't on medication. My wife helped me where she could. But sometimes I shut her out. I drank more than was good for me. Several friends provided some buoyancy as I felt my psyche tossed around by violent waves.

One morning, I was journaling in response to the question--what helps me fight off the depression and find happiness. Happy childhood memories were not enough.

Then and now, I believe that four primary areas of life bless me and strengthen me and lift up my heart.

I.Sexual love brings joy and gratitude and connection with the creation of life.

II.Sports,especially basketball,for me cleanses my body and soothes my soul.

III.Spirit and the soul's journey into God challenges me and you--there is a way home.

IV.Success. The demon of depression wanted to obliterate those places in my life where good things were happening and where blessings were flowing and the fight for justice was occasionally being won.

To do battle with the enemy both outside us and within us, we need more than happy memories from childhood.

Links for Dostoyevksy

http//www.dartmouth.edu/~karamazov

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky

The Gift of Loneliness

2007-11-03T08:36:00.000-07:00

Of course, loneliness can feel like a horrible curse that threatens to crush our soul. I think especially of the loneliness that sometimes comes in the midst of a loving relationship. This man or woman sitting across the table from you or lying in bed next to you, whom you love deeply, has become almost a stranger. Something huge and ugly has come between you. There is no levity, no joy, probably no sex, maybe few if any words. Some pain filled crisis in the relationship has frozen body and soul. Causes vary dramatically. But into the midst of long term loving relationships, the curse of this kind of horrible loneliness enters on some occasions. And it is as if a black hole exists between two people sucking all light and love and happiness into it. So, yes, loneliness can be a curse.

Yes, but loneliness is a gift. While traveling in Russia, I met relatively few people who spoke English. In my wonderful, small hotel in St.Petersburg, most visitors where European or Russian and we never seemed to be able to coordinate dinner plans. So for a week, I found my way to restaurants that had been recommended by a friend and ate alone. The first 3 nights I felt very uncomfortable. Self consciously, I would drink my beer slowly and hope that the service was prompt. I would look around at happy laughing couples and families and groups of students. Not many other folks dining alone. It is not an experience I have had very often.

Loneliness or being alone though leads me to think alot about my life and story and journey. I missed my wife and yearned to be able to share the days and nights with her. But then I decided to bring my journal to dinner. At a restaurant called Faces, I observed a young woman who also happened to have brought a journal and I realized it isn't such a weird thing to do. I journaled about the day but also about old memories. In the spirit I found myself carried back into my stories and the beautiful and painful soul adventures that I had shared with others. I came to love going to the restaurant alone, with my journal. I felt surrounded by a mighty cloud of witnesses from my life and I was engaged in holy dialogue with those witnesses. There is a great gift in this kind of loneliness.

2007-11-01T06:19:00.000-07:00

Evil

Winston Churchill said of Neville Chamberlain that he had a `limited imagination for evil.' I am angry and nauseated by niceanity--that religion that turns the power of Jesus into a call to be nice. Smile--God loves you. Yes,ok--but what about the love of God and people we have loved dying excruciating deaths. What about the love of God and those faces of the starving and dying children besieged in Leningrad in 1943?

Christianity and any other religion/world view that is worth anything must have some power/some word to say/some reality to point to that will enable us to confront radical evil. Yes, we will be scared, we will be terrified, but from deep places within us and within the universe we will find courage that has had a strong imagination for evil. This courage will have been forged in the pain and suffering of our own life. This courage will have been tempered by the waters of the tears and sufferings of others. We will remember loved ones and friends and ancestors back generations. WE will honor them by telling the truth of their life and by searching out something of the truth of their times. Memory will heal us and make us strong for the battle.

In spirit, our souls connect strangely over the centuries to particular people. Oftentimes, we identify with and rejoice in the stories and struggles of people that we know though their creations and through stories others tell about them. It is as if they give some of their soul's blood to us. We can live more vibrantly, because they lived so gloriusly even with their sins and sufferings.

Back to Brothers Karamazov. One of the brothers, Ivan, torments his brother Alyosha with stories of evil done to children. According to his notebooks, Dostoevsky gathered the stories from newspaper accounts laying bare much of the evil of the human soul The chapter is called Rebellion. I will write more of Ivan in postings to come.

To be in the beautiful and fascinating city of St. Petersbuyr and to walk the streets and visit museums was a great joy. And I felt the evil present in the memories, in the stories of Petersburg,in its history, in the deaths of millions. I saw the hollow eyes of the dying children of the siege.

I want to have a strong imagination for evil. And you?

The Joy of Children

2007-10-31T07:32:00.000-07:00

Our granddaughter celebrated her 5th birthday in October. As I wandered the streets of St.Petersburg two weeks before her birthday,my thougths often turned to her and her exuberance and joy. Children are magical. Yes, Dostoevsky is right about our being sustained by hopefully happy memories of our childhood. Even one memory he says. certainly, we all yearn and hope for ourselves and others that we have many more than one.

We fill our hearts at least part way with joy when we embrace our grandchildren or see them smile or find them happily mastering a new task. To touch and be touched by the blessed children in our lives sustains us for the battle.

Our granddaughter lives in Sweden and my wife and i spent a wonderful week with her and her mother and family. she rides her bike with joyful abandon. Hills are for climbing. Walls--well you can go over them or walk on them. Always stop and playgrounds and explore. Love life--love your little sisters--be creative--be joyful--share joy.

Yet, walking the streets of St.Petersburg, my mind was haunted by the lives and faces of other children. Something like 800000 people died in the 900 day siege of Leningrad during WWII. at the museum of Defense of Leningrad, hollow eyes stare out of the faces of 8 year old children as they pull their sled to try to find some firewood. How does the fate of children, the cruelty they/we have endured shape our soul's response to the world in which we live?

Gratitude

2007-10-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

I offered the meditation at a memorial service last Saturday and found myself called to use a phrase of Annie Lamott's. For her, prayer that focuses on our personal reality cries out--`Thank You, Thank You--Help Me, Help Me'. That prayer was particularly relevant for the bereaved family and all of us at the service. Annie Lamott wrote a glorious spiritual autobiography that she named Traveling Mercies. She describes some of her life struggles, her battles with addictions, and issues of body image and with poverty. Somehow, there were for her traveling mercies and her journey led to a place like home and a room like happiness.

Somehow in our culture and especially in the culture of the church, we must find our way to be touched and blessed by the real life stories of true heroes of life's journey. The questions stirs me and I hope it stirs you--who do you deeply admire? Whose stories challenge your soul?Whose face causes you to cry out Thank You, Thank You? Whose presence opens your heart to the mystery of life and opens your spirit to those moments of Presence?

Several weeks ago, I was in St Petersburg. I had chosen to study Russian in 1959, my first year in high school. I was good at it and eventually went to college with the intention of majoring in Russian and physics, so i could help save America by making bombs, better than the Russian bombs. My study of Russian fortunatley led me to Dostoevsky and in particular to his great spiritual epic Brothers Karamazov. I read it 3 times in high school and many times since. In some ways, I now realize, the book saved my soul. Besides Dostoevsky though, I am fascinated by the course of Russian history. So I had also come to see the city of Peter the First and the city of the revolution and the siege. I knew the art of the Hermitage and the Russian Museum would be glorious.

I visited the Nevsky Monastery on an unusually warm October day and felt so privileged to visit Dostoevky's grave. The spacious apartment where he wrote Brothers Karamazov and lived happily with his family is now a museum. Since I was visiting outside the usual tourist season, I was privileged to wander the apartments virtually alone. Dostoevsky's life bore the burden of turmoil. He was a gambler and so often lived under heavy debts. He was jailed by the Tsarist police and suffered a fake execution. Toward the end of his life though, his wife managed his finances and family happiness surrounded him. In the apartments, there is a display of a handwritten note from one of his daughters that says `I love you daddy.' In Russian, of course.

I am not only grateful for Dostoevsky's life and gift to the world--I rejoice that he found joy in his family as he was writing Brothers Karamazov. Standing by his desk, the visitor can imagine him writing through the night by candlelight and with his quill pens. Brothers Karamazov confronts the deep evil in the human soul and the multitude of ways that evil flows out in the world to bring torture, destruction and death to God's beloved children. Dostoevsky leads us on a search for hope. The youngest brother Alyosha adopts a band of troubled young boys and at the end of the novel says this to them:`

`You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one's heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us.'

Help Me, Help Me--Thank You, Thank You.

2007-10-29T04:47:00.000-07:00

This will be a journal in which I share and reflect on memories of my involvement in movements for social justice over the last 40 years as well as my experiences as a pastor in Presbyterian churches.I want to share personal stories and images especially as those stories illuminate the struggles of faith and the search for happiness and meaning.

I like to travel and listen to others. I was recently in Russia and some early entries will respond to that experience.

I invite you to participate in this journal of memory and spirit, politics and culture, faith and skepticism.