Let your light shine...

Light is the symbol of truth by James Russell Lowell

I have looked at this poster for some time--and felt its message about light representing truth.  I say "felt" instead of "understood" because truth is less a movement of the head and more of transparency--the seeing through to the heart of things.  Do we all know the story of the mother who walked her child through Westminster Abbey.  The little girl stopped and said, "Oh my, look how the saints let in the light."  Transparency is the medium for the truth--it lets in a reality that is greater than we are.  Saints let in the light and people saw and experienced truth.  They did not learn it in a a classroom with a formula.  That is rather the process for learning what is correct!  Think on this one.  Who is it in your life that lets the light in and what does that mean to you?  They let you see into the heart of things...or as Philips Brooks, Anglican Preacher said, "personality is the medium of the truth." That's where we let the light in.  Just as others have let in the light for you--how is it that you let in the light, become transparent for others?  Jesus answered it this way.  Live toward God, and the light shines in and through you.  He called himself "the Light of the world."  He let in the light of God.  I wonder.  As we live toward Jesus, is that how Christians let in the light of God? 

Black Friday Blues

The most cynical among us say...."First we get our food fix on Thanksgiving Day and then Second we get our shopping fix on Black Friday."  Big Business always knows how to covert the Holy-Days in holiday madness and rush. There is quite a contrast isn't there between Black Friday and Good Friday--which big business has never been able to pervert.  Oh, it wraps Easter up in sales as well--but not Good Friday.  Exactly what do you do with a Holy-Day with a death at its center?  One sells life in commodity--the grand illusion that we are what we buy.  The other is that life comes by giving life away.  How will you spend Black Friday giving life away rather than "getting and spending we lay waste our powers?" 

 

Thanksgiving 2013

Begin Thanksgiving on our Knees 

At the heart of thanksgiving is a broken heart.  It has tasted of the world and the world has wounded it.  Yet, we begin our knees to say thank you, God.  All of the Presidential Proclamations setting aside Thanksgiving came from a people warn out from war and hardship.  At the heart of it all comes joy of being in God's embrace and living into the future that belongs to him.  The author, MSMerwin, writes just such a sobering piece that pierces to the heart of what this special day is all about. 

Thanks
by W. S. Merwin
Listen with the night falling we are saying thank you we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings we are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and say thank you we are standing by the water thanking it smiling by the windows looking out in our directions   back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging after funerals we are saying thank you after the news of the dead whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you   over telephones we are saying thank you in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators remembering wars and the police at the door and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you in the banks we are saying thank you in the faces of the officials and the rich and of all who will never change we go on saying thank you thank you   with the animals dying around us our lost feelings we are saying thank you with the forests falling faster than the minutes of our lives we are saying thank you with the words going out like cells of a brain with the cities growing over us we are saying thank you faster and faster with nobody listening we are saying thank you we are saying thank you and waving dark though it is

The day before Thanksgiving...

The Day before Thanksgiving is GIVING THANKS!

I stood in the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts and looked at this paint--remarkable in the series of 4 Freedoms, masterpieces all!  What struck me about this painting called "Freedom from Want" is precisely the lack of food on the table.  Look at it.  What do you see?  Not much.  However, I do see that everyone is looking across the table at each other.  Do you suppose that the real freedom from want is not literally food but relationships--heart to heart giving thanks for each other?  That's probably not what Rockwell intended--it is the turkey after all as the symbol of the bountiful banquet that is center stage.  But! as with all art, once painted and released, it stands on its own--an independent messenger in its own right, completely open to interpretation.  Albert Camus said that our deepest hunger is to be recognized as a human soul--and that without that recognition, the soul feeds on itself.  The life of gratitude is every day's opportunity to feed and be fed in our relationships...just as the bread and wine, literal elements, become something infinitely more than any of us can imagine--such as our neighbor across the table in communion with us.  Thanksgiving is a day away, alright--save the appetite--and acknowledge the deepest hunger met in love of God and neighbor. 

Now I lay me down to sleep...

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless
the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen.

                                                         Book of Common Prayer

Is the picture of Jesus really so juvenile to be a turn off for most people.  I wonder.  Despite all our maturity, who are we really in the arms of Jesus?  Perhaps as we go to bed, this picture can set the day in perspective.  Who are we really before Jesus? 

Most of us grew up with “Now I lay me down to sleep.” Now, I suspect that many of us (including myself at times!) just fall into bed.  This prayer from the service of Compline comes from The Book of Common Prayer.   I like to keep a prayer at my bedside just to read before I go to bed.  I like to have that one thought in my mind rather than the many that race through from the day

King of Kings...

King of Kings and Lord of Lords....Alleluia!

This Sunday marks the world wide Christian festival called "Christ the King."  At the end of the season of Pentecost, what is it that we say about who this Jesus was and is for us--that he died labelled as the King of the Jews, rose as the Son of God for those who seek him.  What kind of King?  The kind that dies to give up live so that others can receive the life of God.  So goes the Christian narrative...

What a contrast with the world power--to grasp, to gain, to control--even dictate!  Pardon the parallel with the actions of the US Senate which went with the nuclear option--to scrap the 200+ year rule of Thomas Jefferson for expediency, to get their way with judges.  Ultimately, history will judge who is correct.  Were Senators Obama and Biden correct when they decried the Bush Administration for even mentioned it--"I pray God," Biden said, "that when the field of play changes, we will not do the same thing."  Well???  Or, now that they have done it--will history look back and say that democracy was saved from partisan poison?

The point is the contrast--the utter and complete, stark, abject CONTRAST with the power of Jesus, not the love of power--but the power of love--which St. Paul said in his timeless 1 Cor 13 passage does not "insist on its way."

Those who wear the crown of Christ are called to give it away in love each day--by not insisting on your way, but giving up your life.

St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians, Chapter 2: 5-11

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature^[a] God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Reading the Signs of the Times

Birds fill the trees

I was coming out of LLBeans when the air filled with birds!  Thought I to myself--"get an umbrella--f-a-s-t!  I watched as they filled the trees then took off and returning to them--a spreading blanket enfolding three maple trees.  A massive flock moving as one!  I wondered how they could communicate to move in such a coordinated fashion--what kept them together? This was not the perfect "V" shape geese with the leader honking the way--this was a moving cloud of birds on remote control lifting off and flying--then returning to roost with a loud noise saying what I could not understand- I am told that flocks of blackbirds, grackles, cowbirds and the like form these migratory flocks and get ready to head South--they saying quite clearly:   

fall is flying on the wing!

How did they coordinate so well?  Who was the leader of that band of birds?  Surely, despite our expectation for us to follow us--we have to communicate carefully and with intention for others to get where we are going.  The single most regrettable phrase???  Oh, I am sorry, I assumed....  Sometimes we have to move at the pace of the heart, which grasps more than content, but emotion.  Sometimes the cyber world turns us into an extension of them rather than the other way around.  It just requires a slow down step by step approach which confirms what has been heard. 

How do we follow Jesus?  Where do our assumptions come into play?  Read the signs of the times, Jesus said, and then step by step talk to Jesus in prayer.  We do that, said CSLewis, not to make upo God's mind but to change ours.  The Spirit is always on the wing--calling us out, to be at one with God.  Listen, watch, as the Spirit fills the trees. 

JFK: Where were you when he died?

Do you recall where you were when President Kennedy was shot? I was sitting in my 5th grade classroom in Briarwood School in Florham Park, NJ with Mr. Uhleman was my teacher.  We were informed by the Principal shortly before we left.  I can still see 2 girls in particular walking down the hall and crying.  When I arrived home, I told my mother the news.   I can still see her reaching for the radio and the look of shock on her face. Then followed the solemn days when I recalled that drum beat of caisson.  
Ask anyone alive from that era and they will tell you with graphic detail where they were and what they were doing.  It was a death in all of our families and therefore written on all our psyches. For those who were not alive at that time--they themselves are conditioned by the tragic story as well.  An entire nation looks back to him and that day in Dallas.

I have stood at the site of the eternal flame...felt the silence and awe of a nation that stood there on that day when I was just a fifth grader.  Nevertheless, I too was drawn there in 2013.  I saw the simple markers, plain white crosses, for his brother Robert and Edward.  A grateful nation salutes their service.  A living faith in God kneels down and feels the power of the Spirit that transforms death and those who have passed into the divine prodding into the future.  

 A living faith is just that--alive, really alive NOW. We are not keepers of a museum--or cemetery for that matter.  The word from the angel in the Garden of Resurrection was this in a paraphrase: "Why are you looking for the living among the dead?  He is not here. He has risen, just as he said."  

The Address

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

This week, we passed the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, one of the finest speech given in our nation. Lincoln lifted up the soul of a nation, with all of its bloodshed, and blessed its sacred purpose for our future. Ken Burns, the great Civil War commentator, has set been asking people to memorize the 2 min speech.  A commercial ran on television in which former presidents and other notables recite parts of the speech.  We ought to take the nation's soul to heart and commit its words to memory--Burns says. 

Passing throguh the Culture Zone.

I was walking around WalMart looking for a funnel--that common kitchen tool to pour something from one container into another.  I looked all over--nothing--and then despite being a man, I walked up and asked for help.  The look on the young woman's face was abject fear--I had crossed the culture zone.  She was clueless about what I meant. But you know what?  She did not back out, but hung in there by playing the game of scherades.  Then, she seemed to understand and began leading me to different parts of the store.  Finally I could see where she was going--into hardware where she found this blue funnel.  She lit up--"Funnel!"  Yes, slightly larger than what I was looking for--plastic and not metal--but hey, good job!  I did my best to smile, give it the thumbs up and act pleased.  I bought this funnel.  It will always remind me of the young woman who braved the culture zone and did not use it as an excuse to shrug her shoulders and walk off. 

Exactly how many languages do we speak?  Can we read body language and act it out?  Do we have the courage to enter the culture zone with others and at least try?  Sometimes we ourselves have to pass through a funnel to move between people.  How about the eye of the needle that Jesus said it was easier to pass through than a rich man to enter the Kingdom?  Holding onto everything--especially the pride of our own cultures--are we willing to let go and pass through the eye of a needle?  Yes, I shall always smile when I use this oversized plastic blue funnel meant for a gas can! 

Prayers in a Tornado Washington, Ill

Washington, Ill. 

I sat gripped at my TV watching the replay of a man filming a tornado headed straight for his house--and in the background, you could hear his voice reciting the Lord's Prayer.  One force explodes outward. The power of prayer turns inward and holds us together.  Both were in each other's path.  The man survived to give the filming to CNN. 

But no sooner did the tape stop--then the commentator said, "And now we switch to other news for the day--does birth control cause blindness?"  Really!!!!!  Have we so lost our feeling for the tragic loss of life and the devastation of community that we can switch to birth control?  Annie Dillard has said that we as a people have become like Mohawks losing their fear of the heights where the Spirit soars.  Do we have a feel for the sacred--or is news just news upon news? 

Not to lose the main point--that in the very worst of times, when "the center cannot hold," as Matthew Arnold said in The Second Coming--we find prayer left at the center where the Spirit soars and lifts us above the bitterest of loss. 

A Teenager's Anguish

Luci Baines Johnson

The nation is remembering the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. However, for Luci Baines Johns--the 16 yr old daughter of Vice President Johnson--her memory is an everyday occurrence. She was the Cathedral School when somebody came into her Spanish Class and said that the President had been shot. From that time on, Luci remembered nobody asking her about her parents.  Then the secret service agent showed up--one that she knew very well. When she saw him coming, she suspected the worst and took off running. Once he caught up with her, Luci remembers him saying that he was "so sorry, so very sorry...." According to her report, he did not tell her that her parents were alight.  Fortunately, before school was dismissed, she was told that her parents were alright.  As soon as her mother returned, she went straight to Luci to comfort her.  That's the key in her recollection.  The one who loved her the most also came to her just as soon as the plane returned from Dallas. 

Amidst that whole event, who had time to think of a teenager--but her mother who went to her side immediately.  We may have experienced our own traumas.  There is no forgetting them.  But who do we remember was there for us, going through it with us, and just being there? 

That was God's promise.  The world is not fair.  It is full of slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. But he promises to walk through whatever valley of the shadows of death that we must cross.  None of us can rewrite our person stories. What we can do, however, is to retell them and remember who was there for us...and the One who was there us in those who walked with us. 

Get out of Bed!

When I woke up this morning I asked myself: 

What are some of the secrets of success in life? 

I found the answer right there in my room. 

The fan said: Be cool,

 the roof said: Aim high, 

the window said: see the world,

 the clock said: every minute is precious, 

the mirror said: reflect before you act, t

he door said: push hard for your goals. 

And don’t forget, the carpet said: kneel down and pray.  

Have a nice day!

"All about God, brother"

Stan McNeil, fired Rutgers Bus Driver

"I don'€™t regret none of it. I said this is who I am. ... 
I am all about God, brother."

Yes.  They probably had to fire the guy.  He crossed the line alright.  A public bus driver evangelizing on a bus.  Too far in today's society.  Apparently there was a woman in a wheel chair and he prayed for her by laying his hand on her.  He had been warned by the bus company before--and this was the last straw.  The bus company has a right to contract for a certain level of work standards.  Oh, Stan, you stepped across them!  

However...

More than 1500+ students signed and delivered a petition for his reinstatement.  There's the story. Stan meant something to these students--a real, authentic person who truly cared about them as individuals.  I'll take that over some robot who follows professional standards without one word of genuine care.  

So what does it mean to witness to our faith?  Does it mean going the lengths of Stan?  Some denominations teach that.  Why compromise the message, they would ask?  

At one point in my life, I visited inmates in jail.  Scared me to death at times.  I met with one person who said, "Alright, you can come in, but no God talk!"  So I went in.  For more than a year, I visited and avoided the God talk.  I like to think God was still visiting in me--by genuinely caring from one person to another.  When he was released, he called me on the phone.  All he said was--"Thanks man!"  He initiated the call.  He found the words.  They were as close to God as you get, a true Holy Communion....with the word "thanksgiving" meaning "Eucharist."  I did not have to explain it. 

Rob Brown Lawsuiit

Sean Connery & Rob Brown in Finding Forrester

We are always sorry to hear about what appears to be racial profiling--and that is the case in the story of actor Rob Brown, best known as Treme.  The actor purchased a $1300 watch from Macy's and was accused of using a bogus credit card despite having even his birth certificate.  He was led away handcuffed to a holding cell, until they recognized who he really was--and then in a magnanimous gesture, drove him to a graduation ceremony where he presented the watch to his mother. 

Here's what caught me.  I was in the other room getting a cup of coffee.  I vaguely heard the story, but not the names.  When I heard Brown's voice, I immediately said, "That's the student from Finding Forrester...."  Is it really?  Had I recognized the voice without the face?  The point is that I never realized who that actor really was who played opposite Sean Connery.  A quick google of the movie revealed that it was Rob Brown in that very early role--when I was so impressed that I remembered his voice. 

That is the unconscionable evil in racial profiling.  There is a profile of the likely suspect--a high percentage type of person which then leads to the "stop and frisk" laws.  Despite his identification, Brown reports that authorities would not even look at it until he was behind bars.  A much less notorious event happened in my life.  I was pulled over for going under the speed limit and "hugging" the center line.  It was also 12midnight and that is the "type" or profile for the DUI driver trying not to look suspicious.  Once I got out of the car--it was crystal clear that I was sober.

Who do we see in our neighbor?  How do we size people up?  Jesus was constantly after the connection between those who appeared to be down and out on society's margins and the children of God.  His was a profiling for the better. "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it to me." .  (Matthew 25:40)  Maybe it takes recognizing the voice and profile of Jesus in those around us -- calling us to our neighbor.

The REAL Typhoon

BEFORE  and  AFTER the Typhoon 

The picture tells it all, doesn't it?  Look at the devastation!  And yet can we see the real typhoon...the winds that continue to weep with misery and grief from a community torn asunder?  It is one thing entirely to calculate size and strength and quite another to see the destructive power done to human lives that will stretch down through generations.  The loss of one life obliterates a whole chain of beings!  The deeper picture is this loss beyond human understanding.

In the same way, Jesus is at the root and we the branches of God's kingdom.  We date our lives with his birth--not just our own.  All of us are in his line and lineage from grace to grace in this life to the Life given for eternity.  Therein lies our only hope...

Amy Robach's Gift

Amy Robach, Good Morning America Host

 I have 'very little family history," Robach wrote on the network website, and I "considered it virtually impossible that I would have cancer."  Yet she did...and at age 40--some 50 years before the standard mammogram is given and despite criticism that mammograms are ineffective predictors.  Where would she be now without that test?  One more point.  She had the test done live on her show. It was another way to draw viewers.  But it saved her life.  What was meant for others came back as a gift for herself.  Now, the story is making the social media rounds--and hopefully, to save other lives as well.

Just sheer luck that she had this mammogram?  Only a gimmick to draw viewers?  Yet, it is the Spirit of God to use our extremity for God's opportunity. Now that this has happened, Amy, how will you treat your life and what will you take for granted?  A taste of our own mortality wakes us up to the truth of our temporal lives and an openness to their gift. 





Robach wrote on Good Morning America’s website that she has “very little family history” of the disease, and “considered it virtually impossible that I would have cancer.”

Read more: Why Mammogram Guidelines Would Have Missed Amy Robach’s Cancer | TIME.com http://healthland.time.com/2013/11/12/why-mammogram-guidelines-would-have-missed-amy-robachs-cancer/#ixzz2kVEtxejc

Conducting the Holy Spirit

I thought I bought a front row seat in Baltimore to hear The Planets.  What I got instead was a ring side seat to see the Spirit.  In the pre-Planets piece from Stravinsky, a violinist came out to play supported by the orchestra.  The relationship between conductor and violinist was electric--it ignited before my eyes!  Each drew from the other amazing sounds in the soul. It was an unmistakable conducting of the Spirit for me. 

Can I say anyone else experienced that?  Did anyone else feel the power of the Spirit?  On the way out, I met an astro-physicist who came for the pre-concert lecture--actually, the director of the Hubble Telescope.  He also had slides that played during the performance of The Planets.  "Oh yes," he said," the violinist was quite good" as he went on to talk science. I was standing there feeling "electrocuted" from the power of the Spirit.  He was in another world completely. 

The point is that the Spirit moves and flows and CREATES!  It gives life, builds up, and raises us to God's presence.  We have all been given one amazing ticket of grace for this life in the Spirit. It comes as we become at one with others.  The nearness to the relationship between conductor and violinist was electrifying....and it drew me into it's greater life. In Jesus Christ, God draws us into the heart of the Spirit which conducts us -- so to speak--into God's life.  Frankly, I do not need that explanation!

The Veterans' Gift

Slowly I walked through Arlington National Cemetery.  I had been there about a month before as I escorted a widow to her husband's final resting place after a long, slow death from Parkinson's. We found her husband's marker--the very first time that she had seen it. She tried to hide the tear in the corner of her eye--so I pretended not to see it.  In the silence of the moment, the newly marked grave made him a part of nearly 500,000+ veteran's who said, "Welcome home! Be at rest with us in the ground of our nation we have served."  
 

 And for his wife?  The gift of countless years that death could not erase...that even then she was finding ever so slowly as a new source of life for her. 

Let us pause for that community that extends around the world--our veterans who paid the ultimate price for the gift of freedom in which we live this Veteran's Day 2013.

Breathe New Life

My Autumn Walk

By:  William Cullen Bryant

On woodlands ruddy with autumn
The amber sunshine lies;
I look on the beauty round me,
And tears come into my eyes.

                                                                                                (stanza 1)

This poem delights me--and there are many more stanzas.  It is this first stanza that says it all--the autumn falls about us...and rather than the pall of death, we breathe in life of color and crisp air.  Tears come to our eyes, perhaps by whisp of wind or the beauty of color--before us is the grandeur of God.   

And when was the last time you dropped what you were doing to see what God is doing around you? 

Steel Magolia Wisdom

Sally Field:  "Don't you realize Shelby that you could lose your life?" 

Julia Roberts:  "Mamma, I'd rather have 30 minutes of joy that an empty life." 

I was trying to get to the bathroom of all places--but my wife was insistent that I remain long enough to hear what she thought was one of the most important lines in the movie.  There are many pressures in life!  Then I finally heard the lines from above--and I disagreed--not the best line in this movie, but any movie--top ten anyway.  In Steel Magnolias, Shelby (Julia Roberts) was to have a baby -- even at the life risk posed for her as diabetic.  We now know that she dies a few years after giving birth--the worst nightmare came true!  Did that negate her wisdom that what you give your life for also gives the meaning in your life?

Jesus was certainly clear--that no greater gift could be given than to give your life for somebody else.  And we came to see that Jesus was also talking about himself and his death on the cross.  As we move into fall months--streaming toward the holidays as the stores remind us--what are we willing to give our life for?

Now, the real story is that when we lived in Louisiana, a group of our friends drove down to where the movie was being filmed and got into the group shots--and some of the characters--like the physician, the soloist at the wedding, the little girl who dashes off the porch at the beginning--to name just a few.  Of course, we loved seeing the movie with all of them in it.  No remorse at all that we missed out.  The real story is what happens when we actually play a part in God's story and do more than just act in our lives--but rather--find even small ways to live into the sacred plot that God has given us--knowing that he wrote himself into it with his Son. 

Every little star....

"Even a little star shines in the darkness...." 

 

I recently visited Maine and kept my ritual—on the very first night, I went for a walk in the darkness just so that I could see the evening stars. Coming from a metro area, I just never get that same impression of the stars lighting up the darkness—light that began countless years ago, now reaching me in my lifetime. 

It is said that “even little stars shine in the darkness.”  The light that reaches me from long past is a sign of nature’s enduring gift.  Then, I thought of grace…and how the life of those who have come before me still shine into my life and light the way. Surely, with eyes of faith, I see in that light the one Light uncreated that shines forever—and we, even in our temporal lives—are made to reflect that Light.

I don’t stop walking at home in the night.  I still seek the light, dimmed though it is in this place—nevertheless, I never stop thanking God for the light of other lives and the Light that tells me that I am embraced in a much bigger world than even nature itself—the Kingdom of God.   

The Google Barge?

Google's Barge, San Francisco

The rumors have "floated" for weeks now--what is the mysterious barge from Google that is docked in San Francisco Harbor?  Apparently, Google has enjoyed the attention and free advertisement. The speculation has ranged from the bizarre to new age wonders. Finally, Google came clean today by saying that the barge is a new technology center for people to learn its tech.  Really?  Anybody buy that?  So still the rumors fly while the practical ones are now only speculating as to where it will dock. 

Such was the speculation about Jesus.  Tell us, plainly, who you are?  So Jesus flips the question--by whose authority did others do these works?  Hint, hint...    He was in essence saying, "Have you learned from your experience with me?  Can you not see for yourselves?"  Or as he said to Philip, "Have I been with you this long and yet you do not know me?" 

There is just no limit to how seemingly reasonable people can distort the appearances of some things while denying the reality of what they see.  One is a barge,  No overt clue to what it is.  The other, this Jesus--well now, that is another case, isn't it?  Jesus calls us to examine his life and works and decide for ourselves--and that takes discernment, spiritual eyesight (insight!). 

I wonder.  Which way do our lives tend?  Toward speculation or insight?  Jesus and who he is for us lies at the center of the choices. 

At the Speed of an Angel

I saw a framed saying today--"Never fly faster than your angel."  Good advice.  Native Americans are said to have hiked for three days and then rested for one--so that their spirits could catch up. The Judeo-Christian practice of Sabbath observance is the same idea--to refocus your relationship to God. Regrettably, many of us fly at the speed of technology--instant everything, all knowing data--with human spirits that cannot interpret, use, let alone catch up to. The all too familiar phrase is--"There's a ghost in the machine!"  Human automatons...  The idea of flying at the speed of your angel is to seek the wholeness of the soul, of the sacred in the soul over and against the race of the world.  Do we need multi tasking or single hearted devotion to God?  It does not mean that we cease from our responsibilities.  It means we take them seriously enough to order and priortize them according to the great commandment (Love God and neighbor as self).  Madeleine L'Engle raises this question:

"What if Mary had been so full of herself 

                      that she did not have time for the angel?

Hawkeye Pierce and MASH

Just when I think I have seen every MASH episode, a new one shows up and leaves me laughing.  That is the point of the show.  Despite the war, we laugh--breath out and in--and let go and experience a taste of grace.  It is not dark humor in the pathos of war. The sense of humor marks us as humans--and in MASH--it never seems to be the casualty--but goes on--even after Henry's plane goes down and he dies. 

The show I saw tonight was titled, "All for the want of a boot." The hole in Hawkeye's boot in the cold winter leads him to do anything--and get everyone to do just about anything that ultimately can lead to getting new boots.  He bargains away creating a long list of "if you do this, then I will do that" and so on through a dozen people until in the end Hawkeye is to get his boot.  The plan ultimately fails.  The promises are revoked one by one like dominoes. Hawkeye loses his chance to get new boots.  The last scene has him walking out with a golf bag on one leg. 

And is that what we say about grace?  Is it ever revoked?  Does God go back on his word or give his Word in Jesus Christ?  It ought to make us sit, relax, and breathe in as we all sing "amazing grace." 

For Those We Love But See No More...

 All Souls Day, 2013


 "Bless O Lord, those we love 
but see no more and grant them eternal rest and peace in the presence of the risen Christ. Amen+"




I listened to a conversation that a person was having with one of my past professors...

"Dr. Price," she asked, "But where are the dead?"
 "They are with Christ," was all he had to say. 

But it was the way he said it with upraised finger of confidence. 

I also read a poet who answered that question by writing:

"Where aren't the dead?"  They are always with us and at all times alive in us.  Sometimes, however, we lack the assurance of the presence of Christ in whose Life all are alive....forever.

I mean to be one too....

       I sing a song of the saints of God, 

            patient and brave and true, 

            who toiled and fought and lived and died 

            for the Lord they loved and knew. 

            And one was a doctor, and one was a queen, 

            and one was a shepherdess on the green; 

            they were all of them saints of God, and I mean, 

            God helping, to be one too.   

                                               Lesiba Scott (1898--1987)

Careful...handle with care! 

I was raised on that beloved hymn, text and images for sainthood. 

Now my world has opened and I see saints as those who say what they

believe about Jesus Christ by what they do....and not necessarily confined to the 

stereotype of the church.  Then I saw this image...of the saint feeding the saint.