Memorial Day Column

Memorials are designed for memory and to honor those who have preceded us. Churches are often filled with memorials, large and small. Memorial Day has a bit of spice in it with the recent push to remove Confederate memorials from some cities. I am torn about it. Part of me fears that we think we can erase a history by removing unwelcome images. Part of me grasps that both the government and individuals speak through memorials. I do acknowledge the courage and military prowess of the south during the Civil War.

Part of me has no patience for Confederate memorials. So many dot the southern landscape and call back to the terrible antebellum days of slavery. After the Civil War, the “Redeemers” even got their romantic view of the struggle into all history books. The silent movie Birth of a Nation is testament to its power. Whom and what we memorialize is expression with real purpose, and the proliferation of memorial for the Confederacy in the next generation tried to claim that stain on our country as being in the right. . No matter how much we may claim we are honoring valor, we are also memorializing a regime dedicated to the maintenance and extension of slavery in America. Mayor Landrieu faces this question in removing some of the Confederate memorials in New Orleans: ". . . the monuments in question are history, . . .: why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission . . . "

Memorial Day always remembers the fallen. Our cemeteries are too full of memorials to those who died too soon in war. Memorial Day started as Decoration Day as part of the cult of the dead after the carnage of the Civil War. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the great jurist, was a Civil War veteran. When he died, his uniform was in his closet in Washington. He was asked to make Decoration Day talks, and here is an excerpt of one-”the generation that carried on the war has been set apart by its experience...in our youth our hearts were touched with fire…. we are permitted to scorn nothing but indifference...Such hearts--ah me, how many!--were stilled twenty years ago; and to us who remain behind is left this day of memories. Every year--in the full tide of spring,--there comes a pause, and through the silence we hear the lonely pipe of death. Year after year lovers wandering under the apples trees and through the clover and deep grass are surprised with sudden tears as they see black veiled figures stealing through the morning to a soldier's grave. Year after year the comrades of the dead follow, with public honor, procession and commemorative flags and funeral march--honor and grief from us who stand almost alone, and have seen the best and noblest of our generation pass away.

But grief is not the end of all. I seem to hear the funeral march become a paean. I see beyond the forest the moving banners of a hidden column. Our dead brothers still live for us, and bid us think of life, not death--of life to which in their youth they lent the passion and joy of the spring. As I listen, the great chorus of life and joy begins again, and amid the awful orchestra of seen and unseen powers and destinies of good and evil our trumpets sound once more a note of daring, hope, and will.”

week of may 28 reflections

Sunday-Ps. 68 imagines a powerful protective god. In v. 6, we get “ God gives the desolate a home to live in.” What sort of home do the desolate need, physically, emotionally, spiritually?

"The body loves slowness. Slowness creates more space for greening to enter our being, allowing us to experience the lushness of the body. Of course, the contemplative loves slowness as well. For me, the heart of the contemplative path is slowing down and paying attention, becoming fully present. When we get anxious we become disconnected from ourselves; our thoughts start to race and grasp. When we are always running from one thing to another, we lose ourselves and a fundamental connection to the body.--- Christine Valters Paintner

Barbara Kingsolver-There once was a time when Thoreau wrote, “I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.” By the power vested in everything living, let us keep to that faith. I’m a scientist who thinks it wise to enter the doors of creation not with a lion tamer’s whip and chair, but with the reverence humankind has traditionally summoned for entering places of worship: a temple, a mosque, or a cathedral. A sacred grove, as ancient as time.

"The invitation of [the prophet] Nehemiah is not just to action, but purposeful action. It’s not enough to be busy. . . .Nehemiah saw the bigger picture, the larger vision and worked tirelessly in small, pragmatic steps to achieve the goal set before him."--- John Valters Paintner,

When I’m hurting or afraid or anxious, it can be hard to go to sleep. So by reviewing the day, I remember I was caught, I was loved. I can go to sleep, trusting for gifts of love tomorrow. “For what am I most thankful today? When was I most fully alive? How did I receive love? How did I give love?” This practice of prayer, from the examen of Saint Ignatius, helps many go to sleep.-Br. Luke Ditewig

Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt-Avoid dividing the world into “us” and “them.” If you do, you will harden your heart. There are not two worlds, one in God’s hands and the other one not. There are not two species of people either, one totally under God’s rule and the other completely outside of it.

Michael Jinkins- Remember that however difficult it is to be merciful and to love kindness it is the thing God requires of us especially when we are seeking justice. Humility demands that we never stop recognizing that we are not God, that we don't know the mind of God. But we do know this: we do know what it means to see a man sent by God broken on a cross built by human hands, and we do believe that seeing him, we have looked into God's heart.

Reflections for Week of May 21

Sunday-Ps.66:8-20-speaks of god hearing a prayer. When do you  think a prayer is heard? When do you think it is not heard, if ever? What  impels the wish for a prayer to be heard?

Monday-Maya Angelou-Many believe that they need company at any cost, and certainly if a thing is desired at any cost, it will be obtained at all costs. We need to remember and to teach our children that solitude can be a much-to-be-desired condition. Not only is it acceptable to be alone, at times it is positively to be wished for. It is in the interludes between being in company that we talk to ourselves. In the silence we listen to ourselves. Then we ask questions of ourselves. We describe ourselves, and in the quietude we may even hear the voice of God.

Tuesday-"What I know to be really, deeply true, is that when we are awake, when we have the courage to always be looking at a wider and more embracing horizon, that we will always be on a threshold of one kind or another. Perhaps you were hoping to arrive somewhere. But the journey is really about discovering that we are always in motion, always listening to what is awakening and being birthed.”

--- Christine Valters Paintner

Wednesday-Help me to journey beyond the familiar/ and into the unknown./Give me the faith to leave old ways and break fresh ground with You. Christ of the mysteries, I trust You

to be stronger than each storm within me. I will trust in the darkness and know

that my times, even now, are in Your hand. Tune my spirit to the music of heaven,

and somehow, make my obedience count for You.—The Prayer of St. Brendan

Thursday-"God's glory is the human being fully alive," said Iranaeus in the second century.imagine the Christ in you as fully alive--reaching outward into infinity of space and time--reaching downward into the earthy dust of this finite life. To live fully alive involves tension linking heaven and earth in us as Christ's body-Ira Groff

Friday-HATE IS AS all-absorbing as love, as irrational, and in its own way as satisfying. As lovers thrive on the presence of the beloved, haters revel in encounters with the one they hate. They confirm him in all his darkest suspicions. They add fuel to all his most burning animosities. The anticipation of them makes the hating heart pound.Buechner

Saturday-Wisdom from the Talmud: "We do not see [and hear] things as they are; we see [and hear] things as we are."

Sermon notes on descent into hell

Acts 17:22- to establish a foundation of common ground with an audience. Paul looks around and notes religious adherence in temples and statues and plaques. For a while, our temple to commerce was the mall, but they are falling by the wayside , it seems. Sports stadium is a clear temple and ballpark village. We used to gather around the national hearth, the TV and watch Ed Sullivan on Sunday night and speak of it around the water cooler.We do share things: cell phones, internet access. The uniqueness of the Athenian sermon within the book of Acts allows it to emphasize this point: you don't need to quote the Bible or recite the history of Israel in order to explain the gospel. Sometimes poetry, natural theology, and human experience provide an excellent starting point. Certainly, all people face death. . In part, one learns it as one goes along. All organizations develop some of their own language to speak about its concerns. Can it be any surprise that we have specialized language to speak of the divine? At the other side, to what degree is it a real obstacle for folks?

I Pet. 3:13, AKMAdam 3:18 to 3:22 emphasizes with fourfold repetition God's determination to bring people to safety: by preserving humanity through the ark, by Jesus' self-giving on the cross, by the effects of baptism, and by Jesus' ministry to the dead. No people have been excluded from God's saving grace--not even the dead.  -it is a boundary situation between Calvary and Easter-In the abode of the dead, Jesus is bringing to life. Calvin comments, “And surely no more terrible abyss can be conceived than to feel yourself forsaken and estranged from God, and when you call upon him, not to be heard.” In other words, hell in the Creed is defined by the cross of Jesus Christ. Hell is godforsakenness. To enter into this state is what it means to descend into hell.By descending into hell, God in the person of Jesus Christ places the worst that can befall human beings within the redeeming embrace of the cross.cannot be confessed independently of Jesus Christ. It is inextricably linked to his name. He did not evade hell. He entered into it. Hell is now defined by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He determines it. He holds its keys. He “made it” to hell and back. And because he did, and thereby did for all what they could not do for themselves, we can firmly hope that all will “make it” together with him. That Jesus Descended into Hell . “What the coming judgment eternally rejects may be said to be not the creature ‘made in the likeness of God’…but the creature as cursed or accursed by all that stands in opposition, including self-opposition, to the creature’s own good.” Christ “descended into hell” is thus “the sum of our redemption.” There is absolutely no possibility for us and for all creation that is beyond the reach of the Triune God’s unfathomable, unquenchable, and irresistible love (James kay)

John 14:15 so often we feel as if it is all up to us, and we are like the lawman in High Noon where no one will stand with us.paraclete stand alongside you advocate helper counsellor-of counsel-I will not leave you desolate or orphaned-the is the abiding presence of Christ with us-note well this is a community gift, not individual gift giving this is for everyone and is not limited to those who demonstrate certain charismatic gifts who who recite certain phrases-no second class status for the christian. Spirit reminders and dementia’s amnesia as giving cues in a stage whisper.(see long’s whispering the lyrics and Jimmy in the Sacks story)Even in death god is with us.

Column on seeing a child in adulthood

I just saw our eldest daughter in Champaign Thursday evening. She is giving a presentation at a conference at the university. For a parent, that is a source of both pride and astonishment.

One of the things we chatted about surprised me. She started pushing me for memories and information about Watergate. So often, schools do not get close to current times in U. S. history, so that is a sort of hazy, gray area for her. As usual, I gave her what our children call a Dad answer, far too detailed and far too long.

I also enjoyed seeing that what I said for her infancy still holds true; I swear her mind works like mine, but she has her mother’s interests. Now she seems more of mix, where she combines our interests and approach to issues and interests. She likes movies as I do, but she continues her mother’s more literary bent in her reading. She continues to be religious. Unlike the stereotype, she disdains contemporary church music and liturgy and seeks the grandeur, tradition, and stability of more established forms. To quote her, “I can see less than average rock bands with insipid lyrics any day of the week.”

She is now at the stage where she can regard her parents with some objectivity and realize that their particular pasts have helped mold them into the annoying people they are. Teenagers get alienated from their parents and see them as obstacles.
They are keenly aware of their faults. Now she is starting to see her parents in full. As she said, only recently is she I even becoming aware of what she termed the “social capital” of educationally oriented parents. On the other hand, she bears the scars of feeling that she did not quite measure up to impossible standards. She inherited her mother’s concerns about weight and being in shape, again, against impossible standards for beauty and fitness.

It is both edifying and alarming to realize that one of your children is already much more accomplished, insightful, and intelligent than either of her parents. OK, I will be charitable, more so than I. Just recently, we made a scholarship decision for Rotary. The young people are bright and socially aware. I would have been happy if any number of them received an award.  I have some much faith in the capacity of so many young people today. They are parlaying their advantages into a socially conscious, acute look at both their individual lives and society at large. Plus, she and her husband are good with money. They are so much more sophisticated in dealing with money and investments. They live simply, even frugally.  I had no clue about the sorts of short-term and long-term tactics.

I was also interested that contemporary academia is more of a seedbed for ideas from the left than it was when I was in school. If colleges were liberal a generation ago, much of their template for analysis has moved to a decidedly leftist critique of the powers that be and a near adulation on f minority viewpoints as sacrosanct.

It’s always hard to say goodbye. I recall vividly my realization that first steps are often away from a parent. We say that we wish our children will think for themselves, be independent. I often say that being a parent is like being locked in a time tunnel. Even as we see them mature, our memory flashes back to infancy. How is it possible that one’s child is a mature adult?  A piece of you misses that dependence, even as one celebrates independence. A larger piece stands back in wonder at the adult a child has become.

2017 Mother's day Prayer

Mother’s Day 2017

Women get 9 months to start to prepare to become a mother.

Is a lifetime enough preparation?

What a responsibility to be given to help to mold, to form a life.

At the deepest level, a mother’s glowing face,

feeding, hugs, and sheer love  form structure for the religious imagination.

Perhaps we seek that bliss still.

Mothers transform addresses, mere residences, into homes, castles of care.

How can a card express so many wordless deeds?

How can a bejeweled present approach the jewel of our lives?

How can dinner out compare to a lifetime of meals prepared and served?

May this day be one of gratitude and recognition.

We note with gratitude those who serve as maternal figures in our lives.

Maternal individuals can be related in biology but also in a role: coach, teacher, mentor.

May they all  be partners with God in renewing our world.

To approach the love of God,

sometimes Scripture uses maternal images.

To express the intensity of God’s devotion, what is deeper than maternal love?

Some are of natural fury, and others of bring life into the world.

Isaiah  uses the incapacity of a mother to forget to God’s remembrance of us.

“Mother's love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved. “ Erich Fromm

“Mothers can forgive anything! Tell me all, and be sure that I will never let you go, though the whole world should turn from you.” ― Louisa May Alcott

May  mothers be gentle on themselves.

Mothers are a school of love for us.

They attend countless programs. They are chauffeurs for countless events.

Maybe a mother’s eye toward of us as close as we dare come to how God views us.

We pray for those for whom this is a difficult day;

for those who did not know a mother,

for those whose mothers have died,

for those with whom their relationship is strained

for those who may wish to  or have wished to bear a child,

for those envious of other mothers.

May God hold all mothers’ children in the divine embrace.

May  all mothers sense divine accompaniment in their role.

May God uphold mothers in their sacred journey.

Sermon Notes 5/14-Acts 7, John 14, I Peter 2

May 14

Acts 7:55,The first time I really dug into this section of Acts was for a  our bible study on the book in its entirety. Stephen (crown,honor, reward  literally that which surrounds) was the first deacon.Stephen sees Christ standing, rather than sitting, at the right hand of God (7:55, 56).for them this was Jesus Christ exalted to a proper station.Despite the hostile violence wrought against him, Stephen prays for his enemies.. According to Roper,More have I not to say (my Lords) but like as the blessed Apostle St. Paul, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, was present, and consented to the death of St. Stephen, and kept their clothes that stoned him to death, and yet be they now both twain holy saints in heaven, and shall continue their friends for ever, so I verily trust and shall therefore right heartily pray, that though your Lordships have now in earth been judges to my condemnation, we may yet hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together to our everlasting salvation .For Søren Kierkegaard,.  Father, do not hold this sin against them.. He prayed for them. He had prayed for himself again and again; his whole life to the very end, his sufferings, were praying for himself.Now there is only a moment left, a minute: he prays for his enemies … we learn from him -- to pray for ourselves, to pray for our enemies -- and then to fall asleep … Ps. 31 God as a fortress, stronghold, tower of strength-place of safety

I Pet. 2:2-spiritual architecture/engineering Deffenbaugh-the household of God is where those nourished on Christ will "grow into salvation" (2:4) through the formation that takes place in community through the work of the Spirit. Here is where the metaphor of being built up( 2:5) into a spiritual house. We have to wonder if the recent memory of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, Though the traditional dwelling place of God is gone, a new house has in fact arisen in its place with a royal priesthood in attendance. While the old stones appear to be dead, the living stones of the church, founded on the cornerstone of Christ, will now be the light that overcomes the darkness.    "living stones" reference to the church's grounding in the Word of God,.As John H. Elliott explains in his exhaustive commentary, in antiquity objects that were perceived as firmly rooted in the earth were often referred to as "living." Imposing megaliths, for example, seemed to possess an inherent integrity; their vitality was a function of their being rooted in place.

John 14:1-14 many mansions many dwelling places includes the congregations as well as the possible heavenly accommodations we have place don John 14 often read at funerals. on peace-the way you are going monai= dwelling, abiding places- for encouragement-In the capacious love of god there is always plenty of room. I think of the Levittown houses that started looking the same but sprouted dormers and additions to handle growing families.I detect a bit of exasperation in Jesus here-the truth and the life explain the way? Arkein-issue of satisfy/enough difference between a good life and the good life-Miller High Life. Maternal matrix, a place for life to sustain and flourish.Early this month people gave the awful pun, may the fourth be with you. God is like a force field that envelops us, like the force in Star Wars-It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.", .

Piece on my mother for Mother's day

I do not know how my mother made it to the age of 92. Born of immigrant parents, premature and severely underweight during the flu epidemic of 1918, she lived through coal country strikes and oppression. When her father died when she was but 16, she was shuttled off to New York during the Depression. Only during some of the war years did she escape the haunting of poverty. She married my father, a seafarer, and moved back to Pennsylvania under the assumption that family could help her to the hospital if he would be on ship when she would deliver me. She suffered a miscarriage and was expecting my brother when our father was killed in a shipping accident and subsequent explosion. Ill-equipped to try to raise two children on her own, she made a foolish vow to not remarry if she could bring my brother to term.  She would live to undergo the trauma of his suicide at the same age our father died, at 32. Somehow, she survived, if never flourished, even as she labored with lifelong mental illness, most notably a crippling depressive core with an ever anxious exterior.

What seemed to be routine for most people was a never-ending mountain for her to try to traverse. Every Mother’s Day we would struggle to think up appropriate presents. It never mattered, as they would be inevitably be greeted with, “oh, this is such a disappointment.” At the same time, we knew that she loved us as best she was able.  She was devoted to our well-being fiercely.

Mothers labor under the pressing assumption that they should somehow be perfect. Indeed, my mother often referred to herself as the “world’s most perfect mother.”  As a Roman Catholic, she had a bit of trouble with the notion of papal infallibility, not on doctrinal grounds, but due to her surprise that someone else could share that trait with her. I recall Winnicott’s notion of the good enough parent; perfection is not required, but fidelity to the task.

Mothers transmit family legacy. It could be in traditional foods or a twist on a recipe. It can be in marking photographs or sharing stories.  I feel as if I knew my maternal grandmother, even    though she had died 7 years before I was born. I quote her often when people are hyperventilating about some detail for a wedding service: “a smart person won’t notice, and a dumb person will think that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

 I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. Abraham Lincoln

The love of a mother is the veil of a softer light between the heart and the heavenly Father. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Her personal religious search was for magical answers to prayer for her life to be better, especially to become rich. Yet, my mother encouraged religious faith in us. We went to church, even if she couldn’t face going. She got us what Catholics called bible history books to explore the Scriptures as children.

Toward the end of her life, stroke-related dementia robbed her of memory and mental function over time. In some ways, it eased the burdens of tragedy and anxieties. She died on Christmas, 2010.

I am convinced that no one raises a child alone.  God envelops homes. Sometimes we say or act in a way that can be ascribed only to inspiration or intervention. God is a guardian and guide for our souls, but also present as we are raised and as we carry on the sacred task of helping to sustain the life of our world in our own families.

Reflections for week of May 14

Sunday-Ps. 31:3 is a great source for a prayer of protection. Who has been a tower of strength for you? Where is your castle, internally and externally? Where do you feel safe and secure?

Monday-Memory THERE ARE TWO WAYS of remembering. One is to make an excursion from the living present back into the dead past. The old sock remembers how things used to be when you and I were young, Maggie. The faraway look in his eyes is partly the beer and partly that he's really far away. The other way is to summon the dead past back into the living present. The young widow remembers her husband, and he is there beside her.

Tuesday-I know from experience that when I allow busy little doings to fill the precious time of early morning, when contemplation might flourish, I open the doors to the demon of acedia. Noon becomes a blur – no time, no time – the wolfing down of a sandwich as I listen to the morning’s phone messages and plan the afternoon’s errands. When evening comes, I am so exhausted that vespers has become impossible. It is as if I have taken the world’s weight on my shoulders and am too greedy, and too foolish, to surrender it to God.Source: The Quotidian Mysteries

Wednesday-Joyce Rupp reminds us, " the rain-swollen clouds hold our tales of life, and drop them into the expansive lake year after year, absorbing them into the one Great Story." (courtesy Paul Reiter)

Thursday-Being a Christian promises to give us peace with God, but this doesn’t necessarily translate into a peaceful and easy life. If you’re looking for peace, tranquility, and less stress, you may not find it here. Living spirituality, following the Crucified and Risen One in the present, does not mean that all our problems will be solved, but it does enable us to live in community with God in spite of them. Christian truth offers us an engagement with reality, not an escape from it. livingspirituality.org

Friday-Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle!Here in thy harbors for a while/We lower our sails; a while we rest/ From the unending, endless quest.” ― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Saturday-In "The Work of Christ,"  Schleiermacher writes: "The Redeemer takes up persons into the strength of his God-consciousness, and this is his redeeming activity." The "strength" into which we are taken up by Christ is, as the footnote explains, "when transmitted to others ... an active enablement." A few pages later, Schleiermacher elaborates: "Christ's activity of taking us up into community with him is thus a creative engendering of the desire-to-take-him-up-into-oneself."*

Shepherd Sunday-May 7 Sermon notes

have never  really been touched by the sheep image. They are basically helpless prey animals, especially strays, -they huddle together for protection and out of fear-On the other hand, one of my deep spiritual memories is the picture of christ the good shepherd that hung in the hallway landing of my Aunt Faye’s home as long as I can remember. Religious artifacts are spiritual keepsakes.

Acts 2:42-47 Book Of Order quotes-worship characterizes, forms,  the early Christians-worship is the function of the church. In the revised book of Order the work of session centers on worship.nobody says that is not enough-nobody else says what else are you doing-the church is foremost about going to church-I’ll tell you a little secret-Protestant pastors are delighted when Roman Catholics  join a church because they actually go to church with regularity. We get not a peep about its  emotional charge, its aesthetic coherence, the glories of the music.  At presbytery we had a bit of discussion around tables on revising the Directory for Worship and no serious attention during the meeting toward it.Our religious leaders wish to jump from worship immediately to what they consider  to b e more vital.The same people who talk about faith being the key to salvation move to a works posture immediately in practice.what is a Christian flock. Worship defines the church. Does the church have other goals? Of course. Worship gives vision and purpose to our life in and with Christ.If keep holy the Sabbath means anything for Christians, ti has to mean going to church.

Ps. 23. Pasture and secure space to live securely and well. In Hebrew that is a core sense of salvation.Worship is spiritual pasture.Calls us by name, not the flock. We recognize the voice.Worship provides a maternal matrix for mother church.

I Pet. 2:19-Defenbaugh anastrophe, translated as "conduct," is clearly important to Peter; it is used more times in this short epistle than in any other New Testament text (see 1:15, 18; 2:12; 3:1, 2, 16). It implies a "walk," a distinctive way of being in the world, especially for those who have thrown off their old habits, picked themselves up, and set out anew -, the adoption of a way of life distinctive to the Christian faith.It emerges from worship. It emerges from the basics of worship limned in Acts.Jensen  Peter also mentions the wounds of Christ in v.24. In other words, worship does not guarantee an easy life but may well provide resources to face its underside of threat.In no way can this baptismal sermon possibly be read as denigrating worship but it does see it as providing both guidance and  virtue for our daily lives.

John 10 life abundant-prosperity gospel seizes on this verse as part of its claim that blessing -wealth. I would hold that it may well include this, but it by no means  is the only view of abundance. John as you know uses a physical image or point to spiritual reality.Life is defined as a rich full abundant life with God that is revealed by Jesus.  Life in John is repeated constantly-it is the call of the voice perhaps-we recognize voice at reunions,. Rich and full life without spiritual/religious foundation and exercise? Yes, of course, but it is a lesser pasture.It misses a connection with the beyond, with God. People huddle in cramped spaces to worship. I delight that we have such a sanctuary to draw us to our God.

reflection Pts for Week of May 7

Sunday-Ps. 23 is probably the best known psalm. We often read it at graveside. To make it a bit fresh, consider re-writing it in your own words and situation.Why is it so popular, do you think?

Monday-Esther de Waal writes that Benedictine life ‘simply consists in doing the ordinary things of daily life carefully and lovingly, with the attention and reverence that can make of them a way of prayers, a way of God.’

Tuesday- "Resilience" is such a simple non-religious word: bouncing back. Examine a recent period of your life when you experienced obstacles. Can you now see traces of growth? You are resilient: instead of becoming brittle you can bounce back with creativity and compassion.IK Groff

Wednesday-If "this is our life," suspended always between birth and death, always between right and wrong, always between the past and the future, always between here and there, always between history and eternity, then being at home means coming to terms with the reality that life (our life) is indeed what happens to us, not when we've arrived at a destination we identify as "home," or "refuge," but also on the way, and not just when we're "busy making other plans," as John Lennon has said, but when we're waiting for the next meeting to begin or the connecting flight to arrive, or this mound of dirty dishes to get washed, or the kids to be driven from school to dance lessons and soccer practice, or caring for this loved one who struggles sometimes to remember our name, or waiting for the surgeon to invite us into the little family room to hear what he has found. LP{S’s Jinkins

Thursday-From Scripture Echo-May you find the paths that bring you life  And the fullness of God’s joy. And may you do what you need to do: Maybe saying “No.” Maybe saying “Not this time.” Maybe saying “I can’t do that If I am going to still do this well.”

Friday-The method of wisdom literature is to stimulate our own reflection rather than providing us with answers. Wisdom means we are given responsibility for making choices and often have to act without complete certainty of outcome. This is an inherent aspect of life’s messiness.-- Christine Valters Paintner

Saturday-Thomas Merton-Sunrise is an event that calls forth solemn music in the very depths of our nature, as if one’s whole being had to attune itself to the cosmos and praise God for the new day, praise him in the name of all the creatures that ever were or ever will be. I look at the rising sun and feel that now upon me falls the responsibility of seeing what all my ancestors have seen, in the Stone Age and even before it, praising God before me. Whether or not they praised him then, for themselves, they must praise him now in me. When the sun rises each one of us is summoned by the living and the dead to praise God.

education column for Scholarship sunday

On Friday, Rotary was planning to deliver dictionaries to students at a local school. I realize that it is old-fashioned in the internet age, but I still support the effort. I love the idea of a treasury of words being given to young people as they come to grips with the possibilities and pitfalls of language arts, as schools seem to call it. When I was young, I read a good deal of nonfiction, mostly science, biography, and history. Mrs. Grote in 10^th and 11^th grade introduced me to the world of fiction. Her careful set of readings blazed a trail for me.

At worship this morning, we have our annual presentation of scholarships to some outstanding students. Presbyterians have always respected education, as literacy aids Bible interpretation and we do honor God with the mind as well as our other faculties.  I so admire that the impulse for the scholarship came from a tragedy in a family. Soon, our rotary committee will meet to offer our scholarship award to a senior. It is a pleasant tedium. I will make out my top choices, but I would be pleased if nearly any student wins the award. They are that intelligent, that socially minded, that gifted. I say it repeatedly. The students of the month give me great hope for the future in a time that is too frequently laden with doubt and gloom over the present.

I differ with many in that I see education as an intrinsic good. Education opens the heart, mind, and soul. It expands the field of vision and extends horizons. Education can take some of the edge from the arrogance of the young and offer some intellectual humility.

At the same time, I value education as a vehicle to move away from poverty, its deadening weight and its dysfunctional culture.

I am not an educational Pollyanna. I realize that we place far too many burdens on schools and so graduates are ill-educated according to the judgments of many, Writing seems to have taken a particular decline. Graduates are told that the world is wide open to them; they can be anything they set their sights upon. That is a sugar-coated falsehood. Teachers face the incalculable difficulty of facing students and families who do not value education, as does the following quote.

“The teachers of my life saved my life and sent me out prepared for whatever life I was meant to lead. Like everyone else, I had some bad ones and mediocre ones, but I never had one that I thought was holding me back because of idleness or thoughtlessness. They spent their lives with the likes of me and I felt safe during the time they spent with me. The best of them made me want to be just like them. I wanted young kids to look at me the way I looked at the teachers who loved me. Loving them was not difficult for a boy like me. They lit a path for me, and one that I followed with joy.” ― Pat Conroy,

“A parent gives life…. A murderer takes life, but his deed stops there. A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” ― Henry Adams

For me, education opens the door to the future. It is the beginning of a journey to be a lifelong learner.  In a sense we are always students, if not of books, of relationships and of life itself. High school graduates are in the stage of forming their identity, a stable sense of self that will take them through their lives. Already they weave the disparate experiences into their enduring character and world view.