Sunday March 17-St Patrick’s Day is a wonderful mix of the secular and the sacred. It is an early signal of spring. Anything that draws attention to the breastplate prayer, attributed to him, is fine by me. In his legends we see a wonderful mixture of beliefs being revitalized within Irish sensibilities. Take a look at 2 cross styles associated with St. Patrick. How could the wearingof the green be a symbol of a verdant spiritual life?
Monday-Hypocrisy seems to be high on the list of sinful nature for many of us. I am wondering why? What is it about talking a good game for others and failing to live up to a standard for oneself? Surely, we put up all sorts of false fronts, why does this one garner such antipathy? What annoys you in hypocrisy in others (given that we rarely recognize it in ourselves)? When does it cause a mere shrug?
Tuesday-Buechner quote “To become human-This is the goal that power, success, and security are only forlorn substitutes for. This is the victory that not all our human armory of self-confidence and wisdom and personality can win for us—not simply to be treated as human but to become at last truly human.” What are the important attributes of bieng human, or making the world more human to you? what are some of our biggest vices? do you think we are the crown of creation?
Wednesday-I was reminded of cairns recently.They are collections of stones all over the world to serve as markers for directions, graves, holy sites, or even Kilroy was here types of markers. I have heard a story that warriors would pile stones up and take one away if they survived a battle.In your journeys, where would important mak rkers be left for you or by you? where would some places that were left as unremarkable end up deserving a cairn?
Thursday I came across this piece by Wendell Berry…”In the trust of old love, cultivation shows/a dark and graceful wilderness/at its heart. Wild/in that wilderness, we roam/the distance of our faith;safe beyond the bounds/of what we know. O love,/open. Show me
my country. Take me home.” When is safety and security dangerous for your spiriutal life? Where do you think you need to press the limits a bit?
Friday-As I am writing this, Adam is being so kind as to work on tuning the choir’s piano. It is painstaking work, to try to line up the different notes by frequency. Perhaps, we can look at Lent as a time of spiritual tuning up. It struck me how slight adjustments make a really big difference in the sound. What is too sharp or flat in your spiritual life? What notes make for harmony in life?
Saturday- A prayer by Thomas Merton-”God, we have no idea of where we are going. We do not see the road ahead of us. We cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do we really know ourselves, and the fact that we think we are following your will, does not mean that we are actually doing so.” This great mystic could be candid enough with God to admit to utter confusion. when have you felt that way and how did you work yourself out of that feeling?
Friday, March 15, 2013
St Patrick's Column
St Patrick’s Day honors the best and worst of irish culture.Yet, to be Irish is to know that the world will someday break your heart. Against the backdrop of that great truth we can see elements of the Irish attitude toward life.”Death leaves a heartache no one can heal. Love makes a memory no one can steal.” Realizing that life can be hard indeed, many Irish phrases are designed to help soften it over time. Laughter is a great weapons for those who feel powerless. Admitting the pains of life, not repressing them, allows us to richly enjoy the joys and surcease that life does offer.
To be Irish is to resist letting the truth get in the way of a good story. A good story may unearth truths about life that no mere fact can damage. The Irish are well aware of our foibles but distill wisdom from them. If worried that you will be held responsible for some loss, the reply is “only a stepmother would blame you.” Knowing the power of passion, the Irish may bless one ot old age with “may you live to 95 and die, shot at the hand of a jealous husband.” For a people addicted to the power and romance of words, they can say, “a silent mouth is sweet to hear.”
Drink takes the edge off the shards of life’s woes. So too, the irish know that drink is a curse too: “drink makes you shoot at your landlord and then you go and miss him.” “God developed whiskey to keep the Irish from conquering the world.” The Irish will wish well to the abstemious: ”here’s to a temperance supper...and me not there at all.”
St Patrick's Day is said to be the day when winter dreams start their transformation into summer magic.” Stories have attached themselves to St. Patrick like barnacles. I love the idea that a land that had no snakes attributed that to Patrick’s driving them out. I leave it to the reader's imagination to imagine who or what was symbolized by snakes being driven out.
The great breastplate prayer is attributed to Patrick., I love the prayer with its emphasis on the Trinity, or the three and the One, as some say. It sees God’s presence not only up in some unseen heaven, but as pervading our lives here and now. Indeed Celtic spirituality seeks to endow every moment with sacred significance, everyday actions with blessings. that is why the Irish speak so easily of thin places, where heaven and earth seem to more easily join..One story about the Celtic cross is that Patrick was preaching near a Druid standing stone with a sacred circle. Patrick placed a cross over the circle and blessed it. In that way, he did not turn his back on traditions as much as reformulate them into a Christian frame of reference.
While the Irish are religiously devout,they maintain a light touch toward God. That is why they can pray that God takes a liking to , but not too soon, as if one would be courting death. As death draws near, perhaps the unfairness of life can be turned against death itself: “may you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you’re dead.”
Sometimes, i see St Patrick’s Day as a Christian analogue to the Jewish feast of Purim. There you are permitted to let loose enough that you cannot tell the difference between Blessed be Mordecai, or cursed be Haman.” I wish the food were better,but Irish cuisine may well be a contradiction in terms, like Educator’s salaries. Sometimes, we need a bit of release and laughter. So then are we energized to face the hoep and work of the coming spring.
To be Irish is to resist letting the truth get in the way of a good story. A good story may unearth truths about life that no mere fact can damage. The Irish are well aware of our foibles but distill wisdom from them. If worried that you will be held responsible for some loss, the reply is “only a stepmother would blame you.” Knowing the power of passion, the Irish may bless one ot old age with “may you live to 95 and die, shot at the hand of a jealous husband.” For a people addicted to the power and romance of words, they can say, “a silent mouth is sweet to hear.”
Drink takes the edge off the shards of life’s woes. So too, the irish know that drink is a curse too: “drink makes you shoot at your landlord and then you go and miss him.” “God developed whiskey to keep the Irish from conquering the world.” The Irish will wish well to the abstemious: ”here’s to a temperance supper...and me not there at all.”
St Patrick's Day is said to be the day when winter dreams start their transformation into summer magic.” Stories have attached themselves to St. Patrick like barnacles. I love the idea that a land that had no snakes attributed that to Patrick’s driving them out. I leave it to the reader's imagination to imagine who or what was symbolized by snakes being driven out.
The great breastplate prayer is attributed to Patrick., I love the prayer with its emphasis on the Trinity, or the three and the One, as some say. It sees God’s presence not only up in some unseen heaven, but as pervading our lives here and now. Indeed Celtic spirituality seeks to endow every moment with sacred significance, everyday actions with blessings. that is why the Irish speak so easily of thin places, where heaven and earth seem to more easily join..One story about the Celtic cross is that Patrick was preaching near a Druid standing stone with a sacred circle. Patrick placed a cross over the circle and blessed it. In that way, he did not turn his back on traditions as much as reformulate them into a Christian frame of reference.
While the Irish are religiously devout,they maintain a light touch toward God. That is why they can pray that God takes a liking to , but not too soon, as if one would be courting death. As death draws near, perhaps the unfairness of life can be turned against death itself: “may you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you’re dead.”
Sometimes, i see St Patrick’s Day as a Christian analogue to the Jewish feast of Purim. There you are permitted to let loose enough that you cannot tell the difference between Blessed be Mordecai, or cursed be Haman.” I wish the food were better,but Irish cuisine may well be a contradiction in terms, like Educator’s salaries. Sometimes, we need a bit of release and laughter. So then are we energized to face the hoep and work of the coming spring.
Monday, March 11, 2013
OT Notes Is. 43:16-21
Again. please turn to Patricia Tull's new thoughtful christian piece on this chapter and the lectionary psalm as well.
1) Our first verses form a major prop in the view that this section of isaiah sees the exile as a new exodus and return, as it drawn on the Red Sea image.
2) In our age of celebrity, when are celebrities extinguished like a wick?
3) I love v. 18. Are the former things the punishments or what? When does the past chain us? Haunt us?. When is consideration of things of old an obstacle. (This seems to be a major axiom in church growth ideology).this may also be an invitation to do some research on memory.See Springsteen's Glory Days, or Long Walk Home
4) Where do you see the hand of God in the new? When has it happened and we haven't noticed? When has god provided a way through a personal or corporate wilderness for you?
5)Why is an emphasis on wild animals? I wonder if we have an echo of the jackals prowling the Holy city in Lamentations? Do you hear echoes of Ex. 17 in the water imagery? How about John 4?
6) I think that one could go a far way with us being formed for God's praise. See the Interpretation piece, Costly Loss of Praise. Also, one could go the route of God as artist forming us, fussing over us, making alterations and adjustments.
1) Our first verses form a major prop in the view that this section of isaiah sees the exile as a new exodus and return, as it drawn on the Red Sea image.
2) In our age of celebrity, when are celebrities extinguished like a wick?
3) I love v. 18. Are the former things the punishments or what? When does the past chain us? Haunt us?. When is consideration of things of old an obstacle. (This seems to be a major axiom in church growth ideology).this may also be an invitation to do some research on memory.See Springsteen's Glory Days, or Long Walk Home
4) Where do you see the hand of God in the new? When has it happened and we haven't noticed? When has god provided a way through a personal or corporate wilderness for you?
5)Why is an emphasis on wild animals? I wonder if we have an echo of the jackals prowling the Holy city in Lamentations? Do you hear echoes of Ex. 17 in the water imagery? How about John 4?
6) I think that one could go a far way with us being formed for God's praise. See the Interpretation piece, Costly Loss of Praise. Also, one could go the route of God as artist forming us, fussing over us, making alterations and adjustments.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Prodigal Brother Sermon 3/10 Lk. 15:11-32
March 10 Lk. 15:11-32
Most of us have heard about birth order in families, at least some of the features of the eldest, the middle, and the youngest. This morning let’s treat those positions more as types of people. OK,we handle the prodigal side of ourselves early in the serv ice with a private and public confession of sin and a declaration of pardon. We fully expect the God of forgiveness to do so.
How do we approach this great story in a fresh way? One way to get something out of parable stories is to put oneself in the place of the different characters. Today I wish to emphasize the elder brother, as that is the position many of us are in. In birth order, I am the elder brother, but in attitude I fall into its power as well.Everybody has a soft spot for the prodigal in their lives. We seek to date prodigals but marry elder brothers and sisters.
Most of us are not prodigal in our spending or our sins. Most of us lack the powerful living forgiveness of this father. Most of us work hard, try our best and are resentful.
We are sure that the younger brothers of the world have all sorts of fun and are not held accountable. (see Craig Barnes article in Christian Century last year). We work hard and we do not get acknowledged for it. So we feel put upon.the elder brother types are the ones who perform the bulk of church work. Here the choir is behind a lot of good things, such as providing set-up for the Mardi gras party, or being there to do readings. It is a burden being the responsible one.Why are we always the designated driver at the party? Why don’t we have stories to share about the weekend at work? How do we get the role of taking care of aging parents. why is the family dinner at our house, but the younger prodigal gets to buy the drinks afterward? We are punctual;we eat our vegetables; we do not eat our dessert first. In her fine memoir Rosanne Cash says that her birth mother gave her stability, but her stepmother gave her wings.
Elder brothers hate, hate the idea of grace as a gift. It should be earned. They think that a St. peter figure should be at the gate of heaven and that heaven should have levels. they secretly wonder if hell will be more fun. The elder brother in us is not a big fan of reconciliation either. If it does happen, it is because we feel hurt by others and expect an apology. Further, we elder types expect someone to bow before our position and expect them to say that we are right.
Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose again with elder brothers in mind too. the father goes to him, just a she did the younger brother.The elder brother sees the world in the polarity of reward and punishment. He reflects our typical suspicion that the evil have all of the fun, and that the good are slaves to the commandments of God and their own sense of obligation and even self. His good deeds have not brought a sense of well-being, but instead seething resentment.The elder brother is lost too, and at a loss.His self righteous, judging nature is putting himself in danger of a great sin, the death of relationships. His own attitude is going to place him in a far country that will make the prodigal’s desperate return look like child’s play.More than anything, right now, the elder needs to be recognized, appreciated so that the elder brother can begin to taste the celebration of god’s prodigal love and goodness for elder brothers, prodigals and middle child parents alike.
Most of us have heard about birth order in families, at least some of the features of the eldest, the middle, and the youngest. This morning let’s treat those positions more as types of people. OK,we handle the prodigal side of ourselves early in the serv ice with a private and public confession of sin and a declaration of pardon. We fully expect the God of forgiveness to do so.
How do we approach this great story in a fresh way? One way to get something out of parable stories is to put oneself in the place of the different characters. Today I wish to emphasize the elder brother, as that is the position many of us are in. In birth order, I am the elder brother, but in attitude I fall into its power as well.Everybody has a soft spot for the prodigal in their lives. We seek to date prodigals but marry elder brothers and sisters.
Most of us are not prodigal in our spending or our sins. Most of us lack the powerful living forgiveness of this father. Most of us work hard, try our best and are resentful.
We are sure that the younger brothers of the world have all sorts of fun and are not held accountable. (see Craig Barnes article in Christian Century last year). We work hard and we do not get acknowledged for it. So we feel put upon.the elder brother types are the ones who perform the bulk of church work. Here the choir is behind a lot of good things, such as providing set-up for the Mardi gras party, or being there to do readings. It is a burden being the responsible one.Why are we always the designated driver at the party? Why don’t we have stories to share about the weekend at work? How do we get the role of taking care of aging parents. why is the family dinner at our house, but the younger prodigal gets to buy the drinks afterward? We are punctual;we eat our vegetables; we do not eat our dessert first. In her fine memoir Rosanne Cash says that her birth mother gave her stability, but her stepmother gave her wings.
Elder brothers hate, hate the idea of grace as a gift. It should be earned. They think that a St. peter figure should be at the gate of heaven and that heaven should have levels. they secretly wonder if hell will be more fun. The elder brother in us is not a big fan of reconciliation either. If it does happen, it is because we feel hurt by others and expect an apology. Further, we elder types expect someone to bow before our position and expect them to say that we are right.
Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose again with elder brothers in mind too. the father goes to him, just a she did the younger brother.The elder brother sees the world in the polarity of reward and punishment. He reflects our typical suspicion that the evil have all of the fun, and that the good are slaves to the commandments of God and their own sense of obligation and even self. His good deeds have not brought a sense of well-being, but instead seething resentment.The elder brother is lost too, and at a loss.His self righteous, judging nature is putting himself in danger of a great sin, the death of relationships. His own attitude is going to place him in a far country that will make the prodigal’s desperate return look like child’s play.More than anything, right now, the elder needs to be recognized, appreciated so that the elder brother can begin to taste the celebration of god’s prodigal love and goodness for elder brothers, prodigals and middle child parents alike.
Friday Column on International women's day
My calendar notes that today is International Women’s Day.
That caught my eye, especially as I was unaware of it. It has been in place
sine the mid seventies with the United Nation’s Year of the Woman emphasis.
The day has its antecedents in this country, as far as I can
tell. Much of the American advantage in textile manufacturing was the hard work
done by women in factories, all the way back to the Lowell factories of the mid 1800s. The word,
sweatshops, applied to the conditions by girls and women in the factories. Days
often extended fifteen hours, and then work needed to be brought home. Some
never saw the sun due to the hours. the cotton dust made breathing labored and
ruined the lungs of many. A terrible fire killed workers in a clothing factory,
as the doors were locked to ensure that the workers could not get a breath of
air outside. When the International Ladies Garment Workers launched labor
action, the Socialist Party picked up on it and announced a Women’s day for
labor. Part of its movement was for the right to vote being applied to women.
It causes me embarrassment and consternation how much
opposition to women’s rights appeared in churches. Using orders of creation
arguments, clergy argued that women occupied a separate, distinct private sphere.
Public life was ordained as a male sphere. Easy stereotypes of female
inequality abounded in sermons and writing. Males offered virtual
representation by watching out for the needs of women, as they did for children
in their voting and public actions. Some of the assertions were repeated in the
anti-Equal Rights Amendment campaigns of the 1970s.
This is a good day to look back on how far we have come in a
relatively short period of time. so many doors have opened to women in both
public and private life. In some ways, it is a revolution. Things that were
considered common currency a generation ago get laughed out of consideration in
our time. Surely, the radical right continues to operate under outmoded
assumptions about gender, but the balance of public opinion has left them in
the dustbin of historical memory.
We also realize we have far to go in the march toward gender
equality. Pick an area, and the data demonstrate gains in so many areas. Pick
one and look up the progress. We do well
to celebrate the achievements of women across the board in our lives. For
instance Elizabeth Blackburn’s research in cells may be an important clue in
cutting off cancer cell production, and Polly Matzinger has done pioneering
work on the immune system. Rita Colwell heads the National Science Foundation.
At the same time, female-headed households of young children suffer high rates
of poverty. so much violence touches women disproportionately. At the same
time, the promise of “having it all” has turned into a enormous burden for
women to a far greater extent than men. In the less economically developed
world, poverty weighs so heavily on women, and they suffer its cruel
afflictions especially with young children.
Many of us seem caught in a reading of our culture that assumes
that everything is going downhill. Some of that reading is caused by a
religious insistence that if things get bad enough, God will come in and
restore all to a new world. That is one reading of scripture, of course, by no means a consensus one. When we address social change, many of us
play the role of Cassandra or Jeremiah, crying gloom and doom and having the
cries going unheard. Today, I hope we take some time to celebrate the heroines
of the road we have travelled and celebrate the achievements of so many across
the broad expanse of human life.
Friday, March 8, 2013
Josh. 5:9-13
Sorry that this is late, but I have 2 excuses. I have been sick all week, and I was reading theology exams for the PCUSA.
1) We have been using Patricia Tull's good study for thoughtful christian, and she speaks of taking responsibility or maturing, or becoming more adult for this passage.
2) Some speak of the wilderness period as a time when former slaves learned the responsibilities of freedom. What are those>
3) Do you think manna was a sign of dependence on the part of the people or better a sign of pure gift, or what?
4) When do you feel as if you entered into adulthood? what felt right, or scary, or plain wrong?
5) When do you wish you were more dependent and less independent? What about our interdependence?
6) Gilgal is a pun on gallal and has the sense of rolling. Notice that this cultic site is used on another Passover, just as the people were freed. What rolls away in the Promised Land? What rolls toward them?
7) How is Communion like manna?
1) We have been using Patricia Tull's good study for thoughtful christian, and she speaks of taking responsibility or maturing, or becoming more adult for this passage.
2) Some speak of the wilderness period as a time when former slaves learned the responsibilities of freedom. What are those>
3) Do you think manna was a sign of dependence on the part of the people or better a sign of pure gift, or what?
4) When do you feel as if you entered into adulthood? what felt right, or scary, or plain wrong?
5) When do you wish you were more dependent and less independent? What about our interdependence?
6) Gilgal is a pun on gallal and has the sense of rolling. Notice that this cultic site is used on another Passover, just as the people were freed. What rolls away in the Promised Land? What rolls toward them?
7) How is Communion like manna?
Friday, March 1, 2013
Column on World Day of Prayer
Today is the World Day of Prayer. this is organized by women as they seek to link prayer and action. It is deliberately ecumenical. not only does it include different religious traditions, each year the material is drawn up from a different country. This year it is France.
Mary James, a Presbyterian, (I had to get that in) is credited with starting the movement in the 1880s. she was moved by the social needs around her: the plight of immigrants, health crises, and the crippling effects of poverty.the movement caught attention and has become a stable part of the worldwide religious landscape.
We often resort to prayer to find an answer to something we find incapable of solving on our own. Some see prayer as a flight from the needs of the world into an inner state of awareness. With the day of prayer, i see it as seeking to discover inner resources to face a tough world. i see it as trying to link to the source of all good. I see it as a way to try to move into a mode of reflection and discernment. Prayer helps to mobilize our resources for action. It helps us to see them clearly.
This year the theme from Scripture is : “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” If kept at a safe level of hospitality that sounds fair enough. When it translates into political programs on immigration, then it no longer seems so harmless to many of us. so, god is dealing with prayer requests that may conflict, or be at odds with each other, even if they agree on a basic premise.
It seems to me that prayers for social causes require a gift of patience. when i get anxious about political change, I revert to to a quote of Max Weber: “politics is the slow boring of hard boards.” Weber once wrote of politics as vocation. He deliberately chose that word often associated iw th a religious calling toward one that can find a religious center in secular callings, a voice of the reformation.
Realizing that, we who pray may well be called toward a posture of humility.In a meeting yesterday I was rmeinded with some force by Rev. David marshall that we do well to be careful when we try to apply individual Christian spiritual tools and apply them on the public stage. Second, prayer often seeks better questions, that assuming a perfect solution. All of the different attitudes toward any social program should give us pause if we are hoping that our view of an issue could possibly be only one option in the capacious vision and wisdom of God. Third, it is an acknowledgment of our limitations of perspective and knowledge. We all tend to prize our ideas and beliefs, but we have much more difficulty in seeing their pitfalls and possible poor consequences. finally, I pray for a sense of options and possibility. When I pay attention to the crying needs in life, i quickly get overwhelmed and want to curl up and hide from the pain.
Often it seems that god work in the world with us as the agents. At other times, I detect a touch directly, beyond our hopes and expectations. those seem much more rare.Still, I never thought I would live to see South Africa change with so little bloodshed, or the Soviet Union fall. Sometimes, I have been in nursing homes and said that perhaps the prayers of folks in the new secular monasteries have been answered.Both worked in ways that I would not have imagined.Prayer is a seed who very life is beyond our ocntrol, but not beyond the vast expanse of divine intentions.world
Mary James, a Presbyterian, (I had to get that in) is credited with starting the movement in the 1880s. she was moved by the social needs around her: the plight of immigrants, health crises, and the crippling effects of poverty.the movement caught attention and has become a stable part of the worldwide religious landscape.
We often resort to prayer to find an answer to something we find incapable of solving on our own. Some see prayer as a flight from the needs of the world into an inner state of awareness. With the day of prayer, i see it as seeking to discover inner resources to face a tough world. i see it as trying to link to the source of all good. I see it as a way to try to move into a mode of reflection and discernment. Prayer helps to mobilize our resources for action. It helps us to see them clearly.
This year the theme from Scripture is : “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” If kept at a safe level of hospitality that sounds fair enough. When it translates into political programs on immigration, then it no longer seems so harmless to many of us. so, god is dealing with prayer requests that may conflict, or be at odds with each other, even if they agree on a basic premise.
It seems to me that prayers for social causes require a gift of patience. when i get anxious about political change, I revert to to a quote of Max Weber: “politics is the slow boring of hard boards.” Weber once wrote of politics as vocation. He deliberately chose that word often associated iw th a religious calling toward one that can find a religious center in secular callings, a voice of the reformation.
Realizing that, we who pray may well be called toward a posture of humility.In a meeting yesterday I was rmeinded with some force by Rev. David marshall that we do well to be careful when we try to apply individual Christian spiritual tools and apply them on the public stage. Second, prayer often seeks better questions, that assuming a perfect solution. All of the different attitudes toward any social program should give us pause if we are hoping that our view of an issue could possibly be only one option in the capacious vision and wisdom of God. Third, it is an acknowledgment of our limitations of perspective and knowledge. We all tend to prize our ideas and beliefs, but we have much more difficulty in seeing their pitfalls and possible poor consequences. finally, I pray for a sense of options and possibility. When I pay attention to the crying needs in life, i quickly get overwhelmed and want to curl up and hide from the pain.
Often it seems that god work in the world with us as the agents. At other times, I detect a touch directly, beyond our hopes and expectations. those seem much more rare.Still, I never thought I would live to see South Africa change with so little bloodshed, or the Soviet Union fall. Sometimes, I have been in nursing homes and said that perhaps the prayers of folks in the new secular monasteries have been answered.Both worked in ways that I would not have imagined.Prayer is a seed who very life is beyond our ocntrol, but not beyond the vast expanse of divine intentions.world
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