Week of June 26 Points

Sunday-Ps.77-starts as a lament.the questions in verses 7-9 are deep, abiding questions. They also reflect a view of god that many do not share in terms of engagement with the world.  Creation and memory are the tools of the psalmist to move from lament. What are yours?

Monday-When Abide With Me is sung at a funeral I always pray the organist will throw open the swell chest and hit the button for the zimbelstern when we arrive at this final verse. It is the gospel writ large and then shrunk down to this powerful image of a cross held up before the closing of an eye. None of us knows how long he or she has on this earth, but we have a God who knows what it means to live and to die. We trust that the God who raised Jesus from the dead speaks that same word of life to us. God, abide with me this day and in the days to come. Whether they number many or few, I know that you walk three days ahead of me through death into eternal life. May the light of that life break into my heart even today. Amen.Chris Enstad

For resurrection faith means courage to revolt against the "covenant with death" (Isa. 28:15), it means hope for the victory of life which shall swallow up and conquer life-devouring death. ~ p.14” ― Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Play

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult, and left untried.” Chesterton

Thursday- Niebuhr wrote, I do not have the evidence which allows me to say that the miracle of faith in God is worked only by Jesus Christ and that it is never given to people outside the sphere of his working, though I may say that where I note its presence I posit the presence of something like Jesus Christ.

Friday-“The joyful paradox of our spiritual poverty is that God’s fullness can flow through our emptiness; in our weakness God’s power can be revealed; in our insufficiency grace suffices.

Saturday-“The first truth is the most basic affirmation of our faith: God loves us. This is not a general rule to which you, personally, may be an exception. It is not a conditional rule that applies only when you are good, pure, and lovable. God's passionate and personal love for each and every human being expresses who God is. Unfailing love is the divine nature and the divine choice in relation to us. God loves us with an overwhelming love that none of our sins can erase.While we can grieve and disappoint this love, nothing we do or fail to do can alter its depth or reality. It is a gift, a given.We cannot control whether God loves us by efforts to gain this love or even to lose it. Since we neither deserve nor earn such love, God's fondest dream is that we will receive and respond to it.”

― Marjorie J. Thompson,

for Father's Day 2016

Father's” Day is a decided second place to Mother's’ Day.

On the other hand, may men revel in all of the steak being served today.

We may be at more of a loss what to give as a present

than we are on Mother’s day.

The Bible certainly places fathers in high esteem.The book of Proverbs

hammers home the importance of fathers and children

In a mature, careful disciplined way.

At present, fathers are at sea much of the time.
They are subjected to criticism,

but they do not have a guide to follow.

It is a trial to make up guidelines

as we go along.

Fathers in the Bible are usually imperfect,
So they resemble us quite closely.

Fathers are the recipients of rebellion often.

They are the measure of the envelope children push against.

They are the picture of authority.

Fathers receive respect and indeed devotion.

Jesus called God as abba, father.

Could Jesus have done so without the model of Joseph?

When we call god to be Father,

We lift up images of protection, strength, and care.

We place being a father on a high pedestal indeed.

Time passes, and we do not see our fathers every day.

The distance does not fade into insignificance..

We treasure keepsakes and memories.

We hear the echoes of a remembered voice.

We all bear legacies of fathers.

In our genes, in a look, in attitudes, in

The whispers of love in action.

God bless fathers.

“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.”

― Umberto Eco,

Column: after Orlando

Once again, I feel compelled to write in a cold fury about more violence in our country, now in Orlando. It is a terrible irony that a city that shuttles people to the Shangri La  of Disney’s manufactured carefree world is hit with such a horror. After one of our strings of shootings in our fair land, I wrote a gun control column that an editor thought needed some weakening about the idolatry of guns in our country.Fair enough, I suppose. In the intervening time, we have had many more lives taken with firearms.The enormity of the killings in Orlando hit folks hard all over the country. Locally, Bubby and Sissy’s had an immediate vigil the day of the calamity.Oasis just had a most successful trivia fundraiser. Their clients are victims of violence.In the AMH l  courtyard, a memorial service for victims of domestic violence is held in our community.

I have not changed my position on gun control, but I am more willing to examine violence across the board. We continue to remain quite casual about violence. It seems to me that we had a greater outpouring of grief for the gorilla in the Cincinnati zoo than we do for the constant drumbeat of  homicides.The romantic left  despises violence in the hands of the powerful, but excuses it in the hands of the underclass. The increasingly crazed right wing uses increasingly  violent rhetoric in its calls for increased violence.

.“Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.) As I age, I call for us to consider the path of non-violence in a country swimming in blood year after year.

This includes church bodies of course. Few Christians pursue pursue a pacifist agenda, notwithstanding the clear words of the New Testament, such as the Sermon on the Mount, the parentic closing of Romans 12.. In St  Louis, according to the police statistics when I was working on this piece, we have suffered 79 homicides. I do not know of many churches tolling the bells and reading the names of the victims, one by one. Churches and church members post sweet slogans about love overcoming hate. We do not embrace peacemaking nearly enough.

We show far too little concern for the victims of violence. Yes, families get to make victim impact statements at sentencing hearings. Just as we send people off to war and then refuse to care for their physical and mental wounds when they return home, we do little to help victims reassemble their lives and deal with the trauma of violence.

I am beyond sick and tired of the bloodshed in this country. I abhor our recourse to violence as a means of expression or a solution to conflicts. Few things make someone an object, instead of a person due respect, than violence. For all of our preening about technical progress, too much of it is lethal. Churches will talk about a change of heart at the individual level. It reflects the standard  American religious approach that “revival” will change society. In the New Testament  repentance is better put as a change in mind-set, in values. If one wishes to extend the old phrase, we need a cultural shift in how we view violence.

Yes,  small steps toward peace are made all the time in schools and peer mediation, in conflict programs such as the Mennonite Center in Lombard, in the U.S. Institute for Peace. “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”

― Mahatma Gandhi,

Pointers for week of June 19

Sunday-Ps. Lists 42 and 43for the day:42 is a classic lament of longing. The speaker feels abandoned by god, and memory of god in worship is fading from the reality of pain. Work with its great question: why are you cast down, o my soul/ why are you disquieted within me?

Monday-The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,/a fountain ever springing! /All things are mine since I am his! /How can I keep from singing?  "How can I keep from singing?" Summer is filled with these moments. God of creation, thank you for the gift of music. Meet us in the songs of this summer, gathering us into sweet harmonies and writing faith on our hearts, through Jesus Christ our melody. Amen.Meta Herrick Carlson

Tuesday-"Could the world be about to turn?"We're not sure. It can feel like we're dragging each other along, bickering about the details and guarding what was once the most important thing. . The way we sing and pray in the present has the capacity to change our future. Own those question marks, sisters and brothers, and own the possibilities that the Lord has in store for us. God of change, thank you for weaving your promises through our human story and for calling us forward into the possibilities of things still to come. Give us courage to wonder and hope when we sing out as the body of Christ. Amen.Meta Herrick Carlson

Wednesday-I remember St Benedict's kind, true, and apt words, “Always, we begin again.” I wasn't mindful. I wasn't present to the moment at hand, but I have yet another chance to begin again and to practice awareness. To wake up and be mindful. I know all too well that mindfulness is not something I can achieve. I can't cross it off my bucket or life list and announce, “Got it! I am now mindful.”

Thursday-"Statio calls us to a sense of reverence for slowness, for mindfulness, and for the fertile dark spaces between our goals where we can pause and center ourselves, and listen."

Friday-"You can trust what is down beneath the endless mental chatter, beneath the feelings of fear and anxiety – these are all part of our human journey and need to be dealt with gently, with endless compassion. But beneath these is the calm, consoling, renewing, and abiding presence of the soul, some call it the witness – that wise part of ourselves that can be with whatever life brings and not identify with the dramas of life, sees them as just one small part of the story.--- Christine Valters Paintner, PhD

Saturday-everything we do is a form of self-narration.'"I have been contemplating this phrase, wondering what story my life and practice tells about me. What parts of the story I tell about myself need to be offered to scrutiny? Where might doubt be a healthy path to take? Am I witness to compassion? Does my life lay bare an authentic journey toward love? Is my belief in the enlivening and transforming power of creativity expressed in how I actually perform the daily tasks of my day? Do I embody the things I say I value most?

Column on cultural coarseness

It happened again. I was at a gathering and someone uttered a fairly common excretory vulgarity. She said, oh no, I am so sorry I forgot you were a preacher. I wonder when being religious became synonymous with  speaking in an effete, or at least, civil manner? Perhaps, some of it came about by an easy linkage of vulgar language to the commandment on respecting the name of the Lord. So, the social  force of being polite was joined to a religious prohibition.What I do not grasp is that people will have little compunction about sharing “mortal” sins but apologize only for being vulgar.

On Memorial Day, of all times, supporters of different candidates mixed it up, not in  debating positions, but in  displays of trash yelling and  throwing things that make a preschool look like a model of adult behavior.

On NPR, I heard a report where 65 year old people were interviewed. One of the things they regretted about american life during their years was that our culture has become much more coarse, vulgar, uncivil.Watch a child  view a program from the fifties and hear them snort with laughing derision.

Part of the issue is the levelling of the distinction between private and public. Its symbol is the insistence on using first names as some sign of intimacy and equality.When I was a child, my mother had strict standards about how one acted in public. She saw the private sphere as a place to relax, but one should be on best behavior in public.When the distinction breaks down, then the message is that we do not have to be concerned about being in public to keep some modicum of social order and respect. Social media exemplifies this turn as it has become a forum for the insult and labels liberally applied to any hint of disagreement. It is a megaphone for mere preference instead of considered opinion.With that decline, shame as a social tool has faded. Look at what people will be willing to flaunt in public instead of seeking to hide behind a shameful secret.

Authenticity became a primary virtue. It seems to be linked to being informal and casual. It may be perceived to be a virtue as it takes a stand against societal expectation and norms.What it has become is an excuse to be impolite. So people yell for effect, utter slurs freely and maintain that “I am just be honest.” Being informal has taken on the status of a social rule, not formality.   So, we have Mr. Trump’s being a vulgarian as some sort of proof that he speaks authentically.Compare him to three Illinois Senators: Everett Dirksen, Charles Percy, and Paul Simon.

Sometime during my increasingly ancient adulthood, hypocrisy became a primary sin in the eyes of many. I wish to give hypocrisy some muted cheers. While it does reek of “do as I say, not as I do,” it at least has a perceived standard of quality.When asked if someone may be frank, that always means a criticism is coming. Have that question ever preceded a compliment? Being formal has gotten linked to be hypocritical somehow. A measure of formality protects social interaction. Years ago, Lyndon Johnson instructed new Senators in this way. “If you think a fellow Senator is stupid, say the distinguished Senator from Kentucky. If you know him say the most able and learned distinguished senator from Kentucky.”

We can do better. I am not referring to walking around with rules of etiquette as commands. I am asking that we have some notion of etiquette, decorum, and good manners as professions of basic human courtesy and respect.

June 5 sermon Notes I Kings 17, Lk. 7:11-17

June 5 I Kings 17, Lk. 7:11-17

Elijah and the oil for bread and the she gets him water even as she is preparing a last meal for her and her son--then he becomes ill-were they saved just so now the child would die of an illness- For her goodness happens as a prelude to something even worse happening-she will have lost a husband and a child-Elijah  may have been offering his life for the life of the son this is done for an outsider do not forget- See your son is alive-now he has breath/spirit within him-there is a little church built on the supposed site straight west of Damascus north of the territory of Israel-Phoenician linked to worship of Baal and Ashtart. She is bereft of food and a husband and now a child. It is a bit of the same story as the miraculous oil that kept burning for the rededication of the temple that Hanukkah celebrates.

Widow of Nain seems to be a spontaneous act of compassion not requested-how could it be? Perhaps Joseph has died and Jesus has experienced the effect of widowhood on Mary.  Her life has already been defined by death, the widow, and now would she lose a son as well? It was her only son, perhaps her only hope of security in the world-why young man?.I can’t find a reference what happened to this raised man?southwest of the great lake in home territory. What would it be like to be raised not to heaven but back on earth? Buffy the Vampire slayer dealt with this.I suspect that life became usual very quickly. Mr.DeVaney died of the same illness I was stricken with. did not take long to fall back into routine after the discomfort of radiation passed.Survivor guilt and Lifton 1. The death imprint results from the survivor's immersion in death."3. Death guilt describes the survivor's struggle with guilt for having survived. It is the guilt "over what one has done to, or not done for, the dying while oneself surviving."In addition, death guilt captures how the survivor feels guilty about feeling glad that he is alive: he knows "the tainted joy of having survived amid others' deaths." In sum, he mourns for his former self, for what he was. Surviving, therefore, is a kind of terrible rite de passage during which one self dies symbolically and a new self—a sadder self forever imprinted with the image of death—is born. For these reasons, surviving always involves a terrible sense of loss and grief.

5. Psychic numbing,  "the cessation of feeling,"or closing off in its acute form. These psychic processes are defense mechanisms through which a person shuts himself off from death itself: " 'If I feel nothing, then death is not taking place'", destructive processes because they themselves are a "form of symbolic death." After all, if a person is numbed, he not only feels less but he also feels less alive .

.what happened to the raised son?-Imagination plays tricks- Maybe he discovered a different purpose in life. Maybe he became a disciple. Maybe he thought he was bulletproof and acted like the prodigal.Maybe, after a while, the novelty of being raised from death faded into insignificance and he lived a typical one day at a time life of struggle.

treating widows-effect of widowhood- Our country has almost a million people widowed a year, and most of them are female.they average being widowed for 14 years. worldwide we have a quarter billion widows and more than half live in poverty.The Peace hanging on my office door was made by a widow whose husband was killed in the horrors of the former Yugoslavia.

Column on new Paul Simon and Mary Chapin Carpenter Recordings

Two wordsmiths have new recordings out, and people of a certain age could rejoice. I can recall the sound of Simon and Garfunkel on AM radio in a car in the 60s. Paul Simon released a new album, Stranger to Stranger,  at 74 recently. Simon continues to muse about aging and indeed of God.

“I trade my tears/ To ask the Lord/ For proof of love If only for the consolation/ Of gazing at the stars above/ Amen, amen, amen The road is steep /The air is thin/ I hear a voice inside my skin/ Don’t be afraid/Your days won’t end with night/ Feel the sun/ Drink the rain/ Let your body heal its pain/ Bathe beneath a waterfall of light.”

In Street Angel we find this: “It’s God goes fishing /And we are the fishes / He baits his lines/

With prayers and wishes/ They sparkle in the shallows/We hide our hearts like holy hostages We’re hungry for the love, and so we bite.”

The riverbank brings us face to face with the loss of a soldier:” staring into darkness/And praying till the morning light/The price already paid /A son gone to the grave /Now the sorrowful parade /To the riverbank /Must be half the county come down /To the riverbank /High school is closed /Same for the local police /Shall we tearfully embrace /Shall we sing “Amazing Grace” /Will the shallow river waters bring us peace

When a bit older, I heard Mary Chapin Carpenter for the first time. She was just in St Louis with an orchestral version of her folks/country songs. She too has a new album, the things We Are made of.. I’ve been teased for playing a number of her songs at the 6PM Sunday reflective service we hold at first Presbyterian. In this record, she is working on the passage from middle age into being older, with its regrets, hard-won wisdom, and acceptance. ” Looking back is not the same as looking forward /you can’t see what it is you’re heading toward /all that’s visible is what’s left behind /the dreams distilled and the dreams discarded /what made you leap or left you empty hearted /in the moment and in the fullness of time...Now you see what it is that you would have changed if only you’d known/ where you’d be and to be here is very strange waking up alone/in the middle ages”

“There's the shoebox full of letters /There's the map I won't forget /The voices and the lessons

And the signals that connect us /Manifested to the spirit /Way deep down where it goes unseen by the eye /What else is there but the love inside your heart? /To a life like a firework's to a spark /Over and above you in it's arc Something Tamed /Something Wild”

Hand on M6y back-“When I was younger how I took my time /Folly and wisdom form points on a line /From one to another with space in between  /For the lessons you learn & the dreams that you dream/

But tell me what happens when dreams don’t come true /How you overcome some things until they overtake you  /Why you never got chosen, why you never felt claimed /By some passion or person that is never explained”

Music, wedded to good lyrics, can be a particularly moving and thought-provoking  medium. For me, few things move me into a space where the spirit has an intersection with technology. Our world deepens, and new horizons beckon.No matter the age of the artists, their work can strike a chord, even in the most resistant of  of hearts and souls..

Sermon Notes Lk, 7:36-8:3, I Kings 21

June 12 I Kings 21, Lk. 7:36-8:3

Money-and with the power of land as symbol-when I get to work with a couple getting married-I like to spend some time with money-we approach it differently-it can be a symbol of love- Families can divide into warring factions over inheritance.We are willing to go to war, figuratively and physically, to cheat, our way into gaining possession, to closing the fist around being able to say mine, not yours.-“Comparison is the thief of joy.” ― Theodore Roosevelt Naboth being cheated out of his rightful legacy and inheritance-being powerless-Even ahab repents-Ahab is depressed-outgrowth of coveting-envy shrinks the heart-power can shrink the heart-the sense of possession and rightful owning can make us tightfisted-The human heart seems infinitely acquisitive-very difficult to say that enough is enough; no we possess a hunger for more.when is enough for us to feel secure. We are expert in telling other people that they should be satisfied, but being sated seems to be elusive  when it come to our possessions.

Forgiveness appears in this vignette.What motivates the woman? We share the discomfort felt by the Pharisee. In some circles of church growth marketing, it was popular to speak of affinity groups in churches. In other words, people should be like us in terms of say class and education. Note well that a Pharisee asked Jesus to supper.He has opened his home to Jesus.Perhaps closer to the Magdalene trope we have created than the Magdalene cured of demonic possession. I tis an interesting sexist assumption that the woman in the story gets connected to Magdalene the great disciple of Jesus. Of course, baby boomers know Jesus Christ Superstar and think that Magdalene was in love with Jesus. On the other hand, just because her extravagant action has some notes of the erotic, we leap to the conclusion that her sins were sexual.to what degree is forgiveness shown here that it should be as extraqvagant, as even wasteful as the woman’s hospitality and geneorosity-measured out lif in coffee spoons-If one sense one has been forgiven little, why bother loving much? It seems being in the right shrinks the heart.Jesus does not deny the number of her sins-in a movie, jesus says which were many-Why are  sinners easier to get along with than the prim and proper?How does Simon know what kind of woman this is? He may have opened his home to Jesus but he has not opened himself to others who receive jesus.does he envy the attention Jesus gets? Does he envy her capacity to be so gushingly giving? Don;t take the prayer of confession as seriously as we could.In part, we see our sins as very serious, so it mus t be eays for god to forgive us.

assumptions-Jesus sees clearly but Simon like all of us operates from a set of assumptions-that usually means how would I act in his place-Like it or not, it seems that we are wired to judge from appearances. Perhaps it goes all the way back to human evolution to distinguish between friend or foe, to flee or to fight.

We can forgive as the life of christ lives in us.What does that mean that christ now lives in us? Does Christ then die again and again ain in us? Gal 2-no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. What did it look like for the unnamed woman in Luke? What would it have looked like for the Pharisee? What happens to envy when the light of christ enters. Does it dispel it, because that grasping hole in our heart and souls gets filled? prayer may well bring us to the feet of Jesus and subsequently make it easier for us to look at ourselves in the mirror.

What is your alabaster jar of ointment? 2. What is Naboth's vineyard now?

Week of June 12 Points

- Sunday- Psalm 32-Human instinct invites us to retain the sins of others and to hide our own faults. This world tempts us to keep score and project outward strength so that our failures and fears cannot define us publicly. But when we hold them in at all costs, they do define us publicly. Holding onto our sin and shame is exhausting work that leaves time and energy for little else.I am in awe of the brave and vulnerable work of AA's Step 5: "We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs." Not generally. Not an overview. Not simply what comes to mind in the moment. This step is a labor of love that is confessed only after careful consideration of the details. Revealing these specific reflections and secrets can take a long time. It can feel overwhelming, scary, and counterintuitive. Monday-“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?” “When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” --“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” Rumi \ Tuesday-“If the mystery of the Trinity is the template of all reality, what we have in the Trinitarian God is the perfect balance between union and differentiation, autonomy and mutuality, identity and community.” ― Richard Rohr Wednesday-God who offers rest to the weary, May we breathe deeply of your serenity.God who promises to shoulder our burdens,May we release our heavy loads to you.God who comes in the midst of tired moments,Come down, refresh and renew our souls.Allow us to touch the quiet essence of you,Within us, around us, behind us, before us.May we trust in your abundant love, Thursday-Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart. Washington Irving Friday-Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.  Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer.  ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet    Saturday-For the Spirit of Peace that calms our mind and stills our life, we give you thanks. For the Spirit of Love that touches hearts and reaches out, we give you thanks. For the Spirit of Joy that lifts our soul and gives us faith we give you thanks. For the Spirit of Power, that gift of grace for this your church, we give you thanks.