Posts
I had just had two distinct conversations on the topic: essentially about loving your neighbors, all of your neighbors. The first was about connecting to people out in the world, like on the MARTA train or in line at the grocery store. The second was on the way to church yesterday morning, when my stepfather Ron mentioned that my little brother David had posted this on his Facebook page:
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION is not a new problem...Natives Americans used to call it WHITE PEOPLE
I do not know if it was that we’re almost to the fall season (Sunday School in two weeks) or that I missed church last Sunday, but I was really looking forward to church yesterday morning knowing that Patricia would be back from summer vacation, knowing others would be back, too.
I was right. Walking toward the Parish Hall, I saw Peachy and Helen through the glass in deep conversation in the garden. Claudia was in the kitchen putting out coffee cups. Michelle walked in with three big paper bags of goodies. Nancy Dillon was back from visiting her son and we were looking at the scratches on her ankles from hiking expeditions. Tom Gibbs stopped in the kitchen for coffee just before choir rehearsal, and we all tried to figure out the fall timing that allows the choir to go to Sunday School.
Not long after, Connor Mark appeared maneuvering expertly in the wheelchair from the front hall. (All the children are fascinated by the wheelchair we keep out for Sheila.) He’s now entering third grade, as all the children at St. Dunstan’s are entering a new year of life and learning.
I asked how his sale had gone -- two weeks ago he was walking around with a sign-up paper and a catalog filled with all things Christmas. The sale was over, he told me. There wouldn’t be any more this year. He thought the exercise was just so the kids could get to “know people in their community.”
So by the time we all took our seats for the main service, by the time we bowed toward the cross processing toward the altar and sang at the tops of our voices, there was an air of anticipation, but no one could have guessed the sermon entitled: "Glenn Beck’s God is not my God." In fact, no sooner had Patricia blessed us than I heard the words “Glenn Beck and I may both call ourselves Christians, but we don’t worship the same Christ or the same God.”
If you haven’t read it or didn’t hear it yesterday, I say read the whole sermon below. But here’s an excerpt:
"We see it in the Arizona immigration law that recently went into effect, a law that gives police the authority to ask people to prove their citizenship or immigration status – questions that most likely none of us would ever be asked.
"We hear it in the congressman who, on the House floor, urged the repeal of the 14th Amendment guaranteeing citizenship to all people born in this country because, he claims, terrorists have a scheme to have babies here and then raise them to kill Americans.
"We hear it in efforts to amend the law so that our places of worship can become armed fortresses where the stranger is greeted with suspicion, not hospitality.
"We see it in polls that show increasing numbers of Americans believe that our president is a Muslim and not really an American citizen, and in Glenn Beck’s claim that the president has 'a deep-seated hatred of white people.'
"We hear it in Christian ministers who plan to commemorate September 11 by burning copies of the Koran."
So I posted the sermon on this blog when I got home yesterday and I’ve received so many comments from people thanking me. We are aroused. We are incensed. We are indignant. The Glenn Beck sermon spread like wildfire, making its way around twitter, around the internet to people of like minds everywhere. In short, Patricia gave a name to and said clearly that which is unchristian.
I can’t say I was surprised. I mean the message that I hear from Patricia about what Christianity is and is not is pretty simple: Love your neighbors, all of them. So I don’t really think the idea of the sermon was to hate poor Glenn Beck. He needs all of the prayers he can get, in fact, I’ll say another one for him right now. (May Glenn Beck find peace. And I don’t even know him.)
But it’s a reminder that as we love and take care of each other as a community at St. Dunstan’s, we should extend that love in our hearts and actions everywhere.
Like the reading from the Letters to the Hebrews yesterday morning, also quoted in Patricia’s sermon: "Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it."
Monday, August 30, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Glenn Beck’s God is not my God
I imagine that many of you watched or read the news yesterday, as I did, and saw the pictures of people gathered on the mall in Washington DC, at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial.
There conservative talk show host Glenn Beck stood at Lincoln’s feet, looked out across the crowd and declared, “America today begins to turn back to God.”
As I listened to him speak, it suddenly became clear to me. Glenn Beck and I may both call ourselves Christians, but we don’t worship the same Christ or the same God.
Today’s scripture readings crystallize that difference.
“Let mutual love continue,” we heard from the Letter to the Hebrews. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
And then Jesus also speaks on hospitality, “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed.”
These two verses speak to something that is at the heart of our faith – to welcome the stranger, to love the enemy, to reach out to those on the margins.
It is not just a New Testament concept. The verse from Hebrews alludes to the Jewish patriarch Abraham preparing a feast for three strangers who appear at his tent, strangers who he later learns are, indeed, messengers from God.
Centuries later, when Abraham’s descendants are wandering in the wilderness, God has Moses deliver this message on how they are to live when they reach the promised land:
“The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”
From Moses to Jesus, from Abraham to Paul, the message of radical hospitality, regard and respect of the Other, is repeated time and time and time again.
This ethical injunction cuts across all societal, racial, cultural, religious, and ethnic boundaries. People of faith have a responsibility to reach out to and care for those who are not of our own inner circle.
One commentary I read this week makes this observation: “The frequency of this admonition testifies not only to its importance, but also to the tendency of xenophobia (fear of strangers) in society and among the people of God.”
It is an admonition that seems especially important for us to hear now, in a time when that tendency to fear the Other is in full bloom across much of our country.
We see it in the Arizona immigration law that recently went into effect, a law that gives police the authority to ask people to prove their citizenship or immigration status – questions that most likely none of us would ever be asked.
We hear it in the congressman who, on the House floor, urged the repeal of the 14th Amendment guaranteeing citizenship to all people born in this country because, he claims, terrorists have a scheme to have babies here and then raise them to kill Americans.
We hear it in efforts to amend the law so that our places of worship can become armed fortresses where the stranger is greeted with suspicion, not hospitality.
We see it in polls that show increasing numbers of Americans believe that our president is a Muslim and not really an American citizen, and in Glen Beck’s claim that the president has “a deep-seated hatred of white people.”
We hear it in Christian ministers who plan to commemorate September 11 by burning copies of the Koran.
And we hear it in the hysteria that greets plans to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from the World Trade Center site, and attempts to block the building of mosques in other American cities from Tennessee to California.
A piece I read this week by Will Bunch, a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, put it this way: “In 2010, a large swath of the American public has declared an all out war on ‘the Other’ in America in all its alleged forms, from immigrants to Muslims to non-white aides working in the West Wing of the White House, to, of course, the president himself.
“And it is threatening to rip America apart.”
Bunch has spent much of the last year traveling around the country, talking to people, seeking the source of the outrage and anger that seem so prevalent among many Americans.
“What I discovered,” he writes, “was fear – some of it innate and much of it whipped up by high-def hucksters on TV and in talk radio and even in the corridors of political power.
“Much of that fear,” he notes, “centered on one simple fact – that America is increasingly becoming a non-white dominated country.”
In other words, the Other is increasingly around us, not just on the street corner looking for day labor, but in the Oval Office, the very seat of power.
Changes and the unknown often arouse fear in us. I believe there is something innate in that.
But fear is one of the greatest impediments to showing and receiving hospitality. And scripture reminds us that acting out of fear is not faithful.
We hear it in today’s reading from Hebrews. “We can say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.’”
We are reminded again in 1 John, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”
So how can we faithfully react to the fear of the Other that is so rampant? How do we address the fear that we find in ourselves.
I think we begin, as Glenn Beck suggests, by turning toward God.
In practical terms, that means not buying into the climate of fear that so many in the media and in political power seem eager to whip up. It means finding out the facts, the truth of a situation.
It means having empathy for the Others around us. It means looking at the Hispanic woman registering her children for school and remembering that our ancestors, too, came to this country as strangers looking for a better life for their children.
It means looking at those who want to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque in New York and remembering that many Muslims worked in the World Trade Center and died in the September 11 attacks.
It means realizing, as Jesus says, that we are blessed by those who differ from us.
It means regularly reminding ourselves of our baptismal covenant, whose questions lead to the heart of what it means to be a Christian, not only in what we are to profess and believe, but in how we are to live out those beliefs in our actions each day.
The last two questions, in particular, address our relationship with the Other.
“Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?”
“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”
The answer to both questions is the same, “I will, with God’s help.”
Yesterday was the 47th anniversary of another rally at the footsteps of the Lincoln Memorial, a rally in which a quarter of a million Americans of every color and creed came together to show their support for justice and freedom for all people.
The culmination of that rally was a speech by one of this nation’s greatest prophets, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. King, too, urged Americans to turn towards God. But the God to whom he prayed and the country he envisioned are the antithesis of what we heard yesterday from Glen Beck.
Dr. King that day spoke mostly of the civil rights of African Americans, but if he were alive today I believe that he would include Hispanics, Muslims, and all others who are marginalized in his dream of a better America.
That dream of which he spoke is deeply rooted in the Gospel, a call for us to help establish the Kingdom of God here and now.
It is worth hearing part of that dream again, to remember what our nation will look like when we truly turn toward God.
“I say to you today, my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.
“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
“I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
“I have a dream today.
“I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
“I have a dream today.
“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
“This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
“This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, ‘My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.’
“If America is to become a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
“Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
“Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
“But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
“Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
“Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
“And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Amen.
There conservative talk show host Glenn Beck stood at Lincoln’s feet, looked out across the crowd and declared, “America today begins to turn back to God.”
As I listened to him speak, it suddenly became clear to me. Glenn Beck and I may both call ourselves Christians, but we don’t worship the same Christ or the same God.
Today’s scripture readings crystallize that difference.
“Let mutual love continue,” we heard from the Letter to the Hebrews. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
And then Jesus also speaks on hospitality, “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed.”
These two verses speak to something that is at the heart of our faith – to welcome the stranger, to love the enemy, to reach out to those on the margins.
It is not just a New Testament concept. The verse from Hebrews alludes to the Jewish patriarch Abraham preparing a feast for three strangers who appear at his tent, strangers who he later learns are, indeed, messengers from God.
Centuries later, when Abraham’s descendants are wandering in the wilderness, God has Moses deliver this message on how they are to live when they reach the promised land:
“The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”
From Moses to Jesus, from Abraham to Paul, the message of radical hospitality, regard and respect of the Other, is repeated time and time and time again.
This ethical injunction cuts across all societal, racial, cultural, religious, and ethnic boundaries. People of faith have a responsibility to reach out to and care for those who are not of our own inner circle.
One commentary I read this week makes this observation: “The frequency of this admonition testifies not only to its importance, but also to the tendency of xenophobia (fear of strangers) in society and among the people of God.”
It is an admonition that seems especially important for us to hear now, in a time when that tendency to fear the Other is in full bloom across much of our country.
We see it in the Arizona immigration law that recently went into effect, a law that gives police the authority to ask people to prove their citizenship or immigration status – questions that most likely none of us would ever be asked.
We hear it in the congressman who, on the House floor, urged the repeal of the 14th Amendment guaranteeing citizenship to all people born in this country because, he claims, terrorists have a scheme to have babies here and then raise them to kill Americans.
We hear it in efforts to amend the law so that our places of worship can become armed fortresses where the stranger is greeted with suspicion, not hospitality.
We see it in polls that show increasing numbers of Americans believe that our president is a Muslim and not really an American citizen, and in Glen Beck’s claim that the president has “a deep-seated hatred of white people.”
We hear it in Christian ministers who plan to commemorate September 11 by burning copies of the Koran.
And we hear it in the hysteria that greets plans to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from the World Trade Center site, and attempts to block the building of mosques in other American cities from Tennessee to California.
A piece I read this week by Will Bunch, a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, put it this way: “In 2010, a large swath of the American public has declared an all out war on ‘the Other’ in America in all its alleged forms, from immigrants to Muslims to non-white aides working in the West Wing of the White House, to, of course, the president himself.
“And it is threatening to rip America apart.”
Bunch has spent much of the last year traveling around the country, talking to people, seeking the source of the outrage and anger that seem so prevalent among many Americans.
“What I discovered,” he writes, “was fear – some of it innate and much of it whipped up by high-def hucksters on TV and in talk radio and even in the corridors of political power.
“Much of that fear,” he notes, “centered on one simple fact – that America is increasingly becoming a non-white dominated country.”
In other words, the Other is increasingly around us, not just on the street corner looking for day labor, but in the Oval Office, the very seat of power.
Changes and the unknown often arouse fear in us. I believe there is something innate in that.
But fear is one of the greatest impediments to showing and receiving hospitality. And scripture reminds us that acting out of fear is not faithful.
We hear it in today’s reading from Hebrews. “We can say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.’”
We are reminded again in 1 John, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”
So how can we faithfully react to the fear of the Other that is so rampant? How do we address the fear that we find in ourselves.
I think we begin, as Glenn Beck suggests, by turning toward God.
In practical terms, that means not buying into the climate of fear that so many in the media and in political power seem eager to whip up. It means finding out the facts, the truth of a situation.
It means having empathy for the Others around us. It means looking at the Hispanic woman registering her children for school and remembering that our ancestors, too, came to this country as strangers looking for a better life for their children.
It means looking at those who want to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque in New York and remembering that many Muslims worked in the World Trade Center and died in the September 11 attacks.
It means realizing, as Jesus says, that we are blessed by those who differ from us.
It means regularly reminding ourselves of our baptismal covenant, whose questions lead to the heart of what it means to be a Christian, not only in what we are to profess and believe, but in how we are to live out those beliefs in our actions each day.
The last two questions, in particular, address our relationship with the Other.
“Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?”
“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”
The answer to both questions is the same, “I will, with God’s help.”
Yesterday was the 47th anniversary of another rally at the footsteps of the Lincoln Memorial, a rally in which a quarter of a million Americans of every color and creed came together to show their support for justice and freedom for all people.
The culmination of that rally was a speech by one of this nation’s greatest prophets, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. King, too, urged Americans to turn towards God. But the God to whom he prayed and the country he envisioned are the antithesis of what we heard yesterday from Glen Beck.
Dr. King that day spoke mostly of the civil rights of African Americans, but if he were alive today I believe that he would include Hispanics, Muslims, and all others who are marginalized in his dream of a better America.
That dream of which he spoke is deeply rooted in the Gospel, a call for us to help establish the Kingdom of God here and now.
It is worth hearing part of that dream again, to remember what our nation will look like when we truly turn toward God.
“I say to you today, my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.
“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
“I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
“I have a dream today.
“I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
“I have a dream today.
“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
“This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
“This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, ‘My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.’
“If America is to become a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
“Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
“Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
“But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
“Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
“Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
“And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Amen.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
An Orange
In my day job as an editor, and certainly in my job as a human being, I find I do a lot of navel gazing (like a blog is a form of contemplation). But sometimes when I look up and see the world, there isn’t any hidden meaning--an orange is just an orange, not a sound or a smell or a memory, not the face of my third-grade teacher at Spring Street School, hiding pungent sections of the citrus in her middle drawer, always popping wedges into her mouth when she thought we weren’t looking.
This morning, when I went to church, all I was seeing was oranges.
I was so sleepy, I took the “kneel” option every time, all but laying my head in my prayer book. Julia, our sweet substitute priest, made note of the fact that the reading today featured a vengeful God and “thanked” Patricia for leaving her with a subject that took some doing to get her head around. By the end of her sermon: she explained it. Leaving us with the main point that nevermind the Gospel reading, though God may “step back” from time to time, God’s true nature is peace and love. We are God’s hands and feet. It is through our eyes that God’s compassion exits. The condensed version.
So I really don’t have anything to tell you about what I learned or saw or intuited about the nature of God, I’m mostly just writing out of habit. Well, maybe some days God doesn’t let you think your way to Her. Maybe all you should or can be are Her hands and feet.
Sweep the dust, look for a matching pair, shoo the dogs out of the kitchen. Fold, put away. Breathe. Stoop, pull and lift. Breathe. And before you know it, you may find yourself in the moment.
This morning, when I went to church, all I was seeing was oranges.
I was so sleepy, I took the “kneel” option every time, all but laying my head in my prayer book. Julia, our sweet substitute priest, made note of the fact that the reading today featured a vengeful God and “thanked” Patricia for leaving her with a subject that took some doing to get her head around. By the end of her sermon: she explained it. Leaving us with the main point that nevermind the Gospel reading, though God may “step back” from time to time, God’s true nature is peace and love. We are God’s hands and feet. It is through our eyes that God’s compassion exits. The condensed version.
So I really don’t have anything to tell you about what I learned or saw or intuited about the nature of God, I’m mostly just writing out of habit. Well, maybe some days God doesn’t let you think your way to Her. Maybe all you should or can be are Her hands and feet.
Sweep the dust, look for a matching pair, shoo the dogs out of the kitchen. Fold, put away. Breathe. Stoop, pull and lift. Breathe. And before you know it, you may find yourself in the moment.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Sunday with Our Sub
I was vestry on duty (VOD today). So just after the early service off to the side in the foyer, I was talking to Renee and Julia Rusling, often our “substitute priest” when Patricia is on vacation. She’s tall and thin and just a very peaceful presence. We were trying to figure out about acolytes (I’m not naming names) but Ethan Stansbury rose to the occasion and served even though he wasn’t on the schedule, and what’s more, had almost gotten out of going to church in the first place. That is to say, we were doubly grateful when he robed up and carried the cross.
At the early service, there were just four of us, plus Renee and Julia at the altar. I have to say it was kind of luxurious and intimate to have a whole priest to just four people. We of course were seated in the back of a near empty church but she walked toward us, and spoke with some papers in her hand that she never looked at. She proceeded to talk about letting go of our storylines and just breathing in the moment. The spaciousness of God. The key to the Kingdom of God is being in the moment, she said, to let go of grasping and fear. To stop trying to control and allow yourself to be surprised by what happens next.
Then onto coffee time—and as usual—we’ve come to expect—that when there is a fear of a shortage of goodies for coffee time, all of a sudden there is an abundance. Cookies come out of nowhere, ripe fresh figs, grapes, a gorgeous key lime pie, crackers, cheese.
In the kitchen, Lucy Kaltenbach reminds me of Elizabeth Mark’s upcoming croning, a sort of rite of passage celebration when you hit your jubilee as a woman, your 50th. (I’ve asked to be invited). I’m excited about it mainly because when I was in my mid-20s, I had a dream of myself at 50. I had some gray hair, some wrinkles, I was surrounded by books and complete peace and happiness. I heartily congratulated Elizabeth on her upcoming croaning, given that I’ve been looking so forward to my own.
Eventually things wound down. I was walking around turning off lights and peering in rooms when I saw through the clear class and wooden front doors Peachy contemplating the garden. I shouldn’t have interrupted her thoughts but I was curious to know what she was thinking. I heard the language of gardeners, as she showed me the color scheme in the latana’s, about irrigation, about bulbs I can dig up and take home next Sunday. We ended at the massive, heavy fig tree, where huge, heavy figs are being enjoyed by squirrels and birds and probably a few humans, too.
Peachy held my coffee cup while I pulled down a branch to pick a fat fig but I accidentally snapped off a branch with it. I followed directions, put in dirt and water it and it will grow roots. Set it in the kitchen window sill. I did.
At the early service, there were just four of us, plus Renee and Julia at the altar. I have to say it was kind of luxurious and intimate to have a whole priest to just four people. We of course were seated in the back of a near empty church but she walked toward us, and spoke with some papers in her hand that she never looked at. She proceeded to talk about letting go of our storylines and just breathing in the moment. The spaciousness of God. The key to the Kingdom of God is being in the moment, she said, to let go of grasping and fear. To stop trying to control and allow yourself to be surprised by what happens next.
Then onto coffee time—and as usual—we’ve come to expect—that when there is a fear of a shortage of goodies for coffee time, all of a sudden there is an abundance. Cookies come out of nowhere, ripe fresh figs, grapes, a gorgeous key lime pie, crackers, cheese.
In the kitchen, Lucy Kaltenbach reminds me of Elizabeth Mark’s upcoming croning, a sort of rite of passage celebration when you hit your jubilee as a woman, your 50th. (I’ve asked to be invited). I’m excited about it mainly because when I was in my mid-20s, I had a dream of myself at 50. I had some gray hair, some wrinkles, I was surrounded by books and complete peace and happiness. I heartily congratulated Elizabeth on her upcoming croaning, given that I’ve been looking so forward to my own.
Eventually things wound down. I was walking around turning off lights and peering in rooms when I saw through the clear class and wooden front doors Peachy contemplating the garden. I shouldn’t have interrupted her thoughts but I was curious to know what she was thinking. I heard the language of gardeners, as she showed me the color scheme in the latana’s, about irrigation, about bulbs I can dig up and take home next Sunday. We ended at the massive, heavy fig tree, where huge, heavy figs are being enjoyed by squirrels and birds and probably a few humans, too.
Peachy held my coffee cup while I pulled down a branch to pick a fat fig but I accidentally snapped off a branch with it. I followed directions, put in dirt and water it and it will grow roots. Set it in the kitchen window sill. I did.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Win or Not to Win?
I was talking to an acquaintance recently who expressed an intense competition with other companies in his industry. He knew their weak points and spent a good deal of time assessing their strategies and motives. If company X does this, will company Y undercut it and so on.
My immediate reaction (must be my liberal upbringing; the closest I’ve even come to a sport is yoga and it’s non-competitive) was why would I care about what another company was doing? Why wouldn’t I just try to do my best where I was and be glad that there were other companies out there in my industry giving people jobs? (Plus I sort of feel guilty about engaging in open competition, like it’s tacky, given that when you do, someone has to lose. Is it really a pleasure to win at another’s expense?)
I’m not sure I won this acquaintance over. But it reminded me of a favorite story of mine about my son Vincent when he was about eight years old. He was in a YMCA swimming class and his coach pitted him against another little boy in a race. Both children were the top in the class. When they dove into the water and began their splashy mad dash toward the other end of the pool, the other little boy kept straining to see where Vincent was and in the process got behind and lost the race. When Vincent got out of the pool, I told him what I saw and asked what he was looking at. “I was just focusing on the wall,” he said innocently.
What does this have to do with good and evil, you may well be asking at this point? Stay with me. Separately, I was reading this book called “The Sociopath Next Door,” written by this psychiatrist who says one in 25 people are actually biologically and psychologically without a conscience. Apparently they aren’t all serial killers, many look like normal people, only they have a secret, they don’t have any guilt or remorse over what they do to others, nothing to stop them from doing just about anything. (Scary stuff. I couldn’t find anything else to read that weekend.)
Anyway, in psychiatric terms a person without a conscience is the equivalent to evil and the person with a conscience is closer to God, or good. Which brings me to this question: How do we fool our conscience to do bad things to other people (like war, it’s for a just cause) and how do we do it in smaller ways, for instance, wishing another company ill because you share the same customers and business. That kind of competition is deemed to be okay, because we’re a high achieving society, it’s almost like a moral lesson. Win at all costs.
Final question: What does it really mean to win?
My immediate reaction (must be my liberal upbringing; the closest I’ve even come to a sport is yoga and it’s non-competitive) was why would I care about what another company was doing? Why wouldn’t I just try to do my best where I was and be glad that there were other companies out there in my industry giving people jobs? (Plus I sort of feel guilty about engaging in open competition, like it’s tacky, given that when you do, someone has to lose. Is it really a pleasure to win at another’s expense?)
I’m not sure I won this acquaintance over. But it reminded me of a favorite story of mine about my son Vincent when he was about eight years old. He was in a YMCA swimming class and his coach pitted him against another little boy in a race. Both children were the top in the class. When they dove into the water and began their splashy mad dash toward the other end of the pool, the other little boy kept straining to see where Vincent was and in the process got behind and lost the race. When Vincent got out of the pool, I told him what I saw and asked what he was looking at. “I was just focusing on the wall,” he said innocently.
What does this have to do with good and evil, you may well be asking at this point? Stay with me. Separately, I was reading this book called “The Sociopath Next Door,” written by this psychiatrist who says one in 25 people are actually biologically and psychologically without a conscience. Apparently they aren’t all serial killers, many look like normal people, only they have a secret, they don’t have any guilt or remorse over what they do to others, nothing to stop them from doing just about anything. (Scary stuff. I couldn’t find anything else to read that weekend.)
Anyway, in psychiatric terms a person without a conscience is the equivalent to evil and the person with a conscience is closer to God, or good. Which brings me to this question: How do we fool our conscience to do bad things to other people (like war, it’s for a just cause) and how do we do it in smaller ways, for instance, wishing another company ill because you share the same customers and business. That kind of competition is deemed to be okay, because we’re a high achieving society, it’s almost like a moral lesson. Win at all costs.
Final question: What does it really mean to win?
Monday, August 2, 2010
Watts Poem
This beautiful poem by Isaac Watts is the text of the piece sung by Beverly Hall in church on August 8. (Isaac Watts, 1674-1748 )
We are a garden walled around,
Chosen and made peculiar ground;
A little spot enclosed by grace
Out of the world's wide wilderness.
2. Like trees of myrrh and spice we stand,
Planted by God the Father's hand;
And all his springs in Zion flow,
To make the young plantation grow.
3. Awake, O, heav'nly wind! and come,
Blow on this garden of perfume;
Spirit divine! descend and breathe
A gracious gale on plants beneath.
4. Make our best spices flow abroad,
To entertain our Savior God
And faith, and love, and joy appear,
And every grace be active here.
5. Let my Beloved come and taste
His pleasant fruits at his own feast:
I come, my spouse, I come! he cries,
With love and pleasure in his eyes.
6. Our Lord into his garden comes,
Well pleased to smell our poor perfumes,
And calls us to a feast divine,
Sweeter than honey, milk, or wine.
7. Eat of the tree of life, my friends,
The blessings that my Father sends;
Your taste shall all my dainties prove,
And drink abundance of my love:
8. Jesus, we will frequent thy board,
And sing the bounties of our Lord;
But the rich food on which we live
Demands more praise than tongues can give.
Christ hath a garden walled around,
A paradise of fruitful ground,
Chosen by love and fenced by grace
From out the world’s wilderness.
2. Like trees of spice His servants stand,
There planted by His mighty hand;
By Eden’s gracious streams, that flow
To feed their beauty where they grow.
3. Awake, O wind of heav’n, and bear
Their sweetest perfume through the air;
Stir up, O south, the boughs that bloom,
Till the beloved Master come.
4. That He may come, and linger yet
Among the trees that He hath set;
That He may evermore be seen
To walk amid the springing green.
We are a garden walled around,
Chosen and made peculiar ground;
A little spot enclosed by grace
Out of the world's wide wilderness.
2. Like trees of myrrh and spice we stand,
Planted by God the Father's hand;
And all his springs in Zion flow,
To make the young plantation grow.
3. Awake, O, heav'nly wind! and come,
Blow on this garden of perfume;
Spirit divine! descend and breathe
A gracious gale on plants beneath.
4. Make our best spices flow abroad,
To entertain our Savior God
And faith, and love, and joy appear,
And every grace be active here.
5. Let my Beloved come and taste
His pleasant fruits at his own feast:
I come, my spouse, I come! he cries,
With love and pleasure in his eyes.
6. Our Lord into his garden comes,
Well pleased to smell our poor perfumes,
And calls us to a feast divine,
Sweeter than honey, milk, or wine.
7. Eat of the tree of life, my friends,
The blessings that my Father sends;
Your taste shall all my dainties prove,
And drink abundance of my love:
8. Jesus, we will frequent thy board,
And sing the bounties of our Lord;
But the rich food on which we live
Demands more praise than tongues can give.
Christ hath a garden walled around,
A paradise of fruitful ground,
Chosen by love and fenced by grace
From out the world’s wilderness.
2. Like trees of spice His servants stand,
There planted by His mighty hand;
By Eden’s gracious streams, that flow
To feed their beauty where they grow.
3. Awake, O wind of heav’n, and bear
Their sweetest perfume through the air;
Stir up, O south, the boughs that bloom,
Till the beloved Master come.
4. That He may come, and linger yet
Among the trees that He hath set;
That He may evermore be seen
To walk amid the springing green.
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