Mind Reading

I was reading a story in the Economist last night that said scientifically speaking, we can already read people’s minds through new technology and discoveries. Think of seeing a movie of what's in someone else’s head, the potential of that both terrible and beautiful.

Up until now, the only One who’s been considered capable of mind reading is God. And if that’s true, I’m not sure it’s a skill She’d want to use that often. It’d hardly be fair to wish on her every single last thing we’re thinking. A lot of it would be a huge waste of Her time to suffer through. Did I pay the phone bill? Should I clean the top half of the window or just pull the blinds down and do the bottom? Why would God ever want to spend Her time that way? Why do we?

Yes, human beings are basically good, we want good things for ourselves and our families, but we can also be incredibly petty and small and jealous and lazy and content in our misery. (I say “us” but I’m talking about “me.”) Everything—literally everything under the sun or that we could ever imagine--is in our nature to do. But which traits do we choose to cultivate? And if God did have to sit in once and a while and listen to us thinking, what would we want Her to hear?

Making Ends Meet

This morning in Sunday School, we tried to balance a budget for a family of six living in New Jersey after watching a video (now 9 years old) showing them sitting at the kitchen table with a calculator and a stack of bills, trying to figure out how to rob Peter to pay Paul. There was not enough money for even the most basic necessities, let alone books or piano lessons for the children.

The combined annual income of both parents working full-time was a little more than $22,000, not considered below the poverty line. The family’s rent in a rundown, dangerous apartment complex in was $950 each month, half of their take home pay for a place where they were afraid to let their children go outside. The exercise was frustrating, looking at their bills, the past due notices. The need for new sneakers. For childcare for the youngest. The budget did not balance. No amount of beans and rice or deprivation would ever make it cover the most basic necessities.

Yet, these people got up every day, got on public transportation and worked as hard as they could, keeping the hope for a better future alive.

The irrefutable message of Christianity, to feed the poor and take care of widows and orphans was preached in the sermon. There were tidbits about higher taxes for the wealthy or even perhaps just the well off to fight a war on poverty. Patricia referenced a quote from Walter Brueggemann, the great modern day theologian about how money has become a narcotic in our society.

So all day today, I’ve been mulling the issue over. I have no answers. But I do know that this family does not live next door to me. They are other people in another part of town. I have to worry about eating enough fresh vegetables—they have to worry about eating at all.

Not 20 minutes ago, Wolfie, my 21-year-old, walked in the house, back from the Chevron around the corner. It took him probably 30 minutes, much longer than it should have, and he told me he was distracted by one of his friends—Menio, a 58-year-old homeless guy who needed a ride somewhere.

I have told Wolfie it is not his mission in life to give rides to people down on their luck. I have told him it’s incredibly dangerous. In fact, I thought he’d given up the practice. Then tonight, he began to tell me about Menio, an Italian New Yorker (he doesn’t speak Italian), who went to college and studied philosophy (which Wolfie has also studied). My son told me he and Menio talk philosophy, that this gentleman, who apparently lives in the alley behind the Fire Station down the road, is quite smart and in particular, knows his ancient philosophy.

Neither he nor any of the other homeless men who work the parking lot at the Chevron ever ask Wolfie for anything, he says. They don’t want to hustle him, they say, because he’s cool. He treats them with respect, as if the fact that they work in a gas station parking lot panhandling does not make them inhuman in his eyes. (Peak business hours are 4-6pm, when non-homeless driving people get off work. Menio and his friends ask for money as they go in the store, then usually get a little money when they come out—people never give on the way in, my son has learned, it’s always when they’re leaving. Maybe while they’re in the store getting their chips and sodas they realize how very little a dollar is to give away. Maybe they feel sorry. Or guilty. Or afraid.)

I learned a few other things, too, from this fairly open conversation with my youngest son. There is a small tent city in a strip of woods behind the Chevron. Many of the people there seem to drink a lot. Most are felons of some kind. Oddly, they are fairly clean (one washes his clothes in a nearby creek, others get water from outside water spigots when people are away from home).

I will continue to strongly discourage Wolfie from giving rides. It worries me terribly. But one thing I am quite proud of is that somehow, he sees beyond the trappings of poverty to know that there’s a human being there who has value and intelligence and who deserves kindness and respect. But what is better than the words that I’ve formed to describe the situation is the fact that he doesn’t even consider the idea that he might treat them as anything less than a fellow human being.

Why People Don’t Go To Church

I've been pondering a question lately: why don’t people go to church? I’ve thought of long-term answers (a bad experience with religion) and short-term answers (the family is in town for the weekend) but no one thing will ever satisfy that question. There is no one sweeping answer like a key that unlocks a door.

I can let that question go. I'm not the first to ask it. In fact, I'm sure priests and pastors ask it all the time.

In the end, it probably just doesn't matter that much. Rather than ask why other people don't go to church, I might ask why I do? The answer to that question is not nearly so complicated-I go to be a part of something bigger than myself.

At church, St. Dunstan's, I am not required to manage people or answer questions or pay bills or put the dog out. It's not even remotely about me and what I do. It's about being with my fellow parishioners, about being inspired by a thought-provoking sermon or Sunday School class.

It's about prayer and communion, ingesting the body of Christ and making a fresh pact with God to go out and make the world a better place. It is about resolving petty differences I've conjured up during the week and letting them go, forgiving.

It's about listening to our amazing choir, and the baroque trio that greets me for no special occasion on Sunday morning. It's about watching the children lined up in their little chairs in front of the door with the giant construction paper fish-covered door (Jonah and the whale).

It's about passing peace and not passing judgment.

It's about community. It's about the fact that I'm not sure there's a better place or way I'd choose to spend my Sunday mornings. And if some people, even most people, don't go to church anymore, I know they've got their reasons. But I'm guessing also they're just

unaware of all the reasons to go.

Enjoying Great Coffee and Feeling Good About It

"Hmm, time to pick up some more coffee," I thought to myself as I was fixing a pot Sunday morning before I left for choir practice.  No problem, I'll just pick some up after church and maybe get something to fix for lunch while I'm at it.

 

But wait, after choir practice, there's coffee outside the Founders' Room. Alright! It was brought by Hilary King, who spoke to the Adult Formation Class for the second session on Food and Faith.

 

Hilary gave a very informative presentation on Fair Trade coffee and had a lot of interesting tidbits on the background and history of coffee.

 

I know we are all called to be a Christian witness to the world and a lot of times it's tough, like trying to find a Farmers Market that's nearby, (plus the fact that I don't really like grocery shopping). Or, I could react to global catastrophes by writing a check to Episcopal Relief & Development.

 

But how about this?  I can do something about my quality of life, namely drinking good coffee.  And while I am doing this, I can have a positive impact on (an admittedly small) part of world.  This would be relatively easy, just look for Fair Trade, Organic, Shade-grown, etc., coffee.  Or buy coffee from a company like Liga Masiva, Hilary's company, which sells Direct Trade coffee.  Liga Masiva works directly with smallholder organic farmers in the Dominican Republic, cutting out the middlemen.

 

So I learned about the business of coffee and how it's grown, and I learned how I can help improve the quality of life of some organic farmers while I'm enjoying a great cup of coffee.  Win-Win!

Reflections on 9/11

Every year since Sept. 11, 2001, I have worked on a special publication to commemorate the day—part of my job at newspapers, magazine and now online business news. I have to say, this year, despite it being the 10th anniversary, I wasn’t sure exactly what else to say, let alone compiling multiple stories into a special edition. So I was pleasantly surprised when others took up the thinking for me. The memorial edition opened with a picture (taken hours earlier on Friday) of empty chairs in Manhattan’s Bryant Park, one for each of the 2,753 people who died in the attacks. And then much of the rest of the focus was on the rebuilding that has been done in the past decade.

As a journalist and as an American, I think memorializing this day is important. As a Christian, I think the lesson of 9/11 requires a more personal journey, one that I’m not completely comfortable taking because I think that it means exploring violent death: first, what it means for the victims and their families, and second, how we respond.

In Patricia’s sermon this morning, the biggest response was stated: as Christians, we are required to forgive. I have nothing to add to that—it’s as plain to me as my duty to respect life, even when my heart isn’t right about a particular circumstance.

To add to the conversation, I think the violent deaths of nearly 3,000 on 9/11 should serve as a flashing neon sign for every violent death that occurs every day. Single deaths in dark alleys and seedy hotel rooms. Deaths in wars—near and far. The cutting short of life, the theft of life of those who possessed it and those who loved them. It leaves an imprint that is so deep and permanent I think it might as well be a brand seared into the flesh of survivors.

Violent death is different from what happens when someone is taken by accident or untimely cause like a terminal disease. Early is still sudden death, with no chance to say good-bye, not one last “I love you” or one last, “you know I didn’t mean that.” Early death is still terrible and there never seems to be a reason why. But with violent death, there is a very clear reason why: Hatred.

And fighting against violent death, I think, should also be very clear:
Where we have suffered loss, we can use that experience to practice deep compassion for others who have suffered loss—around the corner and around the world. If we know what it means to lose someone we love to violence and hatred, we cannot ignore the fact that we know what that means to every other single person on the planet. Every mother, child, husband, wife, brother, sister or friend who has lost someone to violent death.

Like we all prayed this morning: “O God, the Lord of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Promoting Dignity and Hope

By Bob Longino

The 3-year-old barefoot ball of fire named Christina Kausiwa appeared out of nowhere. All 29 inches of her. She hugged my leg and, with a tiny forefinger, started poking my bare left arm.

“Azungu!” she sang out. Her face blossomed into a magnificent smile. Then she ran off laughing while chanting at the top of her lungs, “Azungu! Azungu!”

So far, I understood. In Chichewa, the national language of Malawi in southern Africa, “azungu” means white man. But Christina was far from done. From a distance she called out rapid phrases punctuated by giggles of unending glee.

Shorai Nyambalo, the Habitat for Humanity Malawi staffer accompanying me and Habitat photographer Steffan Hacker on our trip to document Habitat home partners in an impoverished rural community in Malawi’s Melanje District, translated.

It seems Christina wanted me and Steffan to have a sleepover at her new Habitat house.

Soon dozens of children had scampered down the dirt roadways to see the two azungu. I took photos of the mass of kids and each time turned the camera around so they could see the results. They shouted with delight.

All the while, Christina, the smallest of the bunch, would elbow her way to the front, the wave of kids tossing her about like a rowboat in the Atlantic. She’d fall to the ground, crying. But instantly was back on her feet, fighting her way forward to see the latest picture and laugh.

She wore a dress caked in dirt. She was hardly a year old when she and her two older siblings lost both their parents to AIDS.

Their 25-year-old aunt, Rhoda Kameta, adopted them. When Habitat Malawi found the family, they lived in a rundown, windowless, two-room structure made of un-burnt bricks with a mud floor and leaky thatch roof.

Now they have a well-built Habitat house with a metal roof, windows and a blue mosquito net to sleep under to help prevent malaria.

What is striking about Christina, her aunt and the other Habitat home partners Steffan and I met, interviewed and photographed in Malawi to promote Habitat's Orphans and Vulnerable Groups program is how happy they seem. Most have next to nothing. Many days they have little to eat.

But joy they have in abundance. It flows like rapids.

Last month in Durban, South Africa, joy was also rampant when dozens of Habitat home partners, some dating back to the 2002 Jimmy Carter Work Project, at long last received title papers, making them official home owners.

As each name was called to receive title, cheers erupted in the audience. Recipients who came forward often danced and sang.

The joyful display was emotionally overwhelming and a testament to the impact of Habitat’s work.

I believe that to more fully experience pure joy, one needs to have endured intense suffering and deep emotional pain.

In many respects, these displays of joy from those who have suffered underline Jesus’s teachings in Matthew and Luke. “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the Earth … Blessed are you the poor for yours is the kingdom of God.”

At Habitat, a key part of our refreshed mission principles clearly states that as an organization we should not only build houses but "promote dignity and hope" for all people.

That seems pertinent as well for Episcopalians. Our Anglican baptismal convenant asks us key questions, such as "Will you seek and serve Christ in all people, loving your neighbor as yourself?" and "Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being?"

We answer, "I will with God's help."

Only by acting on what we say we will do can we know that Christina will have the best chance to become the determined, powerful, joyful woman God intends her to be.





Christina Kausiwa, 3, sports a wide grin as she stands outside her new Habitat home in an impoverished community in southern Malawi’s Melanje District. Christina’s family, which includes two siblings and the aunt who adopted them after their parents died of AIDS, is one of 52 recipients of Habitat homes so far in Habitat for Humanity Malawi’s Orphans and Vulnerable Groups program. ©Steffan Hacker/Habitat for Humanity International.

Being There

“You’re on your way to church, right?” my brother Bird asked from where he sat on the deck of his sail boat where he was sipping coffee and watching morning break over Lake Lanier.

It was how he said it, as if I weren’t on my way to church something would be amiss in his world. I told him Wolfie (his nephew, my son) was always anxious when I missed church, too. I asked what all this was about—am I so obviously racked with sin that I need ritual cleansing at the church? “No,” Bird told me, “we feel like when you go, you represent the whole family.”

At church walking through the Parish Hall, I was stopped by Dick Harris, who apologized for a snarky email he sent about the possibility of me returning to church one of these days (I actually missed it or it didn’t make an impression) but the point was well-taken. When I am not there—when any of us are not there 1) we are missed by our fellow parishioners and 2) our extended families won’t get into heaven.

Not only are we missed by our spiritual community but I realized this morning being there is like being present as a parent watching your child grow. Most Sundays aren’t a big Christmas pageant or candle light Evensong—they’re plain ole’ services where Patricia preaches on Bible folks like Esau and Jacob. The plain ole’ Sundays where you’re sitting there with your hands in your lap and you hear the voice of a child from the Vienna Boy’s Choir—only it’s Joseph Henry, rough and tumble little guy who has given just given a performance worthy of a very large cathedral. (I can still picturing him on one of his first acolyting days helping his mother, yawning and then placing his chin on the altar as Patricia did communion.)

If I’d missed today, I would have missed that moment forever. I would have missed the singing completely this morning, where it felt like I heard every single voice in the congregation but we blended so well together (even me) that it felt like we were practicing a chant.

I would have missed hearing that Gilda and Lee have got their second grandbaby, a little girl! And the update on Jocelyn’s boyfriend from Sierra Leone being detained for a traffic violation as a result of the new, tougher immigration laws in Georgia (it’s been two months now, the outcome is unclear). And I would have missed Josh pulling off a serious coup de grace with all the leftovers in the freezer. In fact, we served up everything but the madelines from Lent, a block of frozen (I think) peaches, and a Christmas tree-shaped container of something from that season—that we still didn’t throw out. (I once offended Bill Hancock when he pulled a carton of Half and Half out of the frig, thinking we had some and I told him, no, it had gone bad. What?? I smelled it and put it back in the frig. Though he wasn’t there to see it, I felt helping Josh carry out this leftover coffee time scheme exonerated me a little.)

I don’t know what all I missed on the many Sundays lately when I’ve been traveling for work, but I know it’s a lot and there are moments I’ll never get back in the life of my church. It’s sort of like being part of a big family and leaving an empty chair at the dinner table. Absence is felt. But more than being missed, you just never know what you’re missing!

Independence Day

It was hot outside on this July 3 Sunday morning, 80 degrees at 10 am, with temperatures pushing up to the mid-90s. The flowers exploded on the altar--blood red roses, blue hyacinths and white carnations in celebration of our nation’s independence. As I sang the processional hymn—America the Beautiful—I smiled at my fellow parishioners doing the same. “I love this country,” I thought, quite proud, and not a little grateful, to be an American. I was thinking, here we are at little St. Dunstan’s out in the woods, the all of us, the few of us, and we are what America is all about, our little community, taking advantage of the right to worship as we please, every single one of us, in the pursuit of life, liberty, freedom and peace.

But I admit it didn’t take long before my pride in being an American took an unexpected turn. Listening to the sermon this morning, I found myself quite proud to be a Christian, too. As a citizen of a nation, I love my country. (I imagine citizens of oppressive lands feel the same even though they may not particularly like their government).

But unlike my natural love for homeland, I am proud to be a Christian because as such I am reminded what is really is best about that homeland. “Time and time again in scripture we are told that God measures the greatness of a nation not by its military might, not by the wealth of its richest citizens, not by its technological or scientific accomplishments,” Patricia said. “God’s judgment of a nation is based on very different indicators—how a nation treats the poorest of the poor, the ones Jesus calls ‘the least of these.’”

In the Book of Common Prayer our Independence Day prayers remind us to be thankful for our nation and to repent where we have fallen short as its citizens, said Patricia. And I think her sermon served to remind us of that it is our duty as Christians (let alone Christians in the wealthiest nation on earth), it is our job to protect and care for our widows and orphans, especially in this time of national economic emergency when 25% of our children live in poverty, when our measure of poverty for a family of four is $22,000 a year income, and when families who have lost their homes live in cars so that they won’t be separated because homeless shelters don’t take men and women together.

As Christians, it is our job to not turn our backs on the “least of these.” Our nation too often falls short on that. Patricia cited an example down the highway in Lawrenceville where city councilman Tony
Powell noticed the school bus picking up an estimated 200 children from several extended stays motels. His solution to this problem of families with no place to live except cheap motels? Kick them out.
More than a decade ago as county attorney he got an ordinance passed that limited motel stays to 45 days, but it has never been enforced. Now he intends to make sure it is.

Powell's actions are clearly wrong and even more than wrong, it’s just plain mean what that man attempted to do. As Christians, I think our values and beliefs have the potential to make us even better Americans who love and protect our country even more deeply than we do by birthright. And I think that means, in part, doing our civic duty to prevent bullies like the city councilman from hurting helpless families on the brink of complete disaster.

I am also proud to be a Christian because our ministers and pastors and priests, our bishops and nuns write letters to our Congress to speak on behalf of our widows and orphans, to remind our lawmakers what the “most moral measure” of a budget debate should be—“how the most poor and vulnerable people fare.” And I am proud to be an American beyond natural instinct, I am proud to be an American because we have and often exercise our ability to do truly great things, acts of kindness and compassion with which God is most certainly well pleased.

I’ll leave you with the Matthew reading from this morning—it’s one that everyone knows but I never tire of hearing it or pondering its meaning or how I can better put it into effect in my life (I’ll note,
I do fall very short on this one all the time but it’s definitely the goal):

Jesus said, “You have heard that if was said, ‘You shall love your neighborhood and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Other Churches, Cathedrals

I knew when I came to DC two weeks ago that I wanted to visit the Washington National Cathedral and maybe one other Episcopal church, much like my walk down the Mall, past the White House and to the theater where Lincoln was shot (it was closed). My company’s headquarters are here, so while I’ve gone out to some nice dinners and shopped at the famous Politics and Prose bookstore on Connecticut Avenue, most of the time I’ve been as usual strapped to my computer.

It was not until yesterday afternoon, in fact, that I finally made it to the National Cathedral. (Last Sunday, I had tried to go to St. Margaret’s, a small 1894 church on Connecticut Avenue that I passed on the way to my office every day. But there was no parking, none.) Anyway, I was at the National Cathedral several years ago for a wedding. It is imposing, the second largest church in the United States, the seat of our Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. Construction started in 1907 and ended in 1990. It is massive. It is impressive. It is overwhelming. And not particularly intimate, given that basic nature. The center west entrance sculpture, I thought was oddly a depiction of hell, not a big theme in the Episcopal Church. I was wrong. It is actually eight men and women struggling “out of nothingness”, the title of the work, which is meant to show God’s creation of humankind.

I’m no critic. But this isn’t a place where the saints are depicted as jolly loving carriers of God’s Word. They are serious, mournful even.

So when I found the (relatively) small building behind the cathedral, which turned out to be the College of Preachers, stone, slate roof. I followed a winding path, my shoulder brushing against very old boxwood bushes, healthy lavender, fig trees, flowers like tiny blue porcelain buttons with rubies set in the center, yellow flowers hydrangeas of every type—beyond the white oak leaf variety or the balls of blue. Dinosaur ferns. There were azaleas and I don’t know what else. Of course, I thought of our Peachy and our gardens and woods. I wondered who the Cathedral’s “Peachy” was and imagined our Peachy in deep garden conversation with that unknown person. And that was my trip.

Then this morning, I decided to make another attempt at St. Margaret’s. On the website I read one thing I already knew—parking is almost impossible. But I learned another thing that I did not know—you can park at the Washington Hilton across the street and walk over. And as I was walking through the cement mausoleum that is the muggy parking garage of that hotel, I felt a little bitter. It seemed to me an awful lot of trouble to visit a church. Seems like (despite being built in 1894) they should have a parking lot where your feet don’t have blisters by the time you get to the red door.

I will say, I enjoyed the service. It was casual though the church was old, traditional, with beautiful stained glass windows, a loving Christ in the one over the altar. I easily fell into the service but sat in my pew quietly before communion as a pre-communion healing service was conducted. I watched as each person asking for healing spoke to the priest, telling the issue and then hands were laid and prayers and blessings said. Being Pentecost Sunday, the color was red but I saw most people simply wearing light colors, loose cotton clothing to combat the terrible heat. I listened about the people in the Bible who spoke all the different languages but they were speaking in tongues through the Holy Ghost. The barriers were taken down. They saw they were alike. They understood one another.

During Peace, the woman in front of me, I think from some African nation, turned around and without hesitation hugged me. Peace. An older lesbian couple two pews back, reached way over to take my hand. Peace. And a quite elderly white couple with snowy white hair, the husband and wife each smiled and passed peace my way. There were children in shorts and a baby crying in back. And I thought, this was certainly a lot of trouble to get here. And worth every bit.

That said, I can’t wait to be home. And I’m hoping that the visitors to St. Dunstan’s this summer find that after they’ve gotten lost a Sunday or two but persisted to find us and joined us for worship, we leave them feeling exactly the same—part of one body.

Farm Mobile at St. Dunstan's This Wednesday

On Wed., June 15, Farm Mobile will be making its first visit to St. Dunstan’s, 4393 Garmon Road, from 12 noon until 2 pm. Let’s turn out to support this, and hopefully this will become a regular visit.

Farm Mobile is a mobile farmers market on wheels operated by Riverview Farms (www.grassfedcow.com). Inside, shoppers choose from shelves stocked with organic locally grown produce, free-range eggs, breads from H&F Bread Co., our own grits, polenta, and cornmeal, and sustainably raised meats. Other regular items on board include cheese from local food artisans like Sequatchie Cove Farm, and jams from Emily G's. Farm Mobile has everything you need for an all-local dinner!

Farm Mobile sells unprepared foods; meats are frozen inside of the chest freezer on board. Farm Mobile's freezer includes grassfed beef and Berkshire pork, all from Riverview Farms. Riverview is renown in Atlanta for their delicious meats, on the menu in many of the best restaurants in the city.

Their schedule changes every week. Subscribe to their emails, follow them on Twitter, or "like" their Facebook page for updates on their schedule and to find out what's on board. Check out their website to see how popular they are at the other sites they visit: http://www.grassfedcow.com/farmmobile.html

“Bayete, bayete ‘nkosi / Bayete, bayete ‘nkosi / Bayete, king of kings”

by Bob Longino

It’s not often that I’ve sung in Zulu in church. Frankly, never until now. Since arriving in South Africa just a couple of short weeks ago for a four-month work stint for Habitat for Humanity International, I’ve sung in church in Zulu and Afrikaans, recited from the Lord’s Prayer in the King’s English and already have found myself, especially when speaking in unison with the Pretoria congregation, altering the American hard “a” pronunciation of words like “death” and “breath” to sound a lot more like “beneath.”

The Zulu words “bayete ‘nkosi” translate, in effect, to “exalted king.” And the English lyrics sung later in the song include “You are crowned king of Africa / You are crowned Lord of all / You are crowned king of Africa / Who can deny you are crowned Lord of all.”

Pretty simple, straightforward, orderly stuff. But just about everything about St. Wilfrid’s Anglican Church, part of the liberal Anglican Church of Southern Africa and the church I have visited twice since arriving in Pretoria, is simple, straightforward and orderly.

Like at St. Dunstan’s in Atlanta, there’s not much muss and certainly very little fuss.

St. Wilfrid’s, built in 1925, is a tall, but small church, tucked among apartment and office buildings in an area swallowed by the University of Pretoria campus. The sanctuary is far from ornate. There’s only about a half dozen of small, stained glass windows and the altar is situated under a high dome comprised of rising walls of stark white that offset the brown tones of the altar, the credence table and a large mounted cross.

While there are many similarities between St. Dunstan’s and St. Wilfrid’s, there are marked differences. Two of the most notable involve the rectors’ approaches to their sermons and the treatment of the two churches’ main Sunday service.

At St. Dunstan’s, our rector Patricia Templeton, a superb, insightful writer, often employs in her sermons literary references, observations from historians and her own acute sense of her life experiences in evaluating both modern events and ancient scripture.

Rector Raynord Schovell at St. Wilfrid’s, speaks pointedly about the simple messages of heaven as he stands and speaks without a lectern at the front of the nave and without the benefit of written text. His sermons have stressed questions parishioners should be asking themselves – “How much do you love God?” – or have challenged his congregation to recognize that Ascension need not only be paid homage with attendance in church on its celebrated day, but accepted as a sure promise that “God’s plan will come to pass.”

St. Wilfrid’s early 7:30 a.m. service (at least the one I attended) is very traditional with standard Anglican hymns and organ music and complete dedication to the Prayer Book (roughly 30 people attended).

The Family Service, held at 9:30 a.m., is almost completely different (upwards of 90 people attended). Traditional ritual is followed, but it is peppered with modern African church music (On this Sunday we were accompanied by guitar, African drums and electric piano. Sing-along lyrics are projected by computer on the white dome walls above the altar).

Let me underscore the word family. The decidedly mixed-race congregation includes a strong mixture of the elderly, middle-aged, youth and wee ones. The church certainly benefits from its location inside a sprawling college campus. But to attract youth, St. Wilfrid’s seems to have purposefully dedicated its main service music (there is no choir) to elicit a youthful feel (think if James Millikan and his music crew grew their hair out more and were given carte blanche each Sunday).

But the most striking difference between the two churches – at least to me – so far is that after two visits I still must be an enigma. I have been greeted warmly upon arrival, people seem to be genuine in offering me the peace of the Lord and I still think fondly of the elderly man who after service one Sunday shook my hand for the third time that day and said, “Welcome and have a great Sunday.”

It’s not like this church doesn’t need parishioners. Last Sunday during announcements Rev. Schovell informed the congregation that last year’s budget deficit has meant that church staff has been warned that some might discover soon that their positions have become “redundant.”

Still, no one at St. Wilfrid’s has asked me anything about myself, like why am I here? Or where do I come from? Though the rector each Sunday has told me he hopes I’ve gotten something out of the service, he has yet to ask me my name. Or offered up his.

In a way, I guess it is a reflection of Schovell’s sermons.

It’s not up to him. It’s up to me.

Jesus on a Plane

So I’m writing from a plane to Las Vegas where I’m going for a conference for four days. I’m trying to get some of my daily work done in advance on my laptop because I have 21 meetings over two days (and I’m not even remotely kidding). Given it’s a four-hour plane ride, I sprung for the $20 upgrade, which means I get to sit in a middle seat between two people on the exit row but it’s actually quite spacious. So before the plane even took off, as everyone was going through that cramped and generally unpleasant exercise of finding their seats, and enough space in the overhead bins for their bags, this young guy comes up with the exact same seat assignment as the woman next to me. They have been double-seated.

I listen for a while. “But I'm elite!” she kept saying. Unlike me, she didn’t have to pay the extra $20 to spread out because of her elite status. I listened to the young man, who was very polite. He sat down in the row behind us and I think was trying to appeal to her better nature by saying he’d just started his job three weeks ago and had a very important dinner in Vegas that he couldn’t miss tonight.

She wasn’t about to give up the seat (that turned out to not be hers). She had blonde hair and a Tampa tan, pink (lowcut) shirt and matching running shoes. There was a nasally tone to her voice and she smiled with wild eyes, as she said "I'm not going anywhere." And even when the steward guy figured out that indeed that wasn’t her seat at all—hers was way back in the back, a center seat (like the one I’m sitting in now but no leg room)—she never offered to move or apologize. She simply waited for him to politely say, that was fine, he’d take the other seat, he was just grateful to be on the plane at all.

Somehow you get to know people on planes, especially on longer trips, even if a word never passes between you. Word got back to our row (I’m not sure how word travels so fast on planes, especially since everyone is a stranger to everyone else) but it got back that the young guy has been seated in First Class, which immediately made me smile. He had given up his good seat with the leg room in anticipation of a cramped middle seat—and it doesn’t matter if you’re sandwiched between Twiggy and her twin in that situation—it’s just a bad place to be—for four hours.

When the lady next to me, whose name is actually Sheila, found out she shook her head in disgust. As if he had intentionally bested her by getting moved to First Class. “They should have put an elite in First Class,” she said. “I’m an elite!” she reaffirmed. Then she started complaining over my lap to the gentleman on the other side. “Aren’t you elite, too?”

The two commiserated. What was this world coming to if there was no separation between the elite and poor slobs who were regular economy business class. Well, I didn’t tell her I paid the extra $20 for the leg room and that I was also a lowly economy person posing between two elites so I could get my work done (and of course, anyone who knows me knows that I have very very long legs). I also did not tell her that my company booked this flight on AirTran, which I would never do being from Atlanta—I mean we fly Delta the same way as we drink Coke instead of Pepsi.

Anyhow, after a while the young man passed by us, I don’t know why, walking back from First Class maybe to get something out of his bag, she glared at him and he looked sheepish. I felt a pang of sympathy (and a little twinge of victory) on his behalf. But he wasn’t the one who needed it. And what does Jesus have to do with any of this? Well, I think he would have smiled, too.

Maybe it's about redemption

If you ever think about shirking your duties—just remember, it’s always much easier to suck it up and do it yourself rather than have others come in to “gently” remind you and then make suggestions about how you should do it. Believe me on this one.

I have a perfectly good explanation on how the blog got so behind -- it started over Lent, then culminated with Holy Week. Without those key events (and honestly, a little personal grieving though that’s such a tacky excuse to lean on) and pictures posted and written up, I wasn’t completely confident about launching into new items of possible interest—like the death of Osama bin Laden, the rightness of retribution, and thoughts about what a Christian response should be. By Christian response, I’m talking in the singular, but I'd have to guess not killing is probably right up there with the main Thou Shalt Nots.

In fact, if I had been doing my job I would have said that the whole conversation about Osama made me think about the death penalty. Even if I personally and emotionally think in my heart, even if he’d been caught alive and then received the death penalty later, it wouldn’t have bothered me one bit, I keep going back to Sunday School and something Joe Monti said once, that we don’t have to be right in our hearts to do the right thing, which I guess we hope is the Christian thing.

Not that long ago, I was reading a couple of books on the death penalty—one, which is very well known, “Dead Man Walking” by Sister Helen Prejean. One striking thing about folks who end up on death row (aside from wrongful convictions) is the heinous nature of some of the crimes. Things so bad and depraved, you wonder first how a person could commit such an act and live with themselves ever again (sociopaths excluded since I’m not sure they have a conscience) but then secondly, you wonder how people like Sister Helen comfort them and bring them Christ’s love.

You wonder how when the conversation naturally turns to the horribleness of the crime and the victims and the victims’ families and all the lives that are destroyed, you wonder how one single nun manages to remember that life is a gift from God. And I think God’s greatest gift. And Christ’s greatest gift to mankind? Love your neighbor perhaps? Or the possibility of forgiveness and redemption.

I do think Christ was on to something. We don’t have to be depraved killers to need a clean slate every now and again, to ask for and receive forgiveness. Nor do I think we have to be amazingly spiritual nun types to comfort those in prison, to befriend the friendless, the lost, the lonely. None of it has to be perfect. Nothing in life is, or so it seems so far.

We can fall short and cease trying. Or we can fall short and every day, or the day after, or the week after that, start all over with God’s love, and begin again.