Praise Be!

2009-09-11T09:42:00.000-04:00

My friend Jack Walp send this conversation starter by by Frank M. Turner , the John Hay Whitney Professor of History and director of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Yale University“The good that the Archbishop of Canterbury seeks to achieve is the unity of an imagined Anglican Communion that has virtually no existence in reality. In support of that unity he willingly sacrifices the ordination of women in some dioceses, the appointment of women to the episcopate in some churches, and the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from ordination and the episcopate. For the sake of unity of a communion that does not really exist, he has (perhaps unwittingly) fostered turmoil, dissension, and schism.”

Praise Song

2009-01-23T17:59:00.003-04:00

Praise Song for the Day, Praise Song for Struggle
by Elizabeth Alexander

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each others’
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of someone and then others who said,
“I need to see what’s on the other side.

I know there’s something better down the road.”
We need to find a place where we are safe;
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”
Others by “first do no harm,” or “take no more
than you need.” What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp

—praise song for walking forward in that light.

—transcribed from the Presidential inauguration ceremony,
January 20, 2009© 2009, Elizabeth Alexander

Gene's Prayer

2009-01-23T17:54:00.002-04:00

+Gene Robinson's Prayer for President-elect Barack Obama
A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama.
By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire
Opening Inaugural EventLincoln Memorial, Washington, DCJanuary 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.
AMEN.

Grace at Meals

2008-12-29T13:16:00.002-04:00

Jewish prayers at meals were always blessings of God rather than petitions for a blessing upon the food or the recipients. The following is a grace adapted from the Jewish tradition:
"Blessed are you, O Lord God, King of the Universe, for you give us food to sustain our lives and make our hearts glad; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

This next grace is also a blessing of God, from the Apostolic Constitutions compiled at the latter half of the 4th century:
"You are blessed, O Lord, who nourishes us from our youth, who gives food to all creatures. Fill our hearts with joy and gladness, that having always what is sufficient for us, we may abound to every good work, in Christ Jesus our Lord, through whom glory, honor, and power be to you forever. Amen."

A grace attributed to Bridget, Abbess of Kildare, late 5th century:
"God bless the poor,
God bless the sick,
And bless our human race.
God bless our food,
God bless our drink,
All homes, O God, embrace."

A grace I adapted for the Christmas season from Marian Wright Edelman's book "Guide My Feet," page 35:
"Jesus, small poor baby of Bethlehem,
be born again in our hearts today
be born again in our homes today
be born again in our cities today
be born again in our nations today
be born again in our world today.
We thank you for this food
for the hands that planted and tended it
for the hands that prepared and provided it
and for the hands that served it.
And we pray for those without enough food
in your world and in our land of plenty. Amen."

A Spanish grace:
"O God, to those who have hungered,
give bread.
And to those who have bread,
give a hunger for justice. Amen."

"For what we are about to receive,
the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen."

There are graces found in the Book of Common Prayer on page 835:
"Give us grateful hearts, our Father, for all thy mercies, and make us mindful of the needs (and gifts) of others; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

"Bless, O Lord, thy gifts to our use and us to thy service; for Christ's sake. Amen."

"For these and all his mercies, God's holy Name be blessed and praised; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

A couple of graces learned from Bishop Lyman Ogilby:
"Christ in the wilderness five thousand fed
with two small fish and five loaves of bread.
May the blessing of the One who made this miraculous division
rest upon us and this provision. Amen."

"May the God who blesses, bless."

Sung graces:
(Johnny Appleseed)
"O the Lord is good to me
and so I thank the Lord
for giving me the things I need
the sun and the rain and the apple sees.
The Lord is good to me."

(Edelweiss)
"Bless our friends, bless our food,
come, O Lord, and sit with us.
May our hearts grow in peace,
may your love surround us.
Friendship and love
may they bloom and grow,
bloom and grow forever.
Bless our friends, bless our food,
come, O Lord, and sit with us."

(We plow the fields/Wir pflugen)
All good gifts around us
are sent from heaven above;
then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord
for all his love."

From the United Thank Offering's Graces for Children:
"God, we thank you for this food
for rest and home and all things good;
for wind and rain and sun above,
but most of all for those we love. Amen."

"We thank you, Lord, for happy hearts,
for rain and sunny weather.
We thank you, Lord, for this our food,
and that we are together. Amen."

More children's graces:
"Thank you for the world so sweet,
thank you for the food we eat.
Thank you for the birds that sing.
Thank you, God, for everything. Amen."

"For food, and all thy Gifts of love,
We give you thanks and praise.
Look down, O Father, from above
And bless us all our days. Amen."

"For every cup and plateful,
God make us truly grateful. Amen."

Seek the Peace of the City

2008-11-30T17:03:00.003-04:00

November 24, 2008

I. Introduction

“Seek the peace of the city,” wrote Jeremiah to the exiles in Babylon. The exiles, he knew, would be there an indefinite time. It would be best that they seek the city’s welfare. One might even say that here is an intimation of Jesus’ “love your enemy” (Matt. 5:44). In addition, the exiled, economically dislocated Israelites are to worship and pray to God there. The God of Israel is to be met beyond borders, even beyond the borders of Jerusalem. Seek the peace of the city.

This morning a funeral mass was held at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul for Sergeant Timothy Simpson who was killed a week earlier. He became the fourth Philadelphia police officer killed in the line of duty this year. His partner had been killed less than seven months ago. Violence against police in our city runs counter to the national trend of a one-fifth decline in officers’ deaths in the line of duty. Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said, “he had never witnessed such a toll on police in his 41 years on the job” (Inquirer, 11/19/08, p. A11). While police deaths are up, homicides in the city though still numbering 300 are considerably lower than in previous years. According to Lawrence Sherman of the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, the conditions for violence include the high number of illegal guns on the streets, broken families and concentrations of poverty. Mayor Nutter addressed our Diocese (The Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania) on the issue of hand guns and safety. Sociologist Elijah Anderson in his book Code of the Street emphasized economic dislocation and the alienation and weakening of the family structure that goes with it as the condition for a street code of violence.

As much as anything the violence in Philadelphia was my motivation to join a Delaware Valley delegation of Jews, Muslims and Christians to visit Israel and the West Bank during this past Easter Week for the purpose of peace-making. Would a journey to the center of the world’s most intractable violence provide any insight for seeking peace at home? Upon return we have formed the Interfaith Community for Middle East Peace (ICMEP) in order to bring the faiths together in their capacity to be vehicles of peace.

This year’s violence in Israel included the death of Roni Yechiah in a rocket attack at the Israeli town of Sderot on February 27. It was the first death by rocket in nine months. In the fighting that followed over 120 Palestinians and 2 Israeli soldiers were killed. After only a week, on March 6, in retaliation for the Palestinian deaths in Gaza, an Israeli Arab residing in Jerusalem opened fire on the Mercaz Ha Rav Yeshiva leaving eight students dead and eleven wounded. On Easter Monday (March 24), two weeks later, we left for Jerusalem. In the air over the Atlantic I read the final verses of Mark’s Gospel appointed for the day: “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that (Jesus) is going ahead of you to Galilee, there you will see him, just as he told you” (Mark 16:7). After the crucifixion of exile, officers killed in the line of duty, hundreds of homicides, rocket attacks and a revenge killing, I was going to see Jesus in whom there is that “peace of God, which surpasses all understanding…” (Phil. 4:7).

II. Listening

As a delegation we travelled with the purpose of listening. Our leaders were Maha El-Taji, an Israeli Arab, and Leah Green, the founder and director of the Compassionate Listening Project. Our thesis was that listening with the heart corrals differing experiences, pain from opposing causes, and holds them in a safe environment allowing for the appreciation of one another’s common humanity. The process of compassionate listening would create a shift from an attitude of defensiveness or a fixation on woundedness to what is at our heart – our loves, our deep desire for peace, and our empathy for others. The only way to help another get to this heart or core of empathy is for us to be in our own heart. By changing ourselves, by being more heart-ful, we can help another to make their own transformation. This was the idea.

Listening is at the heart of personal justice for Theologian Paul Tillich. In a small book entitled, Love, Power and Justice, he wrote, “In order to know what is just in a person-to-person encounter, love listens. It is its first task to listen. No human relation, especially no intimate one, is possible without mutual listening. Reproaches, reactions, defenses may be justified in terms of proportional justice. But perhaps they would prove to be unjust if there were more mutual listening. All things and all (people), so to speak, call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen, they want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being. They want justice from us. But we can give it to them only through the love which listens.” (p. 84)

Rami, a Jew who lost his daughter in a suicide bombing, beset with outrage, was able to utilize that energy creatively by speaking for peace through the Bereaved Parents’ Circle. Once when speaking to a Palestinian school, the principal warned the student body, “Don’t listen to him. He will make you weak.” The message is that a certain hardness is necessary for survival, let alone for fighting for what is right. The contrast is between what Tillich called the reproaches of proportional justice, and the mutual listening of creative justice. It is possible to listen deeply without being less assertive about what one believes to be right.

When listening is unexpectedly practiced at a checkpoint real human interaction and healing take place. There are about eighty checkpoints within the West Bank. Their purpose is to restrict the movement of Palestinians and so thwart terrorist attacks. In addition there are as many as 150 to 200 “flying checkpoints” that are set up for a few hours every day. Army vehicles stop along a road to check all Palestinian vehicles as well as Israeli cars carrying Palestinian residents. B’Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) observes that, “Cases of direct physical violence by soldiers against Palestinians wanting to cross the internal checkpoints have become an almost daily occurrence since the beginning of the second Intifada.”

We met with leaders of a Creativity for Peace camp held twice each summer in New Mexico for Israeli and Palestinian girls. After an experience there an Israeli came of age for military service and was a soldier assigned to a checkpoint. One day she noticed a small Palestinian boy waiting and terrified with a paper airplane in his hand. She made herself a paper airplane and together they played for a bit and he began to laugh. On another occasion, a man with severe diabetes came to the check point. He did not have the proper permit. It is hot and as he stands, he is suffering. She gets up and takes her chair and has him sit down while he waits. Her fellow soldiers give her looks and wonder what is wrong with her!?! She is listening to the needs of those who wait in line. In her small way giving them justice.

III. Dialogue

Dialogue or lack of it is seen in contrasting views of a Jewish spokesman for the settlement at Hebron and a Sufi Sheikh in Jerusalem. Hebron is the only Palestinian city on the West Bank (other than East Jerusalem) with an Israeli settlement in its center. B’Tselem explains, “Over the years, the army has created a contiguous strip of land in the city along which the movement of Palestinian vehicles is absolutely forbidden… At the present time (2007), the only persons allowed to move about freely along this strip are settlers and Israeli security forces. The center of this strip contains many sections of street on which even Palestinian pedestrians are forbidden.”

We asked David Wilder, a spokesman for the settlement, if he had any personal relationships with Palestinians. “You can’t converse with people who are trying to get you to leave,” he responded. “If you let down your guard they’ll slit your throat. Israel is at war. The only give-and-take we’ve seen is ‘we give/you take.’ People like Bin Laden will do barbarous things to you.” When asked what was his greatest disappointment, I was interested to hear him reply that he did not achieve enough. He seemed to me someone very much motivated by achievement. Though achievement is a fine motivation, it can lead some people to view others as obstacles and to be authoritarian as leaders. They may look at situations as a zero sum game – it’s either them or us. Compassionate listening provides an alternative to this expression of the achievement motive. Here is Sheikh Abdul Aziz Buchari, the direct descendant of Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari (810 – 870). Muhammad al-Bukhari compiled collections of traditions (hadiths) in Sunnite Islam.

Sheikh Buchari said, “The Crusaders’ war was carried out under the name of religion. In reality it was not religion but conquering. When people say they are fighting over religion, it’s really over power that they are fighting. People are upset today over the dividing wall Israel is building, but the real wall is in our heads. If we want to overcome that separation we need to talk to one another. There are plenty of Muslims and Jews here, but we never talk to each other! Some people say, ‘Well, we might talk, but we have to find people in the other group who really want peace – then we’ll have something in common. We can’t expect to talk with extremists.’ But those are precisely the people we need to bring into the talks – extremists from both sides. If we do not include all the people of faith in the peace process, they’ll speak out in other, less constructive ways. We need to specifically include the ‘extremists.’”

IV. Anger

Rami, referred to earlier under “listening,” served with a tank crew in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. All together there were 11 tanks. By the end there were three. Rami lost some good friends. He came back from that war a very angry man. 10 years later Rami now married had a daughter who grew to be a vivacious and lovely girl. Then a few days before Yom Kippur at the start of the Second Intafada in 2000, she with several other children were killed by two suicide bombers. He spent the longest night of his life searching the neighborhoods for her, then the hospitals and finally the morgue. A husk of a man, during the seven days of Jewish mourning one thousand people came through his house. One visitor suggested a group for bereaved parents whose goal was peace, to whom Rami bitterly responded, “How dare you!”

Anger, he discovered, is double-edged. Rami had to decide what he would do with his anger. He began to think that vengeance would not bring back his daughter, another Palestinian death would not cause her return. Anger would just fester and eat away at him from within. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela in a book about the legacy of apartheid in South Africa writes that, hateful emotions “are a burden that prevent the victim from fully coming to terms with the trauma and moving on.” (96) On the other hand, anger was the energy to lift him above himself, to give his life purpose. He found that by telling his story through the Bereaved Parents’ Circle he could bring awareness, the humanness of both sides, the need for an end to the killing.

At the Creativity for Peace Camp an Israeli girl tells her story of losing two friends in a suicide bombing. It made such a difference to her to tell this story in the presence of the enemy. This is deep, emotional work. The process might start with a paper bag filled with twenty words such as Holocaust, checkpoint, suicide bomber and so on. The girls will write what they feel about those words. Then the fur flies! If a girl can say, “I hate you;” “I don’t trust you,” then it is possible for her to move toward love. But first there needs to be listening with compassion and authenticity. When there is the breakdown, then there is the possibility for break-through. Dr. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela in her book, A Human Being Died That Night, explains “there are internal psychological dynamics that impel most of us toward forming an empathic connection with another person in pain, that draw us into (her) pain, regardless of who that someone is” (p. 127). After the Camp one Palestinian student in university listened as her professor said terrible things about Israelis. She stood up and said, “I have a different experience of Israelis,” and she told her story.

After visiting with leaders of the Peace Camp we went to Taghba on the Sea of Galilee which is where the trauma of Peter’s three-fold denial is confronted with Jesus’ three-fold question, “Do you love me?” (John 21: 15-17) It struck me that here was the same catharsis: breakdown, breakthrough and transformation.

V. Forgiveness

Esther Golan was born in 1923. She escaped the Holocaust with the Kinder Transport. Kinder Transport was a British response to the pogrom of November 9 and 10, 1938 in Germany remembered as Kristallnacht (“Night of Broken Glass”). German and Austrian Nazis burned and destroyed 267 synagogues, killed 100 people, smashed 7,500 Jewish stores (all that remained in the Reich), and incarcerated nearly 30,000 in concentration camps. Sponsored by the British Jewish Refugee Committee, 10,000 children left Germany in sealed trains to find refuge with foster families in homes, or on farms, group homes and orphanages throughout Great Britain Later Esther emigrated to Israel, and we met her at her home in Rehavia, Jerusalem. She says that in her natural family the word “hate” was not allowed. She concludes that, “hate brings hate brings self-hate.”

When asked about the Nazis and forgiveness, Esther replied, “Forgiveness can only be given to those who did the harm. The perpetrators in this case are all dead, so there is no forgiveness.” There is truth to what Esther says, and it is part of the case I might make against capital punishment. Still I wonder whether it is not possible for the victim to forgive a perpetrator who is no longer present. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela suggests that perhaps it is. She says forgiveness “is a choice the victim makes to let go of the bitterness” (p.97). She observes that forgiveness can open up for the victim a new path of healing and conversely not to forgive can mean closing the door to transformation.

Nevertheless, Esther noted the conversations that are currently going on between Israel and Germany. “If we can have conversation with Germans, then why do we not sit down with Palestinians?” The goal is not to ignore our disagreements. Rather, she said, what is necessary is to live under creative tension, to live with difference. Our aim of Compassionate listening is to move toward this experience of dialogue. Dr.Gobodo-Madikizela explains that this dialogue “is critical if victims (of whatever side) are to live again with perpetrators in the same society, or indeed if they are to live in greater harmony with themselves” (p.119).

VI. Hope

Combatants for Peace is an organization with both Palestinian and Israeli counterparts. They are Palestinians who have served time in Israeli prison and Israeli soldiers. Both have sworn off violence for peace. We spoke with the Palestinian Suleiman al-Hamri. He contrasted big dreams with small hopes. “There’s a difference between us and some who work for similar goals. You can either work for the Great Dream or for small hopes. The Palestinians who work for ‘the Great Dream’ – like Hamas – want to open their eyes one day and see not one Israeli still in the Holy Land. Likewise with Israelis – people like Lieberman (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Strategic Affairs in Israel who advocates transferring Israeli Arab citizens to neighboring Arab countries) – their ‘Great Dream’ is to see the total elimination of all Palestinians. But we have chosen to work for what I call the small hopes: that Israelis and Palestinians will be able to live together in peace, and with mutual respect and understanding. We are ready to cooperate with all people and groups. To get there we are starting to work not only on the military issues we started with, but on social problems, on educational problems as well.”

At Wi’am, the Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center in Bethlehem, its Director Zoughbi al-Zoughbi writes: “As a Christian, I am always hopeful… Hope is a matter of choice. Hope is not only an emotional thing but also a reasonable approach to fight against hopelessness and frustration, which will lead only to hate. Hope is the nonviolent approach to struggle that will not demonize the other but will invite the other to join. Hope is an oasis of interactions of people from different backgrounds and walks of life to see new possibilities. Hope allows people to adopt different approaches to create a healthy atmosphere. Hope is the gift of uplifting the spirits of the people who are paying a heavy price in pain. Hope is to walk with them, to share with them, and of course to help them see the possibility of a different reality. Through the work of Wi’am and through our partners, we see that hope truly soars even in the midst of trauma and injustice.” (Mission Study, p. 162)

On the second Sunday of Easter, the Psalm for morning prayer proclaims Suleiman’s “small hope”: “He has established peace on your borders; he satisfies you with the finest wheat” (147:5).

VII. Encounter

We spent our last night and morning in Israel at Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salam, set up as a joint model village in 1972 by a group of Jewish and Arab Israelis. In the United States studies of Black and White racial identity have shown that the identity of a person of one race is constructed in the significant encounter of oneself through the meaningful engagement with those of the other race. In 1972, a group of Arabs and Jews decided to conduct an ongoing encounter by living together, and so Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salam (“Oasis of Peace”) was born. It is a lived response to a history of division.

In 1976, this community formed the School for Peace. The youth encounters alone bring one thousand Jews and Arabs to the School each year. The School accepts young people aged sixteen and seventeen which is the age when they begin shaping their social and political identities. The School is affiliated with Hebrew University. One wall of the “Clubhouse” is a one way mirror through which, unseen, social psychologists may observe the group processes taking place. The School makes extensive use of Social Identity Theory which has grown from Harvard psychologist Gordon Allport’s “contact hypothesis” posited in his classic work, The Nature of Prejudice. The aspiration of the School is “to unravel and then reconstruct participants’ identities because only an encounter between confident identities can lead to a genuine meeting of equals and permit the option of building a more humane and just society” (Identities, p. 8).

The scripture reading for Tuesday morning before we left captured much of what our delegation had been about in this Easter Week and following. In First Peter 1: 22, I read:
“Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth
so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.”

VIII. Conclusion

The experience of violence and peace-making in Israel holds potential lessons for us here in Philadelphia. Certainly in both places there are political and systemic issues to be addressed. In Philadelphia these would include hand guns and public safety, job creation (that pays a living wage), and training.

I was struck by the importance of encounter between people with differences, particularly at the age of adolescence when political and social identity is being shaped. We see this through the sharing by members of the Bereaved Parents’ Circle in schools, peace camps and “schools for peace.”

There is clearly a spiritual dimension to peace-making, that includes listening with empathy that validates the other person, gives a degree of justice and shifts future behavior; dialogue that risks meeting the other whose position is diametrically opposed to one’s own; recognition of the energy of anger for creative difference-making; the transformative power of forgiveness; and the hope that takes small steps and includes people whose differences might otherwise divide them.

IX. Bibliography

Anderson, Elijah, Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner
City, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1999.

Gobodo-Midikizela, Pumla, A Human Being Died that Night: A South African Woman
Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company,
2003.

Goldstein, Stephen, Israel-Palestine: A Mission Study for 2007-2008, Women’s
Division, General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist
Church, 2007.

Halabi, Rabah, Editor, Israeli and Palestinian Identities in Dialogue: The School for Peace
Approach, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2004.

Tillich, Paul, Love, Power and Justice: Ontological Analyses and Ethical Applications,
New York: Oxford University Press, 1954.

Lakota generosity and the sacred pipe

2008-07-23T10:33:00.003-04:00

This summer several of our young people from Saint Paul’s Church, Chestnut Hill, Charlie Affel, Maggie Olsen, along with me, travelled to North Dakota to the Standing Rock Reservation to work and play alongside Lakota young people at a church camp. After the camp was over a Lakota man invited us to be part of a pipe ceremony that conveyed the truth that “we are all related” and stewards of all that has been given us. Although the Christian and Lakota traditions are not the same, they touch each other at many points because each has a kind of “sacramental” way of looking at the world. Visible signs in the natural world communicate the sacred mysteries of creation.

It was a beautiful late Dakota afternoon. Puffs of cloud hung high against the blue sky. We sat in a circle representing reciprocity. What one receives or takes away in this life, one also must give back. It is a cycle of life – an outpouring of the Spirit and a pouring out to others of the Spirit’s gifts. Our teacher told stories and through them we began to understand some of the Lakota tradition.

Sage, which is plentiful around the camp, was lit with a prayer and then passed around the circle “sun-wise” so each might purify their hands, face, head, arms and body. In Christian worship purification takes place through the prayer, “Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit.” Bits of red willow bark are used in the pipe ceremony as smokers might use tobacco but the filling of the pipe is much more impressive. A prayer is chanted to the four directions, a pinch of bark is added to the red-stone bowl of the pipe for the South, and then the West, next the North, and the East. Another pinch is added with a prayer to the heavens and finally one to the earth below. In this way the pipe bowl contains the totality of space and time, all of creation including humankind. The pipe is topped with a bit of sage to purify the whole. When the fire of the Great Spirit is added, there is a divine sacrifice so that all is brought within the divine presence. The ego is sacrificed so that self-centeredness is
replaced with the Great Mystery within. That is our true center allowing us to become what we already are – a fitting part of creation in a circle of reciprocity. Each of us – men, women and children – puffed on the pipe, reconnecting us, restoring us, and preparing us to give of ourselves for others.

It is not for us as Christians to appropriate this ceremony (enough has been taken from the Lakota) but we may be invited in as our group was this summer. It reminds us that God is the source of all things. We hear in the Psalms, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows God’s handiwork” (19: 1); and “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world and all who dwell therein” (24:1). We are related to the universe in every direction through the presence of God. We are part of a covenant of trust. Property and land come from God. Material things, abilities and time are given to us by God. We are trusted stewards of all God has given us, with not our self in the center but God. No longer ruled by self-centeredness, we are to give as God gave. We are to respect the dignity of all. In a society where all the pressure is to receive and take away, it is good to be reminded that at the heart of creation is the need to give back. It is a life-cycle; it is life giving; and it is joyful. No wonder generosity is a cardinal virtue of the Lakota. May it be so with us all.

A missed opportunity for truth and reconciliation

2008-06-11T09:33:00.002-04:00

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Wednesday on the "church trial of Episcopal Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr. charged with concealing his brother's sexual abuse of a teenage girl decades ago." At Tuesday's session, the paper related, the abused girl now 50 years old, said tearfully, "I haven't wanted (the bishop) removed from his job. I just want him to acknolwedge his role." My fantasy is what would happen if rather than litigating innocence or guilt we called together a Truth and Reconciliation Committee?

Psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela authored a telling book about the legacy of Apartheid entitled, A Human Being Died That Night. She remarks “that the line separating good from evil is paper-thin.” She is interviewing Eugene de Kock, nicknamed “Prime Evil,” for the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. He has just told of his worst memory of a cross border raid. She observes: “A human being died that night in the murder operation. The reality seemed to hang between us. At that moment I thought I saw a man finally acknowledging the debt he owed to his conscience” (p. 51).

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela argues the importance of forgiveness for both perpetrator and victim. “Not to forgive,” she writes, “means closing the door to the possibility of transformation” (103). Conversely, hateful emotions “are a burden that prevent the victim from fully coming to terms with the trauma and moving on.” (96). Forgiveness, she says, does not “overlook the deed: it rises above it. This is what it means to be human,’ it says. ‘I cannot and will not return the evil you inflicted on me.’ And that is the victim’s triumph” (117). Finally, she observes hopefully, “it is within the grasp of ordinary people to forgive evil and to end generational cycles of violence” (118).

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela commenting on pain in South Africa wrote: “Empathy is a response to another person’s pain, even in the midst of tragedy, pain cannot be evil.” (p.100) And again, “there are internal psychological dynamics that impel most of us toward forming an empathic connection with another person in pain, that draw us into his pain, regardless of who that someone is.” (127) She adds that for many compassion “is deeply therapeutic and restorative.” (129) What will bring healing is not litigation but conscience, forgiveness and empathy.

So much, and the trial is no exception, of what we have seen played out on the diocesan and national scene is about power. In contrast, at Saint Paul’s, we are about relationship. While the press may sensationalize the sexuality of the case, in reality abuse is about power over others. Rather than “power-over,” our identity as Saint Paul-ites is one of relational power, the capacity to care for one another, to stand together before God. Our identity also is one of peace, that is the well being of all.

There is a particular quality to our witness that comes from the singular community of which we are a part. Saint Paul’s Church for over a century and a half has been a place of turning. You can call this conversion or conversation. In any case it is a “turning – each to the other – in Christ.” I like to call it our parish vision. This turning is part of the original energy of Saint Paul’s. Almost six months to the day after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in Ford’s Theatre, southern and northern clergy, enemies only a year earlier, stood before God at the altar of Saint Paul’s. They had gathered in Philadelphia for the Episcopal Church’s General Convention that year. At my celebration of new ministry in this church over two years ago, the preacher, President of the Standing Committee, had that week requested the resignation of the Bishop who was our celebrant at the Eucharist. They both were together before God at the altar of Saint Paul’s. It is our particular witness as a parish that people of great difference can stand as one, reconciled before God. In 1865 with so many southern clergy in the church, the rector at that time recalled years later that it seemed a great “omen of peace for the parish.” Peace is the second strand of witness that is particular to Saint Paul’s. Nearly a hundred years later the parish planted a Northern Red Oak, symbol of faith’s strength, in memory of Dag Hammarskjöld and all those who have given their lives for world peace. Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash in Zimbabwe while seeking to negotiate peace between United Nations and Katanga forces. This commitment to unity of those with differences and to peace has become part of our culture, part of the double helix (strands of unity and peace) or DNA at Saint Paul’s.

So my fantasy is a relational rather than litigious gathering. The reality will be a trial. The national church will litigate but will it own what has been broken? There will be accusations and defense, but will there be conscience, forgiveness and empathy? Will there be more “power over” one or the other, or will forgiveness rise above this? Will there be a turning away, or a turning – each to the other – in Christ? Will there be legal disputation or negotiated peace? "I haven't wanted (the bishop) removed from his job," the victim cried. "I just want him to acknolwedge his role." This is the cry for relationship, not for more institutional power.

Delaware Valley Interfaith Delegation to Israel/Palestine –

2008-05-06T09:40:00.002-04:00

On Easter Week, I joined twenty Jews, Muslims, Christians, a Buddhist and a Unitarian Universalist, in a Delaware Valley Interfaith Delegation to Israel/Palestine to practice Compassionate Listening led by Leah Green, Director of the Compassionate Listening Project, and trainer Maha El-Taji.

Over the Atlantic on Easter Monday I read Evening Prayer. The lesson was the final verses of the Gospel of Mark, chapter 16, verses 1 – 8. Verse 7 is what stood out for me: “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee, there you will see him, just as he told you.” It struck me that we would be going to the Galilee where Jesus has preceded us. We would see him just as he told us. Jesus told us that we would see him in compassion.

“In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, Jesus called his disciples and said to them, ‘I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat.’… His disciples replied, ‘How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?’” (Mark 8: 1-2, 4).

In this desert of arid and harsh conflict, violence and retaliation cycling round and round, our Delaware Valley Interfaith Delegation came to give the bread of compassionate listening. This listening with the heart corrals differing experiences, pain from opposing causes, and holds them in a safe environment allowing for the appreciation of one another’s common humanity. This frees people to “express themselves and to go to the level of their deep concerns. It provides the basis of all meaningful relationships. It is the first step to reconciliation. It enables sustained dialogue. Dialogue then becomes the basis for problem solving and ultimately, for advocacy.”

The Theologian Paul Tillich wrote in a small book entitled, Love, Power and Justice, that in personal encounters creative justice entails listening, giving and forgiving. “In order to know what is just in a person-to-person encounter, love listens. It is its first task to listen. No human relation, especially no intimate one, is possible without mutual listening. Reproaches, reactions, defenses may be justified in terms of proportional justice. But perhaps they would prove to be unjust if there were more mutual listening. All things and all (people), so to speak, call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen, they want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being. They want justice from us. But we can give it to them only through the love which listens.” (p. 84)

Preceding our arrival, Roni Yechiah had been killed by an Hamas rocket fired down upon the southern Israeli town of Sderot on February 27. It was the first Israeli death due to these primitive rockets in nine months. In the fighting that followed, over 120 Palestinians and 2 Israeli soldiers were killed. 258 rockets were fired by militants having obviously little effect. B’Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied territories) that we would visit on Wednesday reported that “1,259 of the 2,679 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces in the Gaza Strip (since September 2000) were not participating in hostilities when they were killed, and 567 were minors.” On March 6 in retaliation for the Palestinian deaths in Gaza, an Israeli Arab residing in Jerusalem opened fire on the Mercaz Ha Rav Yeshiva leaving eight students dead and eleven wounded. Rabbi Menachem Fromann whom we would see on Friday gave one of the eulogies.

Two and a half weeks after the Yeshiva shootings, on Easter Monday, we left Newark Airport on El Al for Tel Aviv. Tensions around the fighting in Gaza meant that some of the checkpoints we were near were very touchy. There were roads we could not use with our Palestinian driver. And when we visited with the Combatants for Peace on the West Bank, the Israeli party to that group did not feel safe meeting with the Palestinian side, so we only got to talk with the Palestinians.

The first day we had a three faiths tour of ancient Jerusalem that took us to the Temple Mount, the Noble Sanctuary. The Christian historian Eutychius wrote in 876 C.E.: “The Byzantines… neglected it (the Temple Mount) and did not hold it in veneration, nor did they build a church over it because Christ our Lord said in his Holy Gospel ‘Not a stone will be left upon a stone which will not be ruined and devastated.’ For this reason the Christians left it as a ruin and did not build a church over it.”

The tragic irony today is that some Christian Zionists want to rebuild the Temple. When I spent Thursday night in Hebron at the home of a Palestinian family, they invited a friend to join us. The religious question he wanted to ask was whether I believed that the Temple in Jerusalem needed to be rebuilt in order for the Messiah to return. The anxiety of course is the destruction of the Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. I answered “no.” In fact, in the Christian tradition the resurrected Christ is the rebuilt Temple. The tradition refers to Jesus destroying the temple and rebuilding it on the third day, the day of resurrection. Israel, as you might imagine supports the Zionists. On Sunday we met with Daniel Seaman, Director of the Government Press Office. He expressed strong support for those he called evangelical Christians. These are really dispensationalist Christians who believe the world will experience a period of worsening tribulations until Christ returns. It is based on the biblical interpretation of the nineteenth century Anglican John Nelson Darby. The return of the Jews to Palestine is a key event in the preordained process that will lead to the second coming. In 2006 Michael Freund, former director of communications for Benjamin Netanyahu wrote: “Thank God for Christian Zionists. Like it or not, the future of the relationship between Israel and the U.S. may very well hinge far less on America’s Jews than on its “Christians.“

A week after our return to Philadelphia, CNN news reported on Pastor John Hagee’s march in support of Israel, and his Nights in Honor of Israel. His group, Christians United for Israel, raised more than $12 million to help settle new immigrants in Israel, including in settlements in the Occupied Territories. In 2006 John Hagee warned in his book Jerusalem Countdown, “The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty. The war of Ezekiel 38-39 could begin before this book gets published.“ Hagee believes that Jews “have everyting but spiritual life,“ and that anti-Semitism is the result of the Jews’ “rebellion (against God)." Still the Anti Defamation Leagues’ Abraham Foxman declares there is a role for Hagee “because of his support for Israel." Though Pastor Hagee does not seem to say it directly, I think it is implied that he believes in the rebuilding of the Temple, prior to the Messiah’s return.

Next, we walked to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, one of the holiest places in Christianity, said to be Jesus’ place of execution and burial.

Once inside one climbs a steep stairway 33 feet to the top of Golgotha where a Greek Orthodox chapel is built over the rock of Calvary itself. Under the altar at the spot where the cross stood is a silver disc through which one can touch the rock. The opening is not wide and it is not an easy reach.

The author Reynolds Price, in a short story entitled “An Early Christmas,” describes what a difficult reach it is to touch Golgotha. “‘Jesus – Christ – crucified – here’ … an Orthodox priest or monk… gestured hard toward the silver medallion…Then I bent to reach the disc. It ringed an actual hole, jet black; and one last break in my mind said no. But the monk said ‘Reach.’ I was half bent over. I put my right hand into the hole up past my wrist. The air inside was decidedly cooler than the odorous room; but when I felt around in the dark, my fingers touched nothing. The voice said ‘Reach.’ …I’d have to kneel to thrust deeper – why though, for what? I glanced to the monk. His hand was huge now and aimed me on. So I got to my knees nearer the hole, then reached till my elbow vanished inward. The voice said ‘Now. Golgotha – here.”

Compassionate listening means being vulnerable. Our minds want to say no and shut down. At Al Arroub Refugee camp, I felt the camp leadership wanting to impose their agenda on me (of course they did). My mind said no. My fingers touched nothing. Could I be vulnerable and let go of my defensiveness about being pushed or coerced? Could I hear in that the refugees own pain at being pushed and coerced by the occupation? I am not sure that I did very well at this, but the Voice says, “Reach.” And reach I shall. To do so, as at Golgotha I will have to kneel, that is I will have to practice being in a centered place. Then listening with compassion to the other in pain, I shall touch Golgotha.

Mazen Farraj and Rami Elhannan are members of the Bereaved Parents Circle (Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost members to the conflict). We are at the end of our first day. Their stories will also cause us to be vulnerable to a father who lost his daughter and a son his father. Can I be with them in their pain when to do so means setting aside my own fear of loss and pain? This is the challenge and glory of Compassionate Listening.

Rami’s Story

In the 1973 Yom Kippur War Rami served with a tank crew. All together there were 11 tanks. They ended with three and he lost some good friends. He came back from that war a very angry man. 10 years later Rami now married had a daughter who grew to be a vivacious and lovely girl. Then ironically a few days before Yom Kippur she with several other children were killed by two suicide bombers at the start of the Second Intafada in 2000. He spent the longest night of his life searching the neighborhoods for her, then the hospitals and finally the morgue. A husk of a man, during the seven days of Jewish mourning one thousand people came through his house. One man suggested a group for bereaved parents whose goal was peace, to whom Rami bitterly responded, “How dare you!”

Conversion

Eventually, Rami decided to attend a Bereaved Parents Circle even though he was sure that it would be a waste of time. He was still angry. As he watched parents and others with deep loss due to the conflict get off buses for this meeting, he saw people he considered Jewish heroes. He began to think there might something here. Then came a bus of Palestinians arrived. One mother wore a large circle pendant around her neck containing a picture of her deceased son. All shared their pain of loss. It was during this meeting that something inside Rami flipped. He is not a religious Jew and so does not have a language for describing or understanding what happened, but something changed. He felt newly broken open, able to see Palestinians as more than the laborers tat he passed in Jerusalem, or whom he shot at during the Yom Kippur War. They were human beings who also suffered.

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela commenting on pain in South Africa wrote: “Empathy is a response to another person’s pain, even in the midst of tragedy, pain cannot be evil.” (p.100) And again, “there are internal psychological dynamics that impel most of us toward forming an empathic connection with another person in pain, that draw us into his pain, regardless of who that someone is.” (127) She adds that for many compassion “is deeply therapeutic and restorative.” (129)

Anger is double-edged

Part of Rami’s experience of “flip” was deciding what he would do with his anger. He began to think that vengeance would not bring back his daughter, another Palestinian death would not cause her return. Anger would just fester and eat away at him from within.

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela writes that, hateful emotions “are a burden that prevent the victim from fully coming to terms with the trauma and moving on.” (96)

Anger also has been the energy to lift him above himself, to give his life purpose. He found that by telling his story he could bring awareness, the humanness of both sides, the need for an end to the killing. Rami spoke of the importance listening – Jew to Palestinian and visa versa.

Listening

Once when speaking to a Palestinian school, the principal warned the student body, “Don’t listen to him. He will make you weak.” The message is that a certain hardness is necessary for survival, let alone for fighting for what is right. The difference is between what Tillich called the reproaches of proportional justice, and the mutual listening of creative justice. It is possible to listen deeply without being less aggressive about pushing for what is right.

Mazen’s Story

Mazen Farraj grew up in a refugee camp outside of Bethlehem. His father always told him that he wanted a better life for Mazen and his siblings than he had lived. Mazen went to university. At a student protest Mazen was arrested and spent three years in prison. After release and returning home, Mazen and his mother got word one night that his father, her husband, had been shot and killed by an Israeli soldier for being a Palestinian. Mazen wanted to go to identify the body and to say his final good-bye. He had loved his father whose only desire was a better life for his children.

The refugee camp has a curfew during which no one is allowed out of their homes. When Mazen explained the situation to a soldier and asked to go see his father’s body, the soldier replied that they would send an envelope by the next morning. Mazen was not permitted to go to his father’s body. It was he said the longest night. When day broke, the envelope arrived and the family could claim the father’s body.

Not Allowed

At the end of the story by Mazen, he was asked if he would like a glass of water. “Yes,” he said, “if it was allowed.” All of us listening showed a start of disbelief at his comment. When he noticed our reaction, Mazen realized what he had said. Then he talked of what it is like to grow up in an occupation where so much is not allowed. Even the simplest requests cannot be taken for granted but must be checked to be sure they are allowed.

“The Things They Carried”

Mazen began his talk by saying how difficult it is to carry the needs, hopes and feelings of the others at the refugee camp. They are deported and feel de-humanized. They are suppressed, and feel humiliated. It is hard to carry, he said. I asked him what gave him the capacity to carry all that? Like Rami, he spoke of anger as an energy that could lift him above himself, so that he could speak up for his people and to act in hope rather than get stuck in recrimination.

He said the Israeli soldiers also carried much. At a meeting with Combatants for Peace we listened by video to an Israeli soldier describe his doubt and fear. He had entered the Israeli army as a teenager and had now risen to the rank of commander. How does that happen, he asked. Once on patrol, he entered a house on the West Bank. Naturally there were children. His soldiers were behind him. A small girl about seven years old ran toward him. Was she carrying explosives? Were his men in danger behind him? He thought of shooting her. Then fired a warning shot to the ceiling hoping the round would not hit any one. The girl froze terrified, hands in the air. The Israeli soldier could not forget that little girl. He told his superiors that he would not do that any more. He could no longer carry the indiscriminate violence, the guilt was too much to bear.

Renoir Landscapes

2008-01-12T11:18:00.000-04:00

My wife and I visisted the exhibition of Renoir Landscapes at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. One garden painting seemed to hold an endless variety of color. A comment caught my eye that “the reigning principle of nature was irregularity.” I enjoy the paradox of principle and irregularity. It reminds me of God’s promise that is a possible impossibility! Life in the Spirit is full of surprise, joy, and possibility (even the colorful possibility of what is irregular and beyond our ken). – Cliff

Why Isn't Everyone Praising the Lord?

2007-12-28T10:21:00.000-04:00

It was a bleak time for me and the approach of Christmas wasn't particularly appealing that year. To cheer myself, I went to Philadelphia's Christmas season opening parade on Market Street East. It was great fun with floats, marching bands, antique cars and culminated with Santa climbing a fire truck's ladder into Gimbels at the Gallery.

At a few street corners along Market Street small portable stages had been set up to feature singers from various schools and institutions. The light snow flurries that were falling looked really pretty with the old fashioned colored lights that lined one little stage, so I stopped to listen. A small cheerful choir of teens sang a lively gospel song. Its title asked the question: "Why Isn't Everybody Praising the Lord?"

I wish I could remember where they were from. I have also searched the Internet many times, without success, to seek the words to that song. It's almost as if the whole evening was a dream, but it wasn't. It was instead a moment of sharp insight that lifted my spirit, changed my perspective, and until this day has helped prevent me from seeing life through the dark lens I'd been burdened with in the few months before that evening.

I hope those children, grown now of course, are all well and that each one still remembers that song. Although I'll probably never find the lyrics, the title itself has turned out to be enough for me. Why isn't everybody praising the Lord? I'm not sure. I just know I do often. - from Dean

Veteran's Day 2007

2007-11-11T17:22:00.000-04:00

It is good to be at the Cathedral of the Diocese of Pennsylvania on this Veterans' Day. I imagine the Cathedral as this stable place in the midst of flux witnessing to the fellowship of the Spirit. This Cathedral is a stable place in the midst of hostilities that envisions the healing of the nations. This Cathedral is a stable place where Christ is born. Here is a place of fellowship, healing and new birth. The Viet Nam Memorial, 25 years old on Tuesday, has a similar cathedral quality to it - a hushed place of fellowship, healing and new birth. A boy leaves a baseball card to remember his grandfather.

I am not a veteran. I sense that the experience of many veterans opens their eyes to God in the way that any of us when placed in harm's way, in situations where we are not entirely in control, look beyond ourselves toward a higher power.

I am a listener. My wife's cousin was a helicopter pilot in Viet Nam. He began talking of his experiences about ten years ago. I was privileged to be a listener. He told me of a door gunner (a perilous position in a helicopter) who had gone through life trusting in his own abilities to achieve what he wanted - confiding in his own strength, as the hymn says. One day in camp being shelled by mortars, it was so clear to him that he was not in control. He was not big enough to uphold his own trust. Only God was big enough for that. It was an eye-opening experience.

I am a listener. My father on a minesweeper in the Pacific told of swimming with nothing but two miles of water between him and the bottom. He said how unnerving it was. I have always felt that to be such a powerful image of what it is to be in the presence of God, to experience such depth of trust and redemption. It is unnerving. "Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord..." the Psalm says (Ps. 130). It was an eye-opening experience.

I am a listener. Parishioners who are vets speak of God's providential hand that brought them through. I can only imagine that those who did not make it were brought through to that heavenly place where the "waters of life flow from the throne of God" (Revelation 22). A parishioner who took a shot to the head that pierced his helmet and lived, finds every day a gift. In each case, eyes are opened and God is met in that which is big eneough for our trust, in the unimaginable depth of plenteous redemption, in the gift of life. For those of you reading this who are vets, your experience of being put in harm's way, out of complete control, out of one's depth, so close to death that every day is a gift, all of this is eye-opening. We, to whatever extent we can, appreciate that, as together we seek God and scan the horizon for the promise of the Spirit's fellowship and the healing of the nations.

Every Day is a Miracle

2007-10-18T09:30:00.000-04:00

When pianist Arthur Rubinstein was asked about religion he replied, “Every day is a miracle.” Yesterday walking by Morris Arboretum in this warm autumn, a bush was flowering in white, starry blossoms. I thought of the phrase from the Book of Lamentations ("God's compassions fail not; they are new every morning") and the John Keble poem: “Morning."

Why waste your treasures of delight
Upon our thankless, joyless sight,
Who day by day to sin awake,
Seldom of heaven and you partake?

Oh! timely happy, timely wise,
Hearts that with rising morn arise!
Eyes that the beam celestial view,
Which evermore makes all things new!

New every morning is the love
Our wakening and uprising prove;
Through sleep and darkness safely brought,
Restored to life, and power, and thought.

A Sprinkling of the Sacred

2007-05-13T14:38:00.000-04:00

Dean writes:

Our neighbor Peg died two years ago and her house remains unoccupied while her family struggles with repairing some serious structural issues before they can sell the property. In the meantime, her yard goes untended and many of the plants in her garden that borders our yard have invaded our lawn.

Today, just as I was ready to mow down some little purple grape-like flowrets that had infiltrated our lawn, I felt compelled to let them stand. A little voice inside told me that in these little flowers that Peg loved and cherished there was a sacred memory of her presence. I was quickly overwhelmed with the feeling that Peg was with us still in a way neither of us could have ever expected!

I think God sprinkles our lives with an endless variety of reminders, hints and clues to the eternal. And only the most "clueless" among us will not at one time or another be swept into a vision of eternity by the most simple of circumstances.

Such was the message of those little flowers to me. For them and for that, I give praise!

February meditations

2007-03-12T11:43:00.000-04:00

Dusting of Snow
The other day there was a dusting of snow that showed up like the free gift of grace. Robert Frost wrote of a “dust of snow (that) Has given my heart/ A change of mood/ And saved…” The imagery is one of nature’s baptism that changes a heart of stone to one of flesh, and saves us from a rueful day to one of hope and joy. Such transformation is what worship is all about.

Midwinter cold
These are days that chill to the bone. We feel hemmed-in, bounded by the overcoat and scarf that wrap us up. In this midwinter cold our attention narrows to a small circle of protective warmth. Psalm 147 refers to snow like wool melted by God’s word. This word lifts our gaze beyond ourselves that we might partner with God in healing the brokenhearted and lifting up the lowly.

Banking the fires
I like to think of the season of Lent as banking the fires for a new day. In a wood stove the live coal at night is covered by a blanket of ash so that it may breathed into flame the next day. I wonder if the ash of Ash Wednesday is a little like that? Perhaps we are like the live coal that is kept deep and nurtured through the dark to be fanned into flame at Easter.

Lenten Prayer
Lent is a time to find more balance in life. Christians do this through the practice of prayer. FNP (or Friday Night Prayers) is a 20-minute prayer group that meets at 6 p.m. in the baptistery of the church. Karl Barth wrote: “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.” Join us for FNP.

Contra Casinos

2007-02-12T16:32:00.000-04:00

There are long term as well as short term drawbacks to casino gambling as a partial cure for our state’s economic challenges. They are both serious. In the long term the link between casino gambling and the state’s economy undermines the very purpose of a commonwealth. Turning to casino gambling to answer the state’s economic needs is shifting the burden from the whole community to a handful of Pennsylvania locations. Destination-style casinos place an undue burdenon their surrounding communities that can only partially be made up by gambling revenues. Destination-style casinos will pull away dollars from other entertainment and tourist destinations. The long term drawback to shifting the economic burden from the whole to a few localities, is the furthering of a fragmentation that is already eating away at the body politic evidenced by low voter turn-out and campaigns marked by negative advertising. The deepening financial challenges of the state in the long term require the commitment of the whole commonwealth, not a casino solution. There is a complexity and cost to our economic difficulty that is not amenable to a casino fix.

For those who argue that the state’s economic predicament is a result of an appetite for more and more, casino gambling only exasperates this unfettered desire. There is an addictive quality to gambling that leads to increased tolerance so that it takes higher stakes to give the same effect of pleasure experienced previously. This hardly seems an appropriate example for and influence upon the long term fiscal health in Pennsylvania.

Gaming is not playful but is loaded with the hopes and fears of economic outcome not only for individual “players” but for many state legislators seeking this answer to much needed revenue. What is wrong with the erosion of play? When the pressure-free space of play is lost the cost to society is the absence of room for experimentation and creativity as well as learning to work together as a team. The replacement of play with non-playful pressures to win at all costs have already undermined youth sports. To some parents the game is too important to be left to the players. Because of this pressure and exaggerated emphasis on winning 70% of all youth drop out of organized sports by age of 13. Casino gambling does nothing to contribute to a playfulness that has already largely been overshadowed in our society today.

The long term effects of casino gambling are a deepening fragmentation and break-down of the common good, an increased appetite for more, and further erosion of play for play’s sake. The immediate impact aside from the economic cost to the tourist and entertainment industry in Philadelphia, the site of two casinos, is the increase in number of people who will certainly succumb to compulsive gambling. This leads to lives out of control, families hurt, and the cost to society of such criminality as embezzlement. One has to at least ask the question of the personal and social cost of trying to solve a state economic challenge with destination-style casino gambling.

January Meditations

2007-01-25T10:26:00.000-04:00

Good night prayer on 11th Street
A rustle of blankets startled me as I climbed the stairs to the street. A gap-toothed man asked me to pray for him and I asked his name. The two of us prayed as night fell and the traffic roared. Afterward Ronald curled up in his blankets leaving a cigarette burning on the concrete like incense.

Loss
This week there have been two deaths and a friend is getting divorced. Letting go of relationships that have been precious is painful. The holding of memories and stories are ways we say good-bye, and move into new stages of esteem. The God who is eternal overflows with esteem, stronger than death, that values us and connects us eternally.

Anger
Anger seems to be in the air. What is the pain to which anger is the reaction? We use the phrase blind rage. Can rage blind us to hurts, real and imagined, and our distorted thinking about them? Perhaps rage can also blind us to compassion and the joy that is to be found in connection. In any case we need to discover in ourselves and our communities the stillness in which these questions can be asked and answered.

Dance
Last week 160 teenagers packed into our parish hall pulsing with the energy of dance. In a poem by the same name, Michael O’Siadhail writes: “Openness. Again and again to realign./ Another face and the moves must begin/ Anew. And we unfold into our design./ I want to dance forever…”

Praise Poem to God

2007-01-18T10:06:00.000-04:00

The Authorized Biography of Desmond Tutu has come out in which there is a chapter entitled, "Praise Poem to God." Tutu reveres a nineteenth century Xhosa prophet by the name of Ntsikana who emphasized prayer, penance, conversion from sin, submission to God's will and the centrality of resurrection. Ntsikana dressed in a leopard skin and worshiped in Xhosa song and dance creating a thoroughly African faith. Ntsikana wrote the "Great Hymn" in the form of a traditional praise poem to Ulo-Thixo Omkhulu ngosezulwini, that is, to the One, the Great God, who is in Heaven. Here is how this praise poem goes in translation:

The Great God, He is in heaven.
Thou art thou, Shield of truth.
Thou art thou, Stronghold of truth.
Thou art thou, Thicket of truth.
Thou art thou, who dwellest in the highest.
Who created life (below) and created (life) above.
The Creator who created, created heaven.
This maker of the stars, and the Pleiades.
A star flashed forth, telling us.
The maker of the blind, does He not make them on purpose?
The trumpet sounded, it has called us,
As for His hunting, He hunteth for souls.
Who draweth together flocks opposed to each other.
The Leader, he led us.
Whose great mantle, we put on.
Those hands of Thine, they are wounded.
Those feet of Thine, they are wounded.
Thy blood, why is it streaming?
Thy blood, it was shed for us.
This great price, have we called for it?
This home of Thine, have we called for it?

Martin Luther King Jr.

2007-01-09T05:57:00.000-04:00

From Jake: "This is a poem by Maya Angelou which I came across somewhere. It's appropriate for our time but I think especially now as we approach Dr. King's birthday. "

Christian by Maya Angelou

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I'm not shouting, 'I'm clean livin,"
I'm whispering "I was lost,"
Now I'm found and forgiven.

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I don't speak of this with pride.
I'm confessing that I stumble
and need CHRIST to be my guide.

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I'm not trying to be strong.
I'm professing that I'm weak
and need HIS strength to carry on.

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I'm not bragging of success.
I'm admitting I have failed
and need God to clean my mess.

When I say..."I'm a Christian"
I'm not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible
but, God believes I'm worth it.

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I still feel the sting of pain,
I have my share of heartaches
So I call upon his name.

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I'm not holier than thou,
I'm just a simple sinner
who received God's grace somehow.

-Maya Angelou-

The Christmas Story that We Carry

2006-12-29T12:53:00.000-04:00

In the Dixon House Library at St. Paul's is Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam testament, the book: The Things They Carried. In addition to food and the materiel of warfare, soldiers carried their stories. “That’s what stories are for,” O’Brien writes. “Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can’t remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story.”

Picking up this book the other day got me to thinking what is it that Christians carry? Certainly our story is one of the most important things we pack. Our Christmas story is among the greatest in the world (second perhaps only to the resurrection). Someone commented that this story is “so beautiful it must be true.”

Stories have a sense of place and character and a crisis that builds to resolution. The Christmas story has all of this. The story is a celebration and joy. Party atmosphere would be to take the story too lightly. This Christmas story that we carry is one that changes lives!

When someone is shown this story, and is captivated by it, then, like the court official in the Book of Acts, they want to understand it and be guided to its meaning for them. The next step is to enter into the story through the community of the church. For the court official in Acts 8, this means to be baptized. For others who are already baptized, it means to come to worship where the story is preached and explained, where the Holy Spirit inspires, and communion is experienced. This is more than being shown the story, it is becoming a participant in this story that is so beautiful it must be true. Then our lives become whole, despite life’s risk – our past is joined to our future. When we are lost, when we can hardly remember what got us to where we are, we are recollected. We take the bread with the words, “Do this in remembrance of me.” When all else is gone it is the story that remains and is sufficient. So says Tim O’Brien. It is one of the things we carry that is most precious.

Musings – no doubt prompted by Cliff’s sermon of 12-3-06

2006-12-29T12:41:00.000-04:00

Connectedness, and the route we follow.
Upon entering my study early this evening when night had already fallen, both hands full, I was entering a room that was dark. My instinct was to flick on the overhead light to see my way over to the computer. But my full hands could not do this. So I paused for a moment and then saw the small green and orange lights of the computer leading me to it across the room (which I then accessed with only one slight bang of the shin against the edge of the table in front of the lounge furniture).
Isn’t this the way, often, of our journey toward God through the light(s) the Law, the Prophets, and our Lord Jesus provide?

Diocesan Convention, Clergy Abuse and finding Home

2006-11-13T17:17:00.000-04:00

The Convention of the Diocese of Pennsylvania held on St. Martin's Day, November 11, generated tremendous feelings among the people gathered there. One friend found his palms perspiring so visceral was his reaction. There was fear, grief and anger. Fear can push us into powerlessness or it can lead us to a greater vulnerability and awareness of what it is to be human. It is out of our humanity and our awareness of one another as children of God that we can create safe and sacred communities. And it is this that we need to do. There was grief, from the Bishop's contrition over protecting his brother from exposure as a sex offender, to personal stories of others who had suffered abuse in their past. Though it is hard to use the word "past" as the experiences were still raw and painful. Grief is our response to the shattering of trusts and it is a realization that some significant change has taken place in life. Like fear, grief can be the soil out of which can come spiritual breakthrough. We need to work to make the church community a place of healing and new beginning. This is especially hard when the church has been a place of offense. There was a great deal of anger. Anger is our response to injury. We can express anger destructively or creatively. Anger can help us live justice-seeking and compassionate lives.

The response of the Convention took the shape of the following resolution: "Be it resolved that the Diocese of Pennsylvania initiate immediately a program of expanded education around the effects of clergy sexual abuse and other abuses and the damage caused by long-term secrecy and cover-up."

The damage caused can be glimpsed through this poem written by an anonymous survivor of clergy abuse in a book entitled, Defrauded. The title of the poem is "This is home."

In the small dark closet
I'm not there
I don't exist
No one can see me

Here in the dark
I can't see
I can't feel
No one can hate me

It feels right
To not be heard
To be all gone
No one to hurt

No one can hurt me
Or desert me
I'm alone
This is home

What a disfigurement of home is brought about by sexual abuse. The home that Jesus promises is the indwelling of God, Creator and Savior. "Those who love me will keep my word (of love), and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them" (John 14: 23). Earlier Jesus assured that we have a dwelling place in our Creator's house (home). There we exist truly and are seen for the child of God that we are. In this home of mutual indwelling we can feel and are listened to. We are all present and not alone. Come Lord Jesus. May we make our home in you as you have already made your home in us.

From Charlotte: The language of war and peace

2006-10-10T16:02:00.000-04:00

Sunday, 3 September. This is not the first time this summer the OT reading (Deut 4:1-19) says the Israelites are to "occupy the land" that the Lord is giving them -- with the warning that they obey God's commandments, so that they be an example to the nations and in fact
be God's chosen, exemplary nation/people. In Eph 6:10-20, Paul uses imagery/metaphoric language that borrows heavily from "righteous" wars. The "gospel of peace" that is his argument is all but obfuscated by the "armor, breastplate, shield,"etc. language. And Hymn 561 entreats "soldiers of the cross, the army of Jesus" to persevere through to "victory, till every foe is vanquished."

Were I an outsider, a seeker, or a curious Muslim, I would be quite perplexed and put off by these texts. Most especially given the world situation today (and certain absolutist or extremist arguments/justifications on whatever "side").
I am especially sensitive to these texts also no doubt because I am dealing with the iconic French epic, THE SONG OF ROLAND, in my survey of French lit course. While Roland is a hero because he defends his country to the end, thinking only of her and his honor, this epic poem, glorifying the militarism of the Crusades, is clearly flawed by even its basic premise: that the Sarrasins (Musulmans) do not worship God but rather worship Mohammed and pray to Apollo ! Misinformation > misunderstanding over the centuries! Locked into warfare.

Full inclusion for all - Jeanette responds

2006-08-29T10:12:00.000-04:00

I have to tell you, your story from "Does God have a Big Toe?" hits a real spot. The mission of the place where I work is committed to full inclusion for all persons regardless of any health concerns. We have fully embraced the "Recovery/Resilience" model for all. We see this model both for our work with those who turn to us for services as well as how we function as employees. It is not a piece of cake. Everyday continues to bring new challenges both from outside and from within. So that compact little piece is going to start showing upin all sorts of places.

Partnering with God and one another

2006-08-29T10:04:00.001-04:00

A friend shared this from a book of Bible stories called, Does God have a Big Toe? After God created the world, God said to his first human creatures, “I am tired now, please finish up the world for me.” The humans objected that they were not up to the task. God said you can do it, “but I agree to this. If you keep trying to finish the world, I will be your partner.” The man and the woman asked, “What’s a partner?” and God answers, “A partner is someone you work with on a big thing that neither of you can do alone. If you have a partner, it means that you can never give up, because your partner is depending on you.” I would also add it means you can never go it alone. We need one another in this task of finishing, mending, seeking well-being in our world.

Hurricane Katrina - "Don't push the water"

2006-08-28T15:41:00.000-04:00

One year ago today Huricane Katrina was causing havoc in New Orleans. The City and much of the Gulf Coast is still recovering. Hurricanes "push" the water. This phenomenon is called a storm surge. The eye of a hurricane can raise a dome of water fifteen feet high and fifty miles across. This build up of water moves ahead of the hurricane where water pushed by fierce winds can rise up to thirty feet. New Orleans sits below water level. It is no wonder that this was the worst natural catastrophe in the nation's history. We would do well not to emulate a hurricane in our own lives.

The Franciscan Richard Rohr suggests that life is like a flow of water. We are already in it. We do not need to push it. But of course we all do. We can be so goal oriented that we miss the flow of life around us. We conduct business on cell phones not just in the office but in the car and as we walk along the street. We are logged on, plugged in and wound up. Between 1973 and 2000 the average U.S. worker added 200 hours per year on the job. We can be a "hurricane" of activity. Yet if we were to let go even a bit we would discover a flow of life already moving through us. It is the natural movement of the grace of God.

We also try to "push the water" by being in perfect control. I suppose a "storm surge" of control is one way of putting the anxiety of change and chance at arm's length. But it may be that the experience of vulnerability and anxiety have someting to teach us, if we can only say "yes" to the flow of life, the grace of God, that bears us along.

It is instructive to watch Jesus at work. When Jesus is overtired he pauses to rest or withdraws to pray. On one of these occasions he encountered a Samaritan woman and asks her for a drink. What is interesting is that he does not push her but instead receives her story. It is a story of five husbands and a sixth who is not her husband. She herself has been "pushing the water!" Jesus does not surge forcefully back but gently orients her toward light and freedom, toward the flow of grace that is already around her.

Life is not about how high a storm surge we can create. It is not about a hurricane of activity or an all-consuming agenda. It is not about perfect control. It is about giving in to the flow of God's grace, the agenda of God's kingdom that is the mending of creation, then all the rest will be given. Life is part of a much larger stream than anything we can push. We just need to allow it to flow. Our ability to trust this flow of God's grace is what we call "faith."