Memorial Day
  The Field of Stars at the newly dedicated World War II Memorial in Washington, D. C. Each star represents 100 dead. There are 4,000 of these scuplted gold stars.


It is hard to imagine so many people. 16 million people served in the U. S. Armed Forces. Over 400,000 died. The survivors of that war are leaving us. These citizen soldiers proved Hitler wrong in his assessment of the United States and our Allies. They fought to live and get home to the families they loved and country they served. We owe them a gratitude that nothing we say can even begin to match. I will probably have more to say as we near the anniversary of D-Day in a week.

One of those 16 million was Red, my dad. He lived through the war- a war he wasn't supposed to be fighting in. He was re-drafted in 1943 at the age of 38 to go to Europe with the 10th Armored Division as a medical corpsman. He came back safely. What he saw, what he felt and experienced I never knew. He died in 1964 when I was 16 having never talked about it with me.

As I have said in this blog from time to time, I do not believe that war is a good thing. Even a necessary war like World War II was not "good." We didn't know what Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome was in those days. They called it "shell-shock." Or they turned inward or to alcohol or to work and life and love. It was not a good thing. It was, sadly, a necessary thing.

A number of years ago I was hosting a radio program on pacifism vs non-pacifist peace positions. One of the speakers said that pacifism could have stopped WW II. Even as a pacifist, I had to disagree. The only thing that would have stopped WW II before it started would have had to occur in the 1920s and early 30s to make a better world for Germany and not punish them for WW I. By the time Hitler came to power the time was passed. War became inevitable. The world was truly under threat from an evil so deep that it held millions under its power.

The 16 million paid a price for that "good" war. 400,000 paid the ultimate price in the war itself. Many others have lived with it since. Finally, on this Memorial Day, the nation has paid its respects to them with the World War II Memorial.

Red- and all your fellows- Thanks! May we work to keep our nation- and our world- free and to maintain the integrity that most of you managed to bring to a very tough and demeaning situation we call war.

Lost Comments?
Just noticed that Squawk Box isn't showing up for comments and their page is down. Hmmm.

When the Spirit Comes

Through our baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are still called to pour out our lives in joy and thanksgiving, still called to respond, materially and spiritually, to any that have need, still called to preach the good news with courage and clarity, still called to live as if the Reign of God is at hand.
  That's the good news: It is.
[Jim Rice, Sojourner's Online]

   Movement
    Power
     Wind
      Words
       Fire
        Fear
         Intoxicated
          En-thused

[Artwork: Pentecost, Cerezo Barredo]

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and
kindle in us the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit
and we shall be created.
And You shall renew the face of the earth.
[Traditional Holy Spirit prayer.]

When we leave worship this Pentecost,
will people look at us and say the same words that they spoke of the disciples...
They must have had too much new wine?

Will we be so intoxicated with the power and hope and love of God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit that people will know- people will KNOW- that something new and different and unique has happened in our lives?

Will we be so en-thused (original- filled with God)that people will sit up and take notice of who it is that has touched us?

Will the fire of God's love- the heat, warmth, and light of God in Jesus Christ- be burning in our souls and through every pore of our body so that God's heat, warmth, and light will be spread?

Or will it be business- the religious business- as usual?

We pray for our making Jesus LARGER AND MORE VISIBLE IN THIS SHRINKING WORLD. We pray that all Christians become more the church based on the excitement and preaching of the early apostles.
We pray that the Spirit of the One God will mend Christ’s fractured body and that all who speak various languages will one day understand each other more compassionately.
[from Center for Liturgy at St. Louis University]

But we can't do it for our own power alone, any more than we can try and catch the wind, put it in a bottle, and sell it. We need to be like a kite, flowing and blowing with the movement of the wind. Or like the soaring eagle catching currents unseen to us but ready to move the eagle mile upon mile with little effort. No, not a wind-vane to simply point in the direction of the wind, but to be free to move with the ultimate freedom that comes from God and God alone.

So many metaphors, so many images, so much life. LIFE. In the end that is what it is. God alive in us as the Body of His Son. God empowering us to do what He wants and needs us to do.

Bob Dylan may have been speaking of a different wind, but his words apply. Whatever our questions, whatever the issue, if we trust our God:

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Just Wondering?
Was at a 12-Step gathering today where over 5,000 were registered. As I sat in this huge ballroom converted into an auditorium, I listened to people tell their stories, connect it to their recovery, and finally, give thanks to God. There was laughter and applause and silence and tears and nods of heads. In therapy they are calling it "narrative therapy." In theology it would be "narrative theology." Believe it or not it probably changes more people's lives that "talk therapy" or "expository sermons" or even dragging people kicking and screaming into seeing it "my way."

The people there were anywhere from a few days or weeks into recovery to one who had 58 years in recovery. They still go to meetings for the same reason we say people should go to church- to be reminded of what they were like, what happened and what they are or can be like today. It is done with personal attention and grace.

Once again, it is a reminder that the 12-Step movement has managed to harness the very spiritual power we in the church like to think we have a corner on.

Out on a Limb
Okay. I am about to go out on a limb and make a probably controversial post. At least controversial for me. A few months ago I talked about why I am afraid to post something that people who read this blog may not like. Well, thanks to The Gutless Pacifist I came across a wonderful post on Christian Pacifism and Stanley Hauerwas. It was posted by Father Jake Stops the World Here is a snip...

"I am a Christian pacifist," he says. "Being Christian and being a pacifist are not two things for me. I would not be a pacifist if I were not a Christian, and I find it hard to understand how one can be a Christian without being a pacifist." ...

"I say I'm a pacifist because I'm a violent son of a bitch. I'm a Texan. I can feel it in every bone I've got. And I hate the language of pacifism because it's too passive. But by avowing it, I create expectations in others that hopefully will help me live faithfully to what I know is true but that I have no confidence in my own ability to live it at all. That's part of what nonviolence is--the attempt to make our lives vulnerable to others in a way that we need one another. To be against war--which is clearly violent--is a good place to start. But you never know where the violence is in your own life. To say you're nonviolent is not some position of self-righteousness--you kill and I don't. It's rather to make your life available to others in a way that they can help you discover ways you're implicated in violence that you hadn't even noticed."

What a powerful statement of a powerful position from an honest theologian and ethicist. I am a pacifist because I am violent. I am a pacifist so others will call me to task and make me live up to what I say I believe. I am in 100% agreement with brother Hauerwas. For this past year and some I have been in a constant struggle with my inherent pacifist tendencies. I have professed to being a pacifist for 36 years. I have found myself trying to understand how I can have one set of very strong beliefs and then try to justify war. (It's easier than you think, but don't get me sidetracked.) I know that when all other routes fail, war is all but inevitable. And I know that such a position doesn't make sense. It becomes contradictory.

But Hauerwas clears it all up (well, sort of) by taking away the utopian, pie-in-the-sky vision of passivism and replacing it with the down-to-earth understanding of pacifism. Pacifism is a way of life that seeks to challenge the violent and death-enshrouded ways that come all too naturally. Pacifism says that to actively resist such violence is a witness to the futility of war in ultimately changing the way things are. Yes, there are exceptions like WW II. No, governments and armies can not be pacifist. And we all pay the sad price from fire-bombings and indiscriminate killing to the prison scandal in Iraq.

But I am not the government. I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I am called to be a witness that there may be- there is- a different way to work out the ways of the world.

Here in the United States we will be honoring veterans and others who lost their lives in wars. It is Memorial Day. It is an important day for me. It is essential that we remember tha freedom does not come cheap. But it is also a reminder that war is really a failure to find peaceful means. Sometimes the country has no choice in order to remain free. But it is still a very difficult and very sad and very, very horrifying option. As we remember those who have died, may we also remember to work for peace so that the numbers of those who die will decrease.

What? No Toys?
Saw an item on the trailer on Headline News that caught my attention.

German Kindergarten Bans All Toys. Wants children to relate to each other and help resolve conflicts.

"What an odd idea," was my first reaction. My second was, "Aren't toys the way children learn to interact?" And third, "Sounds like typical adult behavior to bore the kids by making them do something they aren't made to sustain."

Playing with toys is not play for children. It is a significant and important learning development. To make them relate solely through "words" is to take them away from the ways they learn. I remember when our daughter was pre-kindergarten and how intensely and intently she worked at play and how she and her friends learned to relate to each other through the games and toys.

I'm not sure that simply utilizing words of explanation always works for adults, either. Like the stories I talked about yesterday, words of "play" and actions of relationship are far more valuable than simple didactic "education." It may even be that we resort to war because it is active and not words that get boring and dull. Perhaps if we had other ways of playing together we might not always end up in violent conflict. (Yes, I know that is a utopian idea and far from practical. Play can easily end up in violent conflict as well. But if we had better ways of relating, who knows what would happen.)

Jesus used this model of teaching. It is interesting to note in the Gospels that a great deal of what Jesus teaches is visual and is often followed up with an action or interpersonal interaction that lives out the teaching. He didn't just teach about such things as servanthood, love, grace, sacrifice- he illustrated by his life how you and I are to live it, and then interacted with people based on that. He became "Story" in action, visible and incarnate for all to see. In so doing He also showed us God the Father. How can we expect to do it any way else?

Stories

"Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here."
August Boatwright in The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.

There are, of course, all kinds of stories. Some are "our" stories. These are the ones that define who we are and what is important to us. Some are "fun" stories. They don't usually have a deep or profound "truth" but can just give us a glimpse at life while not getting too serious. Then there are the "big" stories that give us glimpses into more universal truths and meanings.

We need all these stories. Whether they are stories built on facts (which we call "historical" or "non-fiction") or built on ideas and imagination (which we call "literature" or "fiction")they are as essential to our humanity as the air we breathe. I think that is why the Christmas "Story" has so much attraction and why movies have become the language of culture and The Passion brought so much attention.

Sometimes I wonder if the development of an intellectual or academic approach to faith through the disciplines of "theology" has not been part of the loss of the faith to many. It is meant to be a story, told over and over. It is to grow into us and through us. It is a story that defines us. We cannot- must not- forget it or we will soon forget why we are here.

Ethical Decisions
I started talking the other day about ethics and how I have found myself caught in deciding ethical choices. When putting together a class for some high school students about making choices I found a good web site sponsored by the Josephson Institute on Ethics. This particular section of their web has a summary of a book on making ethical decisions. In one of the chapters they talk about the difference between ethical and effective:

Good Decisions Are Both Ethical and Effective

Ethical Decisions. A decision is ethical when it is consistent with the Six Pillars of Character – ethical decisions generate and sustain trust; demonstrate respect, responsibility, fairness and caring; and are consistent with good citizenship. If we lie to get something we want and we get it, the decision might well be called effective, but it is also unethical.

Effective Decisions. A decision is effective if it accomplishes something we want to happen, if it advances our purposes. A simple test is: are you satisfied with the results? A choice that produces unintended and undesirable results is ineffective.

Ethical Choices
Back when I was working on one of my degrees, I had to take a course in "bio-medical ethics." As such it was an extremely interesting course looking at such issues as informed consent, right to die, cloning, etc. (This was over 10 years ago and much as changed to make this topic even more relevant today.) In addition, though, it also raised my awareness of ethical choicemaking in general. Then as I went for licensing in counseling, there are more issues of ethics. How one treats people (personally or professionally) raises far more ethical questions than many of us realize.

Perhaps because of that training and interest, I find myself struggling on many days with ethical decisions about my actions or the actions of others. I obviously can't go into detail here. That would be unethical. But it has sensitized me to the difficulty that we all may have in making ethical decisions. We may not even know we have to make them, but they are part and parcel of our daily existence.

I'm not sure we have always been as aware of this as we need to be. For example on privacy issues, there was the recent uproar/discussion in parts of the blogosphere about naming people for prayer in church. Spurred by new federal regulations on health information privacy, some felt that it went too far. It limited the ability of the church to minister. It drew lines that seemed too arbitrary. (Sorry- no links on that. Maybe at another time.)

In reality, it called us all into accountability for what we say in public about other people, often without their permission. We put people on prayer chains with all kinds of information without their knowing it. We announce before a gathered congregation health information on people who may not have told their families the whole story yet. It doesn't happen often, but it happens often enough to call us into account.

That is an ethical issue. There are many others. I struggle with them daily. I will probably be blogging a few more times on this in the next week or so, but I wanted to at least begin my thoughts by getting it down here in the PMWanderings.

Getting Back
I have discovered that once in a while I have to change my routine to keep from being bored or stale. It also happens when I find myself too tired to think straight. Well, that happened the past few days. Hence, no posts.

Well, I think I'm back. Will let you know as the weekend concludes and the new week begins.

Uh? What Are You Looking At?
They must have been a strange sight. A group standing on the top of a hill staring into the sky. A moment of uncertainty and just plain uncertainty. Like getting on an elevator into the sky- but they had never heard of elevators- let alone this. One last time they had just said goodbye to their friend, their leader, their Lord. But they continued to stare.

Until two angels brought them up short.

Why do you just stand here looking up at an empty sky? [The Message]

Well, good question. They were no doubt letting it sink in. They were no doubt pondering his final words about a Holy Spirit and being witnesses to the ends of the world. They had a sense this was the real thing- whatever that meant.

But I have a hunch that this time they were a little more trusting. They knew that a God who could bring Jesus back from the dead must have something really important in store. They may have been confused or bewildered or overwhelmed. But they were not afraid anymore. It would become clearer and clearer. Of that I am fairly certain. That's what more experiences with Jesus can do for you.

Jesus has gone back to be with his father. It is Ascension Day. The disciples wait.

On To The Finals
It was Win or Go On Vacation. Game 7.

The 2004 Timberwolves go where no Timberwolves team has gone before.

Bring on the Lakers.

To Change Our Minds
At a workshop today I came to realize that what is seen in one time and place as "good" or "safe" may not turn out to be that way. For example:

~~~A wonderful new safe and harmless drug was once developed to help the poor souls in the midst of opium addiction. It was known as heroin.
~~~A wonderful new safe and harmless drug was discovered to help poor souls in the midst of heroin addiction. It was so popular and safe it was used in a new safe and harmless soft drink. It was cocaine.
~~~Cigarettes were once considered safe and harmless, a wonderful way to relax, and certainly not addicting. You could even buy them in vending machines on the street.
~~~How about the safe and harmless drug for pregnant women. Thalidomide was the cause of great anguish and pain for parents of now deformed children.

The workshop was on the biochemical effects of another one of those safe and harmless drugs. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the chemical in marijuana. Much scientific research has gone to show how much impact and negative effects this drug, once thought harmless (and natural- sort of like opium or cocaine) really has. As the usage increases in our society, and the strains of marijuana get progressively stronger, we are only beginning to understand what will happen.

Hopefully we can learn from our previous mistakes and lack of scientific inquiry before this one is too late.

The Importance Given to Pigment
In light of today's anniversary of Brown v. Bd. of Education, here is a wonderful thought provoker from Lily Owens, the narrator of the novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. It's a fictional 1964, the summer of the civil rights act and the workers murdered.

...it washed over me for the first time in my life just how much importance the world had ascribed to skin pigment... Ever since school let out this summer, it had been nothing but skin pigment every livelong day. I was sick of it.

We'd had a rumor at the first of the summer about a busload of people from New York City showing up to integrate the city pool. Talk about a panic. We had a citywide panic on our hands. ...It seemed to me it would have been better if God had deleted skin pigment all together.

It is a truly wonderful experience when, even for a moment, we can forget that skin pigment exists. I remember one of those experiences. I was sitting talking to the manager of a housing program for formerly homeless elderly people in New York City. We had spent maybe 45 minutes just talking, sharing experiences and stories. He then talked about being in the military at one point years earlier, somewhere down south. He talked about going to church and how "we had to sit in a different part of the chapel."

"Oh," I thought, "that's right. He's Black." I hadn't even noticed.

Quite a change from the first trip I ever made to the south in 1960. I was almost 12 and we were on vacation. A friend of my Dad had expressed some really racist attitudes. My mother had warned me about that so I wasn't surprised. Just shocked because those weren't things I had ever heard. Then I saw the separate restrooms and water fountains.

Years later my southern friends at seminary would remind me that the segregation up north was just as real but far more subtle. By then the world had exploded through the 60s and nothing was the same. But it was. Subtle. Still a part of who we so often are, even when we want to deny it. I share Lily Owens thoughts about why we have to place pigment so high on our list of things to judge by. May we all pray for the growth of humankind that will one day forget color or race or ethnicity as the way we judge. On that day, God will most certainly be at work in new ways.

Fifty Years Ago Today:
These Words Changed the Country

U.S. Supreme Court
BROWN ET AL. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA ET AL.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT
OF KANSAS. * No. 1.
Argued December 9, 1952. Reargued December 8, 1953.
Decided May 17, 1954

We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Living Evidence

By being evidence of Christ’s rulership of love and peace, by validating the saving power of the gospel in everyday life, we confront the world with an “argument” that cannot help but provoke amazement.

So says Charles Moore in an article at Bruderhof Communities. It is an article about how a skeptic became a believer. It was not simply through great debate and wonderful logic and unbeatable discussion. It was through the example of life and community. It is not through power or persuasion, it is through life.

We should never underestimate the power of a life well lived. My friend Alan understood this. He was able to dispense with the arguments, but he was unable to explain away the activity of God’s love in those of us who believed. This was evidence that impacted his life directly. It made a difference, not in theory, but in actuality. The argument of Christian love, in the end, was irrefutable. Seeing people live truthfully, freely, consistently, and sacrificially both awakened and confirmed Alan’s longing for meaning and purpose. This is our task: to be the sort of people and community that are a real option for others. Apart from living the truth, no real option exists.

This came to mind this morning when talking with one of our retired pastors who was in town visiting. He asked how my new job was going. I told him that I am still loving it. It really excites me to be on what I have called the "front lines." As I was talking I realized that now, 4+ months into it and feeling more confident and "into" the new job, that I am truly doing ministry. It is not overtly (or even covertly) religious. Ministry is not a religious act or a clandestine way of coming in the back door with religion. It is about people.

As our closing song in church we sang the wonderful hymn, I The Lord of Sea and Sky. Here's the chorus:

Here I am Lord, it is I Lord
I have heard You calling in the night
I will go Lord, if You lead me
I will hold Your people in my heart

In light of my post yesterday about integration and all being God's creations, the last line struck me clearly in a new way. When I am sent, when I accept the call, one of the tasks is to hold God's people in my heart. That is a physical thing- the actions of love and care I do to assist them. It is also a spiritual thing- the prayerful thought and remembrance of them in my heart.

I realized that I do that with each school and each student and each teacher and each administrator I meet. There does not need to be the overt religiosity nor should there be the clandestine ulterior motive to sneak in with evangelism. They are worthy of being held in the heart for God simply because they are. In whatever small ways I can work to be a little bit of living evidence that God works miracles and hope and grace, I am following the call.

Fifty Years of Integration
Monday will mark the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's famous Brown -v- Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision. It declared that while the idea of "separate but equal" educational systems and facilities sounded decent, in practice it was nothing more than a legal way to enforce segregation and racial separation in the north as well as in the south. This began, for all practical purposes, the civil rights struggle.

The next year, 1955 Emmett Till was murdered in Mississippi and Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus. Little Rock followed in 1957. February 1961 a North Carolina Woolworth's soda fountain is "integrated." In 1963 Medgar Evers was killed, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stirred the nation and a Baptist Church was bombed killing four young girls. Around the 10th anniversary of Brown the Civil Rights Act was passed, and three Civil Rights workers registering Black voters were murdered.

In these 50 years we have attempted many actions toward integration. We have sought to legalize it, educate for it, enforce it. All well and good. I remain firmly entrenched in the civil rights side of the equation. No one will ever convince me that anyone deserves to be discriminated against because of race (or anything else for that matter.) I remain firmly committed to the call for racial equality. In these past 50 years we have learned much about genetice and now know that there is more genetic difference between two people of the same race than there is different between two people of different races or ethnic background. Race is truly only skin deep- genetically we are brothers and sisters.

But how I wish this were more of the land that Dr. King dreamed of 40 years ago. Discrimination, racial divisions, ethnic hatred continue to plague America. Monday, the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision, a Racial Forum and Dialogue will be held in my community following charges of racial profiling. Another attempt to bring people of differing backgrounds together will be made. The dream is alive, however, because it is happening at all. It is being talked about and we are all being challenged to live differently.

A couple thousand years ago a man wrote words that we have since come to call part of God's Word to us. "In Christ," he wrote, "there is no east or west, or Jew or Greek, but all are one!" No, we Christians have to say, in Christ it doesn't matter your color or race or denominational leanings or political party. What matters is that Christ died for you as much as he did for me. From that it is not a far jump to say that it is not being followers of Christ that should get rid of differences, it is the fact that Christ himself died for all, no prejudice or judgement. How then can I even think about discriminating against someone for whom my Lord has died.

This is not, unfortunately, an educational issue alone. It is a deeply personal one where we all have to discover our hidden prejudices and look at them in the light of Christ's love. We spent a lot of time this past Lent talking about The Passion and the incredible love that God showed in Jesus. Now is the time to live that love.

Bumper Stickers
I saw two bumber stickers on a car downtown yesterday. Actually there were a whole bunch of bumber stickers on this particular car. All of them were anti-religion and/or anti-God. Two struck me as interesting. First:

He died in 33 A.D. Get over it.

Okay. I guess I know what that one's about. Obviously no belief in the resurrection on that one. Second:

Atheism: The Cure for Religious Terrorism

Well, I guess you could say that's one cure.

My first reaction was to think about what might have happened to this person that they are so anti-religion. There was an "in-your-face" attitude to the anti-religion. It almost came across as anger. Were they abused by religion and/or religious people? We all know that many approaches to religion- even so-called Christian groups- can be and often are downright abusive. We know that many followers of Jesus are enough to keep non-followers from joining the community.

My second reaction was surprise. I was not offended by them. Religious diversity and pluralism obviously includes anti-religious attitudes. I am grateful that I live in a nation where we can have that wide diversity of opinions- legally. I know that they were meant to be offensive to Christians and others. But that's not a reason to be offended. Just because I don't agree- and they may even border on blasphemy- doesn't mean I have to take them personally which is what offensiveness can do.

Third, I was saddened that such anger and attempted offensiveness were felt necessary by the person. Religious terrorism takes all forms. We have become aware of the Middle-Eastern forms, but there are many others, perhaps including groups that you or I belong to when we or they go to extremes and self-righteous indignation.

The cure for me for religious terrorism is the humility of knowing that God's ways are not our ways and are not the ways of power and strength and great might. They are often the ways of the meek and powerless being empowered by a God who has shown a preferential option for the poor and oppressed throughout history. He had Israel decrease the size of the army and march around playing trumpets instead of weapons of any kind of destruction. He challenged the powers of the Roman Empire with an empty tomb and a band of semi-educated leaders. The Christian cure for religious terrorism is the one the bumper sticker said died in 33 A. D. Which may be half true. The other half is that he is still very much alive but the problem may be most of us, even his followers, have a tough time believing that he is- and that he is truly the Lord of our lives.

Me Worry?
I subscribe to a weekday email thought based on the writings of Alcoholics Anonymous. Here was this morning's:

Doing our best, living each day to the fullest is the art of living. Yesterday is gone, and we don't know whether we will be here tomorrow. If we do a good job of living today, and tomorrow comes for us, then the chances are we will do a good job when it arrives -- so why worry about it? "The A.A. way of life is the way we always should have tried to live.
From "It Might Have Been Worse c. 2001, Alcoholics Anonymous, page 357

It is one of the great truisms of my life that this is for sure! This is not meant to be a fatalistic attitude or one that seeks to be thrill-seeking or even uncaring about others. On the contrary it is based on good common-sense psychology and spirituality. Look at the lillies of the field, or the birds of the air, a wise God-incarnate once told us, and see how much God takes care of them. So don't worry about those things. Instead, seek first the Kingdom and all else will fall into place. It is in doing the tasks before us and neither projecting into an unknown future or regretting an unchangeable past that we are most likely to find God at work in us and with us.

All the News That's Fit
At one point in my life I was a reporter for our college radio station. I enjoyed news and current events. I kept up with it- even before college. I was the first student in my high school to have gotten a better grade on the current events weekly quiz than the teacher. I know that there is no such thing as un-biased news. Simply by choosing which stories to report and in which order makes a big difference. I also know that the "good news"-type stories (the feel good, human interest kind of thing) are not headline-makers.

But I have to admit by being really depressed by the news of late. I am even afraid to watch it on TV. I will Google the news to get the headlines, which seems to make them a little less frightening, violent and just downright awful. The levels of violence in the news, the scandals tainting our American soldiers, the name-calling in the presidential election (and we haven't even gotten to the conventions yet!), the horrific stories of ransom of body parts in Gaza and beheading (and again name calling and finger-pointing) of an American. Yuck!

Now I am not so naive to think that suddenly the world has gotten more violent and dangerous. We in the US have often lived in false views of what the world is like. We have been safe and secure- or so we thought. Now, sadly, we are finding that our place in the world is not all that different. We are capable of atrocious behavior, and we are vulnerable to its impact. It doesn't take a plane flying into a landmark to do it. It can be the simple act of watching the evening news that has the same effect.

I can retreat from it. Hide my head in the sand and pretend that it isn't really part of my world. But it is. Racial and ethnic tensions exist in the Twin Cities and suburbs. Violence in the headline of the local news.

I can develop a personal fortress mentality and stockpile weapons of destruction or build a wall around me and are anyone to cross it. But that only leaves me world smaller and more limited in hope and scope.

I can face it with the power and hope of Jesus. Using the method of prayer that faces the world head-on and accepts this sinful world as it is, I pray with one eye on the daily news. I pray that the light of Jesus can somehow break into the world. I pray that the hope of grace that is so real in my life can be a part of what I do. I pray that the strength and peace of the Holy Spirit may be more than just words but can be a reality flowing from us who claim to be followers of a conquering Lamb.

Yes, a Lamb. A gentle soul who would not break a bruised reed or put our a smoldering wick. A man of peace walking calmly with me where ever I may end up going. Suddenly the world is a little less scary. I don't know how that works. I just have to trust Him and allow the Spirit of Peace to live through me and not let the news grind away at the hope I have in Him.

We Will Not Keep Silent
The following is one of many awesome prayers by Walter Brueggemann in the book Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann.

We are people who must sing you,
    for the sake of our very lives.
You are a God who must be sung by us,
    for the sake of your majesty and honor.
And so we thank you,
    for lyrics that push us past our reasons,
    for melodies that break open our givens,
    for cadences that locate us home,
        beyond all our safe places,
    for tones and tunes that open our lives beyond control
        and our futures beyonbd despair.
We thank you for the long parade of mothers and fathers
    who have sung you deep and true;
We thank you for the good company
    of artists, poets, musicians, cantors and instruments
    that sing for us and with us, toward you.
We are witnesses to your mercy and splendor;
    We will not keep silent...ever again. Amen.

Psalms class/January 20, 1999
Walter Breuggeman. Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth.

To witness to the mercy and splendor of God is in itself a holy action. It is done through music and lyrics and voices and instruments. It is our calling. To keep silent with that is to ignore the very power of God. But it is also to speak when words are not enough, yet all we have. It is to be willing to be used of God when the music seems timid compared to the noises of the world. But to keep silent is worse. It is to deny the very existance of God within us.

Hard Prayer
Bob Hyatt has a challenging article posted over at Next-Wave. Here's the start of it:

I think I’ve come to the conclusion that most of us, myself included, just need to stop praying. I don’t say that lightly… but I almost feel that it would be better to have no prayer in our lives than the kind of prayer that most of us, myself included, have.

Now- before you think that I’m going to say that the problem is that you are not spiritual, or that you don’t love God, or are lazy… let me tell you- I don’t believe that about you at all. I believe that many of you have a deep sense of spirituality, a great love of God, and yet an anemic or non-existent “prayer life” (and I really hesitate to use that phrase- as though over here we have our prayer life, and over here we have our love life, and over here our home life and over here our work life… no- we only have one life, and either it’s a life of prayer, or it’s not, either it’s a life of love or it’s not).

No, I think that the reason why we don’t have a more vital life of prayer is that we are afraid.

Tonight I was pondering on the 11th Step of the Twelve Steps of AA. That's the one that goes:

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.

Then I come home and run across this article, which on the surface says something different. Pound on God's door, says Hyatt, using Jesus' parable as a starting point.

Pray bold prayers. Take the chance to care so much for someone that you pray for them. Take the chance that in praying for someone, God will cause you to care. Don’t wait for God to change you before you pray… trust that He will change you through your prayers.

Oh, it's about me changing. That's what prayer is all about. It's about me getting closer to God and then trusting God for the changes that are happening. It's about moving me more closely into line with God's will, not badgering God until God's will is circumvented into mine. Hmmmm.

That is the same as the 11th Step. For me it was the key to unlocking a whole new life over 15 years ago. To know that prayer and meditation are not an action of convincing God to do something, but an act of humility in trusting God to do the right thing and that God's will is always most important. Not an easy idea. But it does lead to bold prayer and profound faith and increased trust and strength from places where you never knew there could be strength before.

Of course, I may be twisting what Hyatt said into my own 12-step universe. But I do agree with him. We don't get what we need because we are afraid that prayer might change us. After all, the answer "No!" is also an answered prayer.

Spiritual Formation
Len at NextReformation.com has posted a lengthy summary and review of Doug Pagitt and Solomon's Porch's book, Reimagining Spiritual Formation. I have just started reading the book myself and am finding it fascinating. Since I have worshipped there a number of times and know that it is a remarkable community, I am perhaps biased. Len's review does it justice.

Breaking Bread- THE Reason for Sunday?
Roger at House Church Blog had a great, insightful post the other day from an article by YWAM church planter Jeff Gilbertson. It was based on a single, simple passage from Acts 20: 7-11:

“And on the first day of the week, when we gathered to break bread, Paul began talking to them…when he had gone back up, and had broken bread and eaten, he talked with them a long while.”

Here's part of what Gilbertson discovered as he studied the passage:

Here you may be very surprised where we haven’t gotten the apostolic practice down quite so well. For Luke ... just records that the church in Troas waited a whole week to gather together again and the reason they met was to break bread. Period!… not to worship, pray, give, fellowship, or to listen to a sermon!! How can this be? “They meet to eat!??!” Incredible!

“They did not think that religion was meant only for Sundays, and for what men now-a-days call the ‘House of God’. Their own houses were houses of God, and their own meals were so mixed and mingled with the Lord’s Supper that to this day, the most cautious student of the Bible cannot tell when they left over-eating their common meals, and when they began eating the Supper of the Lord.” (C. H. Spurgeon, 1874)

What was unmistakably a big part of the early church lifestyle has become a mere “token practice” in our day, completely devoid of the very setting that would make it meaningful! “To simply explain ‘the breaking of bread’ as ‘the Holy Communion’ is to pervert the plain meaning of words, and to mar the picture of family life, which the text places before us as the ideal of the early believers”.

What was it about the "breaking of bread" that made it one of, if not the guiding reasons for gathering together? I remember a church leader somewhere saying that we should have food every time we get together in the church. He didn't mean it as a gimmick, either. It was, he thought, an essential to church life- Body Life. But we have turned food into a gimmick or fund-raiser and "breaking of bread" into a ritual. To have a deep experience of breaking bread may be one of the longings of the human soul. May we continue to explore the many ways to do that in faith and grace.

Bad Science
Yesterday I talked about using stats to measure the wrong things. Well, even when we have good information (even "facts) it can be so easy to make bad deductions. I found this on a web site called Bad Astronomy. There's a wonderful quote from Mark Twain...

"In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore ... in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period the Lower Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long... seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long... There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact." From an email newsletter called Tourbus. Go to the website for more info.

Or, as I heard somewhere once, if you stand with one foot on a block of ice and the other on a hot stove, don't worry. On the average, you are warm.

Moneyball is No Spideyball?
First baseball thought has to do with the "brainy" idea to put ads on the bases. Fortunately, this time, the fans won:

Baseball reverses course: Spider-Man ads on bases don't fly
Ronald Blum, Associated Press

NEW YORK --
A day after announcing a novel promotion to have advertisements on bases next month, Major League Baseball reversed course Thursday and eliminated that part of its marketing deal for Spider-Man 2.''

"The bases were an extremely small part of this program,'' said Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer. "However, we understand that a segment of our fans was uncomfortable with this particular component and we do not want to detract from the fan's experience in any way.''

Under the original plan, red-and-yellow ads were to appear on bases - but not home plate - during games from June 11-13. Star-Tribune

This was really a sad idea! And that is an understatement. Ever since Bill Veeck began promotions and other stuff years and years ago, the fine field of baseball has gotten more and more commercial. At the Metrodome there is a radio-controlled blimp for the Minnesota Lottery and attempts to throw baseballs into the back of a truck to win the truck. The game becomes the entertainment between the commercials- kind of like TV. But this was just too far out. Ads on the bases. Would that have meant that the movie people would have gotten less money if the bases got dirty and you couldn't read the ads? Or, God forbid, what if the bases were loaded and the players actually stood on the bag and hid the commercial?

But baseball is all about money - and of course endless stats. I am just finishing up Michael Lewis's book Moneyball in which he gives the behind the wall story of Billy Beane and the Oakland A's. Through the use of new and in-depth stats developed by people like the famous Bill James, the A's discovered a way to win without big sums of money since they didn't have big sums of money. They found the bargain-basement players who were thought to be too old, too fat, too slow by the conventional wisdom of the game. Instead of relying on age-old baseball wisdom, little of which seemed to bear itself out in long-term statistical studies, they found the things that mattered- getting on-base, or, for a pitcher, keeping the other players off the bases. And they won.

It is a remarkable story that really centers on the idea of what is it that should be measured? In many ways it is similar to the business book Good to Great where one of the tenets of moving from just being a good company to being a great company is what you measure and making sure you are measuring the right things(i.e. the things that lead to success). The key- the secret- is so much common sense that it seems pointless to say. Yet we often measure the wrong things in the wrong ways and get something other than what we think we are getting.

This is a human trait, of course. In our own lives we measure our success in so many different ways, few of which seem to make a hill-of-beans difference in the long run. The old adage says it- few people get to their death bed and wish they had spent more time at the office or at work.

or as a wise teacher (and more) once said- where your treasure is- there you will find your heart. What treasure do we measure?

Meddling
There's the old joke that the preacher is doing good until he starts talking about my sins- and then he's meddling. I'm afraid that Darryl Dash has reached the meddling stage. He took the following list and pointed out that it is the list of truly spiritual people:

Careful students of the Scriptures
Zealous and active in their stand for God
Desire for worship and prayer
Consistent in worship attendance
Practice scripture memorization
Not afraid to pray in public
Active in the local church
Fast regularly
Desire to stand against ungodliness
Firm grasp of basic, foundational theology

He then points out that such a list would have been a perfect fit for

the Pharisees.

He then states the obvious: Such a list does not "capture the essence" of being a disciple. What would make the difference? What would turn a spiritually strong person into a disciple? In what ways is a disciple different from any other spiritual people? More questions than there are easy answers.

In the end, it would be simply acknowledging that Jesus Christ is MY Lord! And going from there in developing the relationship I can have with Him.

I Didn't Know That
From the Website Cinco de Mayo History:
The 5th of May is not Mexican Independence Day, but it should be! And Cinco de Mayo is not an American holiday, but it should be. Mexico declared its independence from mother Spain on midnight, the 15th of September, 1810. And it took 11 years before the first Spanish soldiers were told and forced to leave Mexico.

So, why Cinco de Mayo? And why should Americans savor this day as well? Because 4,000 Mexican soldiers smashed the French and traitor Mexican army of 8,000 at Puebla, Mexico, 100 miles east of Mexico City on the morning of May 5, 1862.

Read more at MexOnline and have a great Cinco de Mayo!

The Hijacking Threat
Like Gary at Country Keepers, I have been wrestling with spyware and hijacking software. I first noticed it in the seemingly innocent redirect of a wrong or missing page to some search engine. Nothing serious has happened yet, although a trojan virus was included in there somewhere. Gary's stories and here and here along with some good links and suggestions.

This whole computer business can get downright frustrating.

Admirers and Disciples
In addition to the stuff I linked in yesterday's post, Pen was hitting some good stuff on Saturday. A wonderful story of Clarence Jordan and his brother highlighted the ongoing need to be more than hearers of the word.

Clarence said, "Why's it different for me? You and I were baptized and joined the church on the same Sunday when we were boys." (These guys are Baptists. They weren't babies when they got baptized.) "The preacher asked us both the same question, 'Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?' I said, 'Yes.' What did you say, Robert?"

Robert said, "Clarence, I follow Jesus up to a point."

Clarence said, "Would that point by any chance be the cross?"

And Robert said, "That's right. I follow him to the cross, but not on the cross. I am not going to get crucified."

James Howell in Servants, Misfits, and Martyrs says that Clarence replied to his brother's comments with --

“Then I don’t believe you are a disciple. You’re an admirer of Jesus, but not a disciple of his. I think you ought to go back to the church you belong to, and tell them you’re an admirer not a disciples."

[To which Pen adds]-God help us if we are only admirers of Jesus.

Clarence Jordan himself was willing to go with Jesus. When he was attacked for his stand on integration, he held fast. He wrote the Cotton Patch Gospels and found himself attacked for changing God's word. He was a disciple.

I don't admire Jesus. I have to follow him. I don't look up to him, I look to him for help. Oh, I wish it were as easy as it sounds as I write it.

War and Abuse
All the news recently about the alleged abuses by interrorgators in Iraq brought the thought to mind- I guess every war will have its My Lai's. For those who may be too young, My Lai was a massacre during the Vietnam War that brought the abuses of war to the public. Whether it was the Andersonville Prison of the Civil War, mustard gas in WW I, the fire-bombings of non-strategic cities like Dresden in WW II and perhaps many other things that we will never hear about- every war will produce its abuses. (And note these are the abuses of Americans. This does not begin to count the abuses and horrors we, as the winners, pointed out about the other side.)

This is not meant to be an excuse for such behavior. I am just amazed that we are surprised when it happens. We train people to be able to kill others. We train people that the "enemy" is not like us. We have to train soldiers that way or they would not survive. War is about killing or being killed. Sometimes it goes too far and becomes even more abusive than war itself (if that is possible.)

It was a breakdown of military discipline, we are told. And yes, it is that. But when the discipline breaks down, horrific things happen, not good things. It is amazing that it doesn't happen more often. This is due to the extent of training and the discipline that is in place and the basic goodness and morality of most involved. When it gets out of hand, it makes news.

The problem is not the abusers. It is the idea of war itself. As I said on Monday, "No, I'm not crazy enough (yet) to believe that a world without war is humanly possible." But let us not mistake that what we are doing in war always is a double-edged sword. What we are doing in war is never an unqualified good. Even in WW II there were enough abuses and no doubt atrocities to give an off-taste to even that "respectable" war. But let us not make scapegoats of the soldiers and seek to have a "holier-than-thou" attitude. Appropriate discipline is needed, but let us not act as if we are immune.

For whatever sins we may commit in the name of war, may God forgive us.

[Update: After finishing this post I came across another one over at Bene Diction. It is worth reading.]

Ghandi's Seven Deadly Social Sins
Pen posted this the other day at Gutless Pacifist:
   Politics without Principle,
    Wealth without Work,
     Commerce without Morality,
      Pleasure without Conscience,
       Education without Character,
        Science without Humanity,
         Worship without Sacrifice.

It is amazing how the more things change the more the simple, basic truths like this become clear. Of course when we think of Ghandi we think of non-violent resistance as an alternative to war.

Earlier in the weekend, there was part of a powerful essay by Wendell Berry on The Failure of War. Here's part of the essay:

Our century of war, militarism, and political terror has produced great—and successful—advocates of true peace, among whom Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., are the paramount examples. The considerable success that they achieved testifies to the presence, in the midst of violence, of an authentic and powerful desire for peace and, more important, of the proven will to make the necessary sacrifices. But so far as our government is concerned, these men and their great and authenticating accomplishments might as well never have existed. To achieve peace by peaceable means is not yet our goal. We cling to the hopeless paradox of making peace by making war.

Now what was it I said earlier (below) that we teach others how to treat us by the way we treat them? No, I'm not crazy enough (yet) to believe that a world without war is humanly possible. No, I don't expect nations and people (not to mention human beings in general) to adopt such a philosophy. But it must always, always be held up and tried as the way of peace. Over a year after the start of the Iraq war I still find myself puzzled and pondering the whole thing. I do know that war will often bring more war unless we can humanize the aftermath (things like the Marshall Plan in Europe after WW II) and make sure that the people are the most important thing.

Teaching Others
In a discussion tonight I came to a new realization. I am teaching other people how to treat me by the way I treat them. This is a simpler, quicker way to say "Do unto others the same way you would have them do unto you." It also makes me stop and think about my actions in a different way. I am the role model for how I want to be treated. Now I know I can argue about that. "Now come on. I don't want others to treat me badly. Why would I want to teach them that?" But that is exactly what I do everytime I come into a relationship with someone else. Do as I say, not as I do, doesn't work.

A Couple of Anniversaries
   May 3, 1944, 60 years ago today, at Camp Gordon, GA, Harold Lehman married Dora Moldawsky at the USO. After WW II, where Harold served in the 10th Armored Division as a medic and was involved at the Battle of the Bulge, they returned to his hometown in Pennsylvania and had two sons. Dora died at age 48 in February 1962. Harold at age 59 in December, 1964.

   May 3, 1981, 23 years ago today, Elizabeth Lehman, 2 1/2 month old daughter of Barry and Valerie Lehman, was baptized at Covenant Moravian Church, York, PA, by Bishop Jimmy Weingarth.

Missing Church
I didn't go to church this morning. Not such a big deal for many, many people. But for me it is. Maybe on vacation I haven't gotten to church. Maybe on Sundays I have had to travel I haven't been to church. Once or twice when I was really sick I didn't get to church. But the overall total in tha past 30-some years is less than 5 or 6 Sundays a year- at most. So which was it this morning?

None of the above.

This is the first time I have ever just chosen not to be there. It is another of those firsts that have happened since I switched jobs from being a parish pastor to a school-based chemical dependence and prevention counselor. When I began this new part of my spiritual pilgrimage back in January I commented that I would be learning from the pews what it is like to be a member and not The Pastor. What I learned today is that we do like the familiar and the unfamiliar can be a deterrant.

For various political and personal reasons I did not feel like I could go to church at the church where my wife is still pastor. (No- it has nothing to do with the pastor! :>) ) So, where should I go. If I went to Church A here in town I would get a good, intimate service, but people would wonder why I went there and the rumors might start to fly. If I went up the road to Church B, I would get a good traditional service but I would have to be back in the denominational political realm. If I went to Church C, the local mega-church, I would get a good contemporary service, but I would feel like a "visitor" and might again run into people I know and the rumors, etc. In short, I missed the familiar community worship where I have been attending for 4 1/2 years.

I realized that this is often how "inactivity" can begin. The familiar isn't available and you don't want to go through the internal and external struggles needed to find a "new familiar" setting. I am discovering that there are so many factors involved in why people do and don't go to church. Most of them even make a lot of sense. The result of not going is not a sense of guilt or even necessarily a "bad" feeling. I had a calm, spiritual and beautiful morning. I missed some people and some music and listening to my wife preach. But did I miss church? Did I miss Jesus?

So I turned on the radio and listened to a wonderful worship service from St. Olaf College. Great singing. Good liturgy. Then they had the Eucharist. And I realized that I had missed that this morning as well. I was sad. I can sing alone with the music, recite the words to the Creed and the Lord's Prayer with the distant worshipers. But I canot take the bread and the cup in community when I am sitting alone in my living room.

Did I miss church?
    No. I had that in my living room with the students and staff at St. Olaf.

Did I miss Jesus?
    In a very real sense, yes.

I know he was with me. That's a given. But I missed his body and blood and the action of the Eucharist. I guess at this point I see that you can't have it both ways. It may be okay to miss church, but I wouldn't want to miss Jesus very often.