Eternal Life 001

 I’ve always wanted to be remembered by my children. 

Maybe because I had so few memories of my father, who died suddenly when I was 23 and six-months married, at the beginning of my middler year in seminary.

Maybe because my memories of my mother were so darn crummy. A troubled woman she was, but that’s a story for another time.

To be remembered by my children - that’s always been important to me. Now that I’ve lived this long, it’s no longer a question - they’ll remember me, and I believe most of the memories they’ll have will be good memories … good times with travel and dinner-time silliness … and my career … I made sure that I most always had the time for their lives - soccer games, piano recitals, school events, and such. Couldn’t have happened without Donna - her steady presence, her devotion to the family, her career, too, in real estate and accounting. But those are stories, too, for another time.

What’s central here for the purposes of this little essay is my wanting to be remembered.

There are societies wherein memory of loved ones keeps them alive in some form or fashion. Is that what I want? 

I don’t know.

I would like to think my wish to be remembered is more that of asset for them to carry on with their lives, as I did with mine. Mostly good, and sometimes not. But carrying on, doing the best I could, even when the best wasn’t so hot.

That’s life.

Plenty of ups and downs, and we hope for more ups than downs.

To be remembered?

For their sake?

I think so … because my own sense of “eternal life” is pretty slim - a far cry from the gospel hymns that speak of the sweet by-and-by, streets of gold, everlasting joy, with mommy and daddy and dear old friends, or something to that effect.

As it now stands in my life, there’s no one I wish to see again.

And if my last breath in this mortal vale is indeed my last everything, that’s okay by me … as it stands right now.

Though I must confess that if one of my children or granddaughter died, or Donna goes before me, I suppose I might like to see them again.

Maybe even a dog or two on that fabled rainbow bridge.

Very early on, Donna and I had some conversation about such things, and we both decided, though it very much was Donna’s sense of it here, that if there were anything after this life, it would be all right, because it’s in God’s hands … and whatever God decides will be just fine, and if there’s nothing, well then, that’s okay, too.

Would I be content with nothing in the afterlife, if there is such thing, if my life had been one of destitution and misery? Suffering and loss? 

I don’t know what I would feel, because I can’t imagine a life of dead-end poverty and deprivation. 

My life has been good, and though it may end roughly, as many a life does these days, with drawn-out disease-management and the medical merry go-round, I would, I hope, still know that life was good, and I’d breath my last with gratitude.

Beyond that, I’m not sure.

I know that the Jews had no sense of eternal life until they spent some time in Egypt and Babylon. For the Jew, life was enough, threescore and ten, or maybe fourscore, and that was that.

But in the end, what with Egypt on the one end, and Babylon on the other, with the destruction of the Temple, there were some adjustments made, as to justice and fairness. Could the terrible reverses of life be counterbalanced by life after death, in some sort divine rebalancing of things?

And somewhere deep into the story, hell got thrown in there, as a place where God would put all my enemies, or something like that, or maybe even put me, if I didn’t toe the line. And if hell were a little too severe, well then, we’ll go for purgatory, a mini-hell of sorts where the bad stuff is at least roasted away, whereas hell is just a matter of constant roasting, gnashing of teeth, moans and groans. Dante seems to have put it rather well.

I guess the point or so - I mean, there are some pretty shitty people around who manage to accrue lots of power, and with that power, take delight in depriving others of life. Those who live in the lap of luxury with barns upon barns full of grain, grain stored to create scarcity and manipulate the markets, and build some stinking huge big homes.

But that’s another story, too.

Somewhere along the line, a notion of resurrection - a gift from God.

Because there’s nothing in us that survives death. 

No immortal soul, or anything like that.

When we’re dead, we’re in Sheol which isn’t much of a place, a land of shades, where the good, the bad, and the ugly all go.

But maybe God has something up God’s sleeve on this score … God remembers us … makes us always present (whatever that means!) … if my children remember me for the duration of their life, and if God remembers me for the duration of God’s life, which has no duration in the normal sense of the word, but is without beginning and without end … so, in some bizarre way, I’m always present in the mind of God, and so are you, dear reader, so are you.

At the end, when the time is right, graves are opened up, the sea gives up its dead, and the bones are refleshed, not with the perishable stuff given to corruption, but the imperishable stuff, like the body of Christ - light and luminous, but real enough for Thomas to dig his fingers into a  scar, and real enough to cook a beach-side breakfast for the weary disciples and help them get on their way with the high and holy calling of being disciples.

Refleshment is part of the deal, because we’re as much flesh as anything else, and without it, we’re not ourselves … but that’s a story for another time.

Between now and that great gettin’ up morning, bright with sight and sound, we all die … earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, pretty well sums it up.

From the book of Revelation, the idea, perhaps, of spiritual awareness in the presence of God, aware enough to enjoy the sights and sing some hymns … but it’s an awareness full of waiting … waiting for that final moment, when the trump is sounded, and all that’s been lost is found, all that is broken is made new.

The waiting of the saints, if you will, is categorically different than our waiting, fraught as it is with uncertainty, anxiety, a not-knowing that growls around inside our soul like a hungry beast, snapping and snarling when approached.

The saints wait with a full-blown confidence, assurance, blessed assurance, for sure … no uncertainty for the saints. 

Well, if that’s the case, to God be the glory.

As for me, who knows?

God knows.

And God is everlasting, eternal, world-without end, the Alpha and the Omega, which is a beginning, and an ending, not as a cessation of things, but a fulfillment, a completion, something made ready for the next round.

I think of the next round, but God-only-knows … God was doing godly things for billions of years before this earth came to be, and we got up from the mud to take a look at the sights.

And who knows what comes next in this expanding universe.

Is God done?

I don’t think God is ever done.

Endless creativity is God.

Anyway, to God I belong.

And so does my dear wife, and our family.

And everyone, all creatures great and small.

Some years ago, I read a fine article about life-after-death in The Christian Century - a theologian was asked by her young daughter, after her grampa’s death, “Will he be there in heaven?” As the mother said, I put aside my learning and said, as if it were a word from God, “Everyone you love, and everything you love, will be there.”

I think that’s just about it.

For love is the heart of the matter.

And everything, from old blankets and a pair of roller-skates, to  everyone who has ever lived, because everyone was loved by someone … and so it is, and so it shall be.

What is loved is there.

In the heart of God … 

And when the time is right, all shall be made new.

And that’s one heckuva deal.

The Republican Mind and the Heart of God

The Republican mind was tried and tested with Nixon, and though the GOP lost that battle, and though many a Republican realized that Nixon was doomed, and finally knew that resignation was the only answer, a collective vow was likely made, a never-again pledge.

No matter what!

Now, faced with a monster in the WH, a man of limited intelligence, with an immoral character, surrounded by sleaze and influenced by his own brooding greed for power and for "love," a love never received within his family, and a love that he cannot ever give, because he doesn't have it within him, the GOP and those who've profited from this current administration, will, in their own mindless way, stand by this man, though all of them are neck-deep in filth.

It's a first class mess we have on our hands, but we've been here before, with one exception: the WH has a base of anger and bigotry throughout the nation, fueled by talk radio, the crooks at FOX, and the evangelical church for which power, at any cost, is to be courted for the sake of its theocratic dream - to rid this nation of the godless liberals, and so to "restore" morality, a "morality" in which there is no room for the LGBTQ Community, no room for workers' rights, no room for women, no room for people of color, no room for collaboration with the world, but only dominance by brute military force.

History, or as my Christian high school history teacher put it many years ago, in large scrawl on the blackboard - His Story.

Yes, I know all the linguistic and gender-issues related to that descriptor, but what my teacher meant then, and what I hear today, is this: the moral arc of the universe is always bent toward justice and truth. The love of the Creator will prevail, though beaten and battle-worn (which is why the resurrected body of the Christ was full of scars - no one, not even God, can escape the sweat and toil of seeking justice), and though raised to new life, that new life gives evidence of the costs involved, and when the Doubting Thomas saw the scars, he knew this was a God worthy of his life, and Thomas said, "My LORD and my God."

In his own way, Thomas knew, I believe, that a god without scars, a god without hurt and heartache, was no god at all, and for the times then, and surely for the times now, a scarred god is the only god worth following. Not a god of Rome or Temple, but a god of the people, a god of the creation and a god of all its creatures, great and small, a god who takes up the human cause and pays the price of love.

Sooner or later the truth will out, and justice will be done.

Never to create a perfect world, but at least a more perfect union ... on our way, with plenty of baggage, but on our way, headed toward the sunlight of faith, hope and love.

Purposeful Unhappiness

Different kinds of unhappiness:

Some of it arises from a deep and powerful connection to the universe, and to its pain.

Was Jesus unhappy?
Of course, he was, a good many times.
But his unhappiness wasn't destructive.
It was creative, compassionate and healing.
Strong enough to be deconstructed on a cross.
But the very nature of his unhappiness gave rise to life.
In the end/beginning, it couldn't be killed.

There's another kind of unhappiness that comes from disconnects:
From regret and jealousy.
From hate and bitterness.
Abuse and neglect.
Feelings of inadequacy, helplessness, frustration.

Religion often generates this kind of unhappiness.
A sad "righteousness."
That gloats in the sorrow of others.
That dreams of punishment and death for the many.
And salvation for the righteous few.
It's never peaceful.
It snarls and growls a lot.

Religious or not.
It lashes out and despises the world.

It finds purpose in destructiveness.
Deconstructive, taking something apart.
Smashing it to pieces.

In the end, disaster.
For those caught in its grip.
And at the very source.
In the soul of the unhappy.
Death.

Yet, for those unhappy because of connection.
Unhappy in their compassion.
Unhappy in their vision for a new day.
Something good and beautiful for the world.

Those who refuse to build walls.
Who refuse the language of race and exclusion.
Those who speak truth to power.
And challenge the lies that power needs to be power.

For them, life.
Life on the hard side, for sure.
Life drained away in labor and love.
And life replenished in the doing of good.

Life returned to the giver by the universe.
Life at the source.
In the soul.
The center.
Spreading out.

It's okay to be unhappy in the goodness of compassion.
Compassion requires it.
And makes it whole and constructive.
A powerful unhappiness that dreams and strives.

And the universe says: "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Well, Gang, We Made It

Well, Gang,
We made it.

All the way to this Gettin' Up Day.
When stones of hate and fear.
Are rolled away.

Oh, but those stones felt so good.
So righteous and so strong.

Stones of faith hardened by harshness.
Stones of dogma carved by hypocrisy.
Stones of righteousness backed up by bible quoting.
Stones of collusion between Jerusalem and Rome.
Stones to keep away the new thing God is doing.

Uh uh, dear friends, no surprises here.
The powers-that-be won't put up with it.
When politics and religion collude, death arrives on time.

But somehow or other, God breaks through.
The Spiritual Presence moves mountains and stones.
And the living reality of grace, mercy and peace.
Faith, hope and love.
Arises from the death we gave.
The death we love:
The death of another.

Life cannot be so easily defeated.
Yet damage is done.
Real and sad.
Christ shows the scars of his trial and his travail.

Changed forever.
Yet Christ remains:
The light of the world.
Our hope for all the years to come.
Living water and stout bread.
The shepherd of our souls.
The peace that passes all understanding.

This Gettin' Up Mornin'.
Tho't it would never get here.

But it did.
And it will.
Again and again.

To push away the stones we still have.
The stones we love more than life itself.
The stones we have in-waiting.

To bury the new.
The fire.
The love.

And the new, the fire, and the love.
Will suffer and will die.
By our own hand and many a righteous lie.

And we'll hurry up and put it all away.
In a tomb of our own clever making.

And there it will rest until an early morning.
With the dawning of a new day.
To shove the stone away.

The good prevails.
With scars to reveal.
To remind us:
Not to fear.

Not to fear our own days of hurt and grief.
When we follow in his love.
With words and deeds that beckon to life..
And shove away the stones of strife.

A glorious, profound, and ever-bright Easter.
For all creatures, great and small:
A Good Morning to each and to all!

Cunning Tricks and the Privatization of Our Schools

This morning, I turned, happenstance, to Mark 14.1-2:

It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; for they said, “Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.” [NRSV]

The Common English Bible has a bit more bite to it:

It was two days before Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and legal experts through cunning tricks were searching for a way to arrest Jesus and kill him. But they agreed that it shouldn’t happen during the festival; otherwise, there would be an uproar among the people.

As I read through the passage, given what I heard last evening from Diane Ravitch about American Education and the full-tilt effort of "reformers" (read corporate interests) to take over education, I found myself considering "the rich and the powerful" of Jerusalem and how they hated Jesus, and did everything they could to undo him, because the message of Jesus was for The People and their children.

In similar fashion, the rich and the powerful of our day are doing everything they can to undo American Public Education - with a cunning strategy -  spinning endless hoaxes about "just how bad things are," and telling American "we can rescue our children if you will only turn them over to us and our corporations."  

The large audience last evening [October 2, 013] at CalState Northridge was huge and enthusiastic, and gave me hope for the future, that maybe, just maybe, there might be a coming revolution in America, when The People finally realize what "cunning tricks" have been used by the rich and the powerful (read chief priest and legal experts) to destroy American Education - to turn our children into nothing more than worker-bees to compete in international markets.

But worker-bees are not we need or want - we want American Citizens who can think critically and be an informed electorate, and serve wisely on school boards and town councils (the last thing the rich and the powerful want).

And, btw, good citizens will always be good workers, able to compete in the international markets. But good citizens will also be able to see cunning tricks for what they are, and with sound legislation and wise politicians, craft laws that serve all the people all the time, with fairness and dignity for all.

Let's not forget that the rich and the powerful of Jerusalem made headway in their cunning and succeeded in destroying Jesus, at least for three days. And to this very day, the rich and the powerful plot his death again and again, because they hate him and his populist message.

The rich and the powerful always behave in this manner - nothing new here. 

Because the message of faith, hope and love, is always a threat to them, and though, for a time, the message may be killed and buried beneath a heavy stone sealed by the powers-that-be and guarded by their armies, those stones are always rolled away, and the message of hope rises again from the dead, to bring liberty to the oppressed and sight to the blind [Luke 4].

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Diane Ravitch's latest book: The Reign of Error

Click Here for her Blog.

This World IS My Home ...

When anyone has to sing, "This world is not my home," something is terribly wrong. Not with the singer, but with others who have allowed conditions to grow so bad that someone can only see hope in a way out. 

God intended that everyone sing, "This world is my home" ... and the saints with God, under the altar, wait for the day of resurrection, so they can go home again, where they belong - a new earth, with heaven and earth bonded together in the new creation, heralded by Jesus and his resurrection. He goes away, but only for a time, and will come again. Jerusalem comes down from safekeeping to be with us, here in our world. 

This world is our home, as God intended. Let us strive with all our might to make it so for everyone, all of God's creatures, great and small.

Resurrection Ahead ...

Dear Friends and Members of Calvary Presbyterian Church,

Because Christ is Risen from the dead, we are, too.

There are many dimensions to resurrection:

1. A personal dimension. In Christ, we have courage to face the many trials that come our way; we have patience in dealing with difficult situations; we extend grace to others who are troubled and sad; we are quick to forgive, even when others can’t apologize; we are quick to offer apologies when we’re wrong; we’re humble about our achievements, because everything is a gift of God, and whatever we have is only for God’s glory and the blessing of others. Our life, here and now, is held in the arms of the everlasting God, and it’s God who tells us to keep our eyes upon Christ and keeps our feet moving in the right direction. Because of Christ, we do not give up!
2. A missional dimension. We reach out with the gospel, and we invite others to look to Christ and join with us in God’s effort to redeem all of creation and lift people out of despair. We join with others of good will and peace all around the world. In God’s wisdom, a world of many languages is the best of all possible world. We send out missionaries to tell others of Christ, and in the telling, we dig water wells, we build hospitals, we help nations fight AIDS, we promote peace and we build bridges of understanding. We cannot and will not look upon others in a way other than seeing everyone as a child of God, whatever their persuasion or faith or color or creed might be. When we look for good will we find it; when we seek peace, we see it; when we offer forgiveness, we are forgiven, when we build up, we are built up, too.
3. A citizenship dimension. In Christ, we are people of peace and reconciliation. We are not impressed with military might or corporate power. We are sensitive to God’s creation, and all God’s creatures, great and small, and we work for a healthier planet. In the Risen Christ, we see God’s love for all the world and for all the nations, and we are careful about over-exuberant flag-waving and sword rattling. In Christ, we are wise about the sins of our own nation, even as we’re humbled by our personal sins. Furthermore, we are citizens of this land and this place, and as Jeremiah counseled the people to seek the welfare of the land in which they were living, so we seek our nation’s welfare, too. Not at the expense of others, but in concert with all of God’s creation. We pay our taxes, serve on juries, pray for our elected and appointed officials, spread good cheer and practice hope.
4. A fellowship dimension. In the triumphant love of Christ, the Holy Spirit builds bridges of love all over the place. We look upon one another through the eyes of Christ, and through our eyes, Christ looks out upon the world. As Paul says, We no longer regard one another from a human point of view … as just so much flesh and blood and bone, but we see one another as God’s precious people, each created in God’s image and endowed with fine gifts. We are pained by the ways religion and society can exclude people. In Christ, our arms are open to all, and all are welcomed at the Table of the LORD. On the local level, right here at Calvary on the Boulevard, we live out the fullness of God’s love by loving one another: we open our homes and hearts to one another, we give and receive our talents, we hold hands in prayer, we hold one another up in sorrow, we walk arm-in-arm in the great work of Jesus Christ.
5. A worship dimension. Our worship is joyful and hopeful. Because God is at work in all things for good. We gather for worship to celebrate the love of God and the world that’s coming our way. It’s a good world, and every prayer we utter, every good deed we offer, every kind word and every positive thought makes a lasting difference. And we’re serious, as well, because sin and oppression are real, and we take these seriously. We do not ignore the dark materials that flow around us and inside of us. We weep with those who weep, and we rejoice with those who rejoice. We confess our sin and the sins of the world and embrace the power of forgiveness.
6. An eternal dimension. Death doesn’t have the last word! Yes, we all must die, because we’re mortal, and “dust to dust” is still the truth about life. But God loves the dust; indeed, God loves all of creation, and God promises a new heaven and a new earth. The end of all things is Christ. A Cosmic Christ, the Creator Christ, the Word of God, in whom all things are being reconciled – when there are no more tears, no more sorrow, no more separation and no more hurt. Only light and peace and goodness and joy. This is where it’s all headed, and by the grace of God, no one is left behind!

 To God be the glory! Christ is risen.