There Is Little to Say - a poem

There is little to say.
Little to offer.

Little more to think.

Either we love all.
Or we cannot love at all.

The struggle to be fair.
Begins with God.
Who blesses with abundance.
To see what we shall we do with it.

Will we claim it as our own?
How foolish.
Or see it as a gift.
And a tool.
How wise.
How godly.

To improve the lot of others.
And quit asking why -
Others should be in need.
And quit blaming them.
While secretly congratulating ourselves.

Our shit stinks alike.
Body oder is common to all.
Frailty and tears belong to the powerful, too.
And death comes to all.

So quite bashing the poor.
Quit bragging about your power.
You don't have it.
It's not yours.
Never, ever, ever, never.

Just grow up and be kind.
Give like crazy.
Enjoy what's yours.
And share the rest.
Because very little is yours.
It's all a gift.

August 6, 2012
Tom Eggebeen

Funeral Poem: "His Heart Stopped"

His heart stopped.

This brave heart.

Strong and resilient.

Said in the early morning hours.

To him:

Our work is done.

The race is won.

We've crossed the finish line.

Now take a rest m'boy.

Take a rest.

Enjoy some time off.

This brave man who worked so hard.

Who loved so much.

Who made things with his hands.

And told stories to hold everyone's attention.

Who wheeled around and put ---- on his lap.

The best seat in church, it was said.

A father.

A husband.

A human being.

The world is better because of him.

And today, we cry because it's over.

But we smile because it was.

A good life.

A good man.

A brave heart.

Now at rest.

Vision, Voting Booths and Faith

Written for the August newsletter of Calvary Presbyterian Church, Hawthorne, CA

As the Presidential Campaign heats up, both parties are offering their vision for America.

What’s our vision for America?

And more importantly, could we explain to someone how our vision for America correlates with our faith?

Our vision is shaped by all sorts of things:

1. How we were raised and how our parents saw the world.
2. Our schooling, what we majored in and our favorite professors.
3. Our work history - good jobs and bad jobs.
4. Our personal lives - joys and our sorrows, wins and losses.
5. How we feel about ourselves, how we see our lives and our place in the world.
6. Newspapers and magazines and books.
7. TV and radio.
8. Obviously, the internet - from the ridiculous to the sublime.
9. Our religious background and spiritual proclivities.
10. And our DNA.

In high school and college, I was formally introduced to Calvinism, a “world and life view” - a faith perspective into which I was born, with many a fine pastor proclaiming the gospel with Reformed Style! For me, as a person and a pastor, such breadth and depth captures the heart of the Christian Faith, the sweep of Scripture and the vision of the Saints and Leaders of the last 2000 years.

Everyone has a tradition, even those who claim to be “non-denominational” have a tradition behind them, and it’s called Anabaptist. 

Anyway, as Christians of the Calvinist, or Reformed, persuasion, our world and life faith is big; big enough for the world, and small enough for every-day life. Including the candidates we support and our vision of America. So we pray: O God, may our convictions correlate with Jesus, the Bible and our Reformed Tradition.”

So, we rightly ask, “What are the elements of a Calvinist, or Reformed, faith”? 

1. This world belongs to God, and God yearns for the world to know and live this liberating truth. This is God’s Sovereignty!
2. God is at work in all things to restore creation to health and wholeness for all God’s creatures, great and small. At the heart of this work is forgiveness, or atonement. This is God’s Grace!
3. The object of the Christian is not to simply go to heaven (though that’s part of the deal, God be praised), but to live well here, as a child of God, a friend of Jesus. This is God’s Sanctification of God’s People.
4. The prophets of the Old Testament offer tremendous insights into the mind of God and provide the foundation for Jesus and the New Testament. This is God’s Instruction.
5. The Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount describe specifically the world envisioned by Jesus. This is God with Us!
6. Paul the Apostle writes about the effort of God to persuade us, lead us, guide us, command us, through Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, to be, as Jesus says, the salt of the earth and the light of the world. This is God’s Call to Follow Christ!

We shall serve Christ well when we take his life and love, and the whole counsel of God, into our hearts and minds, and our hearts and minds into the voting booth.

To God be the glory!

Interim Pastor Tom Eggebeen

The American Dream at Its Best

Their faces weary.

Their steps tired.

Their clothes, mostly neat, and old.

Their hands tell a story of hard, hard, labor, and so do their shoes.

They ride the LA trains and buses - thank God for public transportation.

Nestled in between theaters in various states of life and death and old office buildings on Broadway - shops, markets, newsstands, vendors with small carts selling baubles and bangles and fruit drinks, hole-in-the-wall restaurants and bridal shops with billowy white baptism gowns hanging from the ceiling like so many angels dancing frivolously to entice customers ... and lots of people, lots of languages, lots of faces of all different kinds.

A few shop-keepers on the street inviting passers-by to "stop in; check out the store; good deals here."

Music seeping out of the stores.

An elderly man playing the accordion on a busy corner ... a few dollars in a hat laying on the sidewalk beside him. He has a pleasant smile on his face. Wonder what he's thinking. Is he tired? Is anyone listening?

Lots of families here.

Kids in tow, in strollers, in arm.

People laughing.

Some by themselves, heads down, lost in thought, intent on their way somewhere, in a hurry.

Hard-working people.

None of them rich ... hanging on to their dreams.

I salute them.

I honor them.

I bless them.

They are the representatives of the American Dream at its best.

State of Israel Struggling for Racial Purity?

The State of Israel is struggling to find its identity for the 21st Century; what began with great idealism and dreams of democracy is slowly eroding under the impulse of the worst kinds of human instincts. The following two articles from the Los Angeles Times tell an ugly story of fear and racism.

The first article describes the plight of 60,000 African immigrants, many of whom arrived on foot from Ethiopia, through Egypt, to find safety in Israel's Democracy. Their mistreatment is obvious, and clearly an expression of racial hatred. The young hooligans terrorizing these immigrants is reminiscent of Kristalnacht, 1938, Germany.

The second article details the efforts of Israel's medical schools to curtail Arab enrollment.

20% of Israel's population is Arab. Exempt from compulsory military service (after all, who wants to train and equip Arabs - sounds like the British in South Africa who used Black soldiers from other countries but not from SA itself), Arab students are eligible for medical school a few years earlier than Jewish students. While the schools deny any such effort aimed at a specific group of people, it's hard to see this as anything else but a concerted effort to isolate and exclude a group of people.

Thanks to the LA Times for good reporting.

The Plight of the Rhino

Unbound: On the Horns of a Dilemma in South Africa -- National Geographic Traveler

A fine piece of writing with a dramatic proposal - shoot-to-kill, not the rhino, but the poacher.

Driven by Asian prosperity and folk-medicine claim's for the healing and and sexual-stimulant power of ground rhino horn (you might as well eat fingernails or hair, because that's what the horns are made of), on the street, it's worth more than gold and heroine.

This National Geographic writer is clear, and so am I - if we want to preserve the rhino who has no defense against poachers with high-powered machine guns and rifles, only drastic measures will do it.

A shoot-to-kill policy, high fines and prison terms.

Yet, this will only deal with the poachers, not the demand.

If anything, it'll only drive up demand.

Most needed: the UN and other organizations need to step up to the plate and challenge Asian governments to counter folk-medicine silliness (not all folk medicine is silly, I know that, but this is) and impose serious penalties on anyone dealing in rhino horn. Not only must measures be taken at the site where the rhino lives, but at the point of demand.

It's high time for China and other Asian countries, dripping with cash, to confront this tragedy.

Abortion as "Child Abuse"?

From my good FB friend Craig Hexham:

He writes:

Driving home from work today, came across a billboard paid for by Michigan "Right to Life" [sic]. It stated, "Abortion: the ultimate child abuse." 


Struck me as odd. How about the two year old who experiences weeks and months of abuse--burns, hits, pinches, and neglect, before finally being dashed to death against the living room wall? 


How about the four year old who, in imitation of his policeman father, gets the gun while dad's not looking and kills himself? 


How about the six year old who's repeatedly sexually molested by her grandfather? 


How about the ten year old with medical problems who is stuffed upside down in a trash can at school by his peers because he is small and wears leg braces? 


How about the fifteen year old who is wanted by neither parent when they divorce? 


How about the seventeen year old with skittles and iced tea who is terrorized by a maniac with a firearm? 


How about the eighteen year old who's told he's a man when he's killed his first "enemy combatant? 

...and these are just the ones from the last few days news. I haven't gotten started about the kids in other countries who aren't as "lucky" as the ones I've already mentioned.