Believing Deeply ...

It's the music.
Always the music.

Hymns to the glory of God.
Choral music rich and Latin.

Pipe organ wealth of sound.
Minor and major, somber and playful.

Great words of God's love.
God's faithfulness to creation.
Grace abounding.
Forgiveness unconditional.

My heart is moved.
Deeply.
Tears unbidden.
choked throat.

Faith, hope and love.
Something True.
Inexpressible.
Without a map.

It's the music.
Always the music.

A Flurry of Thoughts

A flurry of thoughts
Life
Death
Damn

Time is so short.
Young, time is forever.
Older, time hastens.
Old, time is nothing.

Death is the final.
Realty.
Life ends.
Life is done.

Can we hope?
Religions offer it.
Is it true?
Truth counts.

For a Christian:
Will we be with Jesus?
It's a good idea.
Maybe it's true.

Could be.
Maybe not.
Resurrection?
A promise?

Do I need this?
Does anyone?
What if this
Is enough?

For many
Maybe not enough.
Others?
Maybe enough.

Hard to say.
Some religious folk
are greedy for eternity.
Some, not so.

Who knows.
I love God.
God is life.
For sure.

I'm content!
Who knows?
Maybe.
Okay.

The Past

The Past ...

Is always present.
Always there.
Though perhaps forgotten.

But easily recalled.
Sometimes too easily.
Sometimes wantonly.

Pays to visit the past.
Now and then.
Things to be learned there.

But it makes no sense
To live there.
It's but a dream.

A scattering of:
hurt
pain
joy
old friends
dear friends
enemies, or so we think,
and maybe they were.
really
enemies.

And they wounded us.
Maybe because we were stupid.
Maybe because they were mean.

Maybe we needed a good
pants-kicking.
Maybe they had an angry leg.

Whatever ...
Pays to remember
now and then.

But it pays to
keep the visit
short.

Goodbye.
God be with ya'.
Take care.

So long, it's been good to know ya'
Or maybe not.
Good riddance.

And off we go.
To the present.
To what's good and what ain't.

And even the future.
In bits and pieces.
A move here or there.

And time moves along.
And it's good thing
To tag along for the ride.

Sheep Led to the Slaughter???

On my morning walk today, saw folks going into a church ...

first thought that came to mind:
"Sheep led to the slaughter."

Which reminds me,
people are willing
more than willing
to believe.

And just about anything
will do
when presented
with conviction or
authority or
whatever.

And, no doubt,
it's been a slaughter
sometimes.

The landscape of
church history
littered
with bodies.

But ...
not always ...

And I'm hopeful
that the gift
of the sheep
will always be
treated
with respect
by pastors
churches
theologians.

Who know something
of the human spirit.
The Spirit of God.

To believe.
A wonderful gift
an ability
a sweetness
"I'm ready to believe"
something - holy and
good and rich
and profound.

Something about:
liberation,
hope,
peace,
fairness,
kindness.

"I believe" are some
of the most precious words
in the world.

So treat it well.
Treat it as the
rarest of rare
treasures.

Lift it up.
Handle with care.
Bless the sheep
who come
ready
to believe!

Justice or Judgment - PCUSA Decision on Marriage Equality

This year's General Assembly for the Presbyterian Church (USA) decided that pastors living in states that have legalized marriage equality can now officiate at all marriages, without fear of sanction.

For some, this is a day longed for, a day of justice, a day sought with prayer and tears.

For some, this is a dreadful day, perhaps day of judgment, wherein God allows evil to win, for a time, to reveal the depravity of humankind.

Which is it?

Both sides prayed fervently ... citing Scripture, the Confessions, tradition and various clinical studies.

Lincoln wisely noted this in his Second Inaugural Address:

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.

To read how well Lincoln dealt with this matter, please read the entire address - it's a stunning example of clear-headed thought and moral review.

So, where are we today in the PCUSA?

A day of justice or a day of judgment?

For me, it's a day of justice, but for sisters and brothers of other persuasion, a day of judgment.

Will we ever know?

For sure?

History, of course, is a mess ...

What we do is move on, as best we can.

Limiting our worst instincts of either gloating in "victory" or despairing in "loss."

Finding solace in Lincoln's closing paragraph:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

A Brave Man, a Brave Woman

A brave man, a brave woman.

To leave behind old ideas.

Old places and solid habits.

To set the face toward other places.

‘Tis only a fool who believes that 

Yesterday holds the answers.

And a greater fool who believes

That a new day is easy to achieve.

God said to Abram and Sarai:

May I have a few moments of your time?

They should have said, No!

They should have turned around.

And run away.

Like Jonah did a few years later.

But we all know how it turned out for Jonah.

Perhaps Abram and Sarai suspected the same.

Or maybe there were just too naive.

And what’s wrong with that?

Naiveté gets us into trouble, for sure.

But it also is the grease of greatness.

Too naive to see the trouble ahead.

The naive says, Let’s do it.

Sin: A Realistic Understanding

Are we always destined to be ruled by fear and hate?

While the church surely trivialized sin into simple categories of misbehavior and moral failings (like drunkenness and cussing), so as to avoid the larger categories of power and abuse and war and greed (which would have upset the Ruling Class of Clergy and Capitalists), the concept of sin needs to be maintained and revived!

For many people, to even mention the word "sin" conjures up images of Medieval Priests, candles, incense and bells ... or at least, sawdust trail preachers whooping and hollering and threatening little children with hellfire and damnation.

Yet ...

The Genesis stuff of Adam and Eve hiding (fear) and Cain killing Abel (hatred) are part and parcel, it seems, of the human story, and we're not likely to get rid of these twin evils any time soon.

If Christians hope to have any voice in today's world, this might just be it. We've got to talk about sin.

To call things as they are ... the great evils of greed and war and class inequality ... things that respond to and generate fear and hate ... as well as the deeper reality, the mystery ... that humanity fears many things that go bump in the night, and we easily come to hate that which inspires fear.

And with enough hate, violence erupts - Cain kills Abel again and again, and the Ruling Classes send Jesus to the Cross.

Slobbering preachers going on and on about the evils of "demon rum" and tobacco, have done great harm to the truth of sin, and when sober society rejects such stuff as nonsense, as it truly does, society sadly denies itself a tool in understanding itself - though "understanding" is always qualified by the reality ever so much larger than our intellectual and spiritual abilities to grasp it.

Sin is a mystery ... in the classic sense, sin is our four-fold alienation from self, from others, from the natural world around us and from God ... four fundamental alienations that cripple the human race and leave a wake of destruction in their path.

Denying these alienations, or at least trying to sugarcoat them, doesn't help one bit.

And continuing to preach about lesser things as sin is even worse ... better to not even mention the whole thing if we're not prepared to come to grips with it for what it is. Though preaching about "getting ahead in life" and "Five Steps to a Healthy Family" doesn't help either. Turning the pew into a therapy couch cheapens those who sit there, and those who preach such nostrums.

We do well to maintain the word "sin" and the mystery it represents ... a deep and penetrating darkness of spirit and mind - best described in the words, fear and hate.

These exist, abundantly.

In all of us.

Rich and poor alike.

No sense denying it.

No sense pretending that:

Meditation.

Prayer.

Bible reading.

Incense.

Yoga.

Charity and mission work.

Will expunge it from our DNA.

Honest and forthright confession helps: the Jesus Prayer, for example:

"LORD Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy upon me

A Sinner."

And with some such awareness, to keep ourselves vigilante against the perennial forces of hate and fear.

Honest reckoning and clear-headed thinking will help ... and one of the sources of good reckoning and thought remains Christian Theology ... when humbly held and offered with kindness and sympathy.

Christians, at this point, have something terribly important to offer ... keeping in mind how easily it has been corrupted by cheap preaching and shallow thinking ...

Sin ... that which so easily fears and hides from life, and sooner or later, erupts in hatred and violence.

And what parts of it we cannot understand, at least to say, "There is it ... in all of its ugly reality - fear and hate."

For Christians, then, to be reminded of the angels who counsel mortals, "Fear not" and when hatred raises its ugly head, to choose the Beatitudes and the ways of love - with Jesus clearly in mind, "Take up your cross [the truth about sin] and follow me."

It's not easy to deal with sin ... but failing to deal with it only heightens its power to instill ever-greater levels of fear and hatred into our heart and into our life together.

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

"Once to Every Man and Nation" - James R Lowell, in the Bos­ton Cour­i­er, De­cem­ber 11, 1845. Low­ell wrote these words as a po­em pro­test­ing Amer­i­ca’s war with Mex­i­co.