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Author: Tim

Senior pastor of First Congregational United Church of Christ. Ordained in May, 1983. Called to First Congregational UCC in August, 1994. Retired July 1, 2018.
not a fairy tale, but good news

not a fairy tale, but good news

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Once — not upon a time, but just once. Once, at a particular time, during the reign of Caesar Augustus, the Roman emperor, once, in a particular place, Bethlehem in occupied Judea, a baby was born to a poor Jewish couple, Mary and Joseph, a carpenter. They were not yet married and the pregnancy was conceived under dubious circumstances and the birthing was lonely and awkward. No one came to share their joy, only some rough shepherds and a group of foreigners. From the beginning, this baby was surrounded by turmoil. Herod wanted to kill him, but failed. But one day, Pilate would succeed. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, rejected and despised by his own people, but providing for some — hopeless people, broken people, poor people, humble people, sinful people, lost people — the salvation they thought was never possible.

emmanuel

emmanuel

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From I Like Being Five Years Old, an entry by Debi Sanders last week on the inward/outward website:

My friend Kim, who worked with Good Shepherd Ministries for the last ten years, just returned from a year in Haiti where her only “job” was to be with people and build friendships. The Haitians were in awe that an American would come to live with them and not try to “fix” them or improve them or undertake a project.

Jesus certainly did “fix” people’s lives. He healed their diseases, forgave their sins, challenged them to give up their “idols.” But, first of all, he was Emmanuel, God with us. He ate with “undesirables.” He engaged in lengthy conversations with Jewish lawyers and Samaritan women. He invested himself fully and personally in a small group of close friends. Jesus modeled for us a lifestyle of service, but a servanthood that begins just by being there, by being with, by entering into relationship.

That’s why I like Debi Sanders’ description of her friend’s “job” and the reaction of her Haitian friends so much. It takes profound humility — and deep respect — to be ready to spend time with people instead of “coming to their rescue.” And when you are ready to do that, you may just find out along the way that you have as much to gain as to give. You may find out that you needed rescuing just as much! And you will be doing what Jesus does …

“living with a sense of gratitude”

“living with a sense of gratitude”

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Barbara Kingsolver was interviewed by World Ark, Heifer International’s bi-monthly magazine, about her newest book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. The book describes her family’s yearlong pledge to eat only locally-produced foods. In response to a question about “moments of miracle on this journey,” Kingsolver replied:

For me, the biggest miracle is the fact that this project, which may have seemed to us in the beginning to be an exercise in deprivation, very quickly guided us through a paradigm shift. Very quickly, we came to see this way of living with a sense of gratitude.

We moved from beginning each meal by asking. “What do I feel like?” to asking, “What do we have?” We would look at what’s coming in — what’s wonderful and abundant right now — and work from there. It was very valuable for our family, and it’s a wonderful way to live. It’s a paradigm shift that all of us could probably use in our lives.

We are easily seduced by convenience and quickly jaded by an overabundance of, well, just about everything. But convenience and overabundance mask the ongoing reality of a world where most folks don’t have even enough, and where we, who have more than enough, are often deprived, too. We are deprived of gratitude, because things come to us too easily, and we are deprived of joy, because the price of convenience is quality. What comes quick and easy and cheap IS quick and easy and cheap.

The Kingsolvers’ experiment is interesting — even if it was done for the sake of a book! — but what I find most interesting about it is this rediscovery of a sense of gratitude, of finding again the daily rhythm of prayer and thanksgiving to which Jesus invites us: “This is how you should pray … ‘Give us this day our daily bread.'”

torture is not a partisan issue

torture is not a partisan issue

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Torture is not a partisan issue. It is an issue of conscience. It’s not about citing extreme circumstances, but about applying a universal standard of human ethics. It’s not about finding ways to win the war on terrorism, but about not losing our souls in the process.

Torture is not a partisan issue. Consider the comments of Lindsey Graham, Republican senator from South Carolina, during the confirmation hearing for Michael Mukasey:

If we allow our executive in certain rare circumstances to use techniques like waterboarding, then what do we say when a downed airman is in the hands of another enemy in another war, and they argue, “Well, I had to do this, because I needed to know when the next air attack was going to occur.”

The NPR story containing this quote from Sen. Graham also supplies some background on “waterboarding.”

Waterboarding is a process of controlled drowning used in the Spanish Inquisition … For more than a century, it has been considered a war crime by the United States and prosecuted as such. The top legal officers of all the military services have testified that waterboarding is illegal under U.S. and international law.

If we have called it torture for more than a century and if our legal experts in the military still call it torture, then isn’t is torture? And if we say we don’t torture, why can’t we say that we categorically reject waterboarding as aid to interrogation? Because we don’t want to let detainees know what is or is not in our interrogation arsenal? Because we want them and the rest of the world to think we might indeed use torture?

Torture is not a partisan issue. It is an issue of conscience … of personal conscience and of national conscience.

not the end of the world

not the end of the world

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What Manny Ramirez said after the Red Sox fell behind to the Cleveland Indians three games to one:

We’re just going to go have fun and play the game. That’s it. If we go play hard and the thing doesn’t come like it’s supposed to come, we’ll move on. We’ll come next year. Why should we panic? We’ve got a great team. If it doesn’t happen, good. We’ll come next year and try to do it again.

We’re confident every day. It doesn’t matter how things go for you. We’re not going to give up. We’re just going to go and play the game, like I’ve said, and move on. If it doesn’t happen, so who cares? There’s always next year. It’s not like the end of the world or something.

What a refreshing attitude! Here’s an elite athlete who remembers it’s a game, a player who goes out everyday and does his best, but remembers it’s supposed to be fun. Instead of criticizing Manny for “not taking it seriously,” we should be thanking him for reminding us as fans and as human beings to keep things in proper perspective.

P.S. Manny went out Thursday night, played hard, had fun … and helped the Red Sox beat the Indians in game five 7-1.

chattering and scampering

chattering and scampering

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From inward/outward: The Worrier’s Guild by Philip Deaver

Today there is a meeting of the
Worriers’ Guild,
and I’ll be there.
The problems of Earth are
to be discussed
at length
end to end
for five days
end to end
with 1100 countries represented
all with an equal voice
some wearing turbans and smocks
and all the men will speak
and the women
with or without notes
in 38 languages
and nine different species of logic.
Outside in the autumn
the squirrels will be
chattering and scampering
directionless throughout the town
because
they aren’t organized yet.

just bullies

just bullies

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Our nation’s psyche is shaped by two defining archetypes: the cowboy and the preacher; the macho hero and the principled idealist; the adventurer and the reformer; the Louisiana Purchase and the Bill of Rights; Christopher Columbus and Thomas Jefferson; John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart; Douglas MacArthur and Martin Luther King.

The face we present to the rest of the world is spawned of the delicate balance between these two personae, these two values. We swagger … and we stand on principle. We fight for freedom … and we defend human rights. We are the biggest … and we are the best. We overcome all enemies … and we uphold the rule of law.

Much of our internal political debate can be framed in terms of these two defining ideas. When kept in balance, we manage to win with dignity, to earn respect even as we impose our will, to forge new friendships instead of creating new enemies.

But when the one American vision is divorced from the other, when the rule of law is set aside “out of necessity” in order to “win,” then we are seen as bullies. And that is indeed what we are … just bullies.

seeing gray

seeing gray

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Writing in Sojouorners magazine (In the prison-industrial complex, is there hope for redemption?), Nancy Hastings Sehested, a Baptist minister and prison chaplain, describes a North Carolina maximum-security prison this way:

Colorful flowers mark the path to the gatehouse. Then the stripping away begins in earnest. It is a gray day every day in this prison. Gray walls, gray floors, and gray ceilings. The gray uniforms worn by the men can fade their faces into obscurity. The blue uniforms of the staff can create the same effect. Holding a gaze is crucial in seeing the person beyond the clothing. A simple “hello” can seem like a subversive act in a place where everyone is defined by role.

Now I know that prisons are not meant to be “cushy” places, and that justice — at least in part — is about punishment and the deserved forfeiture of rights and privileges. Nevertheless, after reading Sehested’s description, I found myself wondering what gray on gray on gray does to the human soul?

In creating a lifeless and colorless and despair-inducing environment, what do we hope to accomplish? It seems to me that such an environment would readily foster nihilistic thoughts and desperate acts and a soul-killing sense of resignation, hopelessness, and resentment.

I know what the colors and scents of a garden can do for my soul. I know how stepping outside and watching the ebb and flow of tree limbs in the wind or hearing the chatter of birds or taking my dog for a walk in the early morning sunlight can lift my spirits.

Justice — at least in part — is also about rehabilitation and restoration, and it seems to me that those things that can lift spirits and renew a love for life and restore a sense of beauty could provide invaluable aid in turning inmates lives around. I am no corrections expert, but I don’t see how we make a man or woman more human or more hospitable by sequestering them in an inhuman and inhospitable environment.

Within those prison walls, we literally have a captive audience. What a teaching opportunity! What an opportunity — not to confirm the fatalistic notion that the spoils go to the strongest and the “baddest” — but to show another way to measure value, another way to enjoy beauty, another way to satisfy the longings of the human soul. Only God can finally satisfy those longing, but it is the colors and scents and textures and vistas of all of creation that point us to God.

Maybe colorful flowers should mark the paths inside the prison walls, too …