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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.
Happiness

Happiness

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A piece written this morning for the Deer Isle Writers Group …

Happiness lives in the space created by all-consuming beauty, all-consuming because in that space, in that moment, the beauty itself, whether perceived by eye or ear or nose or mouth or hand, or somehow, simply, strangely known, is everything. The beauty is, is all the world to me in that moment, and I am happy, though it is not even exactly true to say that I am happy, because, in that place, in that moment, I have no awareness of “I,” the beauty, the overwhelming beauty simply is, and I am somehow gifted with briefly being in the same place and moment as the happiness that is, with or without me.

The stone, the rock, the enormous erratic, perched on the granite ledges extending into the water from McGlathery’s eastern shore, seemingly out of place, is very much in its place. It defines, commands the place, but would be other were it not in that place, that numinous space, surrounded by human activity, but regardless of it, ledges washed by the tides, visited by ermine and gulls, islands emerging near and far from the ever-restless sea. When I turn the corner and see it, when it is not just that I see it, but that in that space and in that moment it becomes the world, all the world, there is happiness.

The frenzied, but careful and ecstatic, interplay of cello and violin and piano, creates its an irresistible gravity that draws me, draws everything, into its orbit. The ears are piqued, are pleased, by the sounds, but it is the heart, the loins, the stuff of being itself, and of my being in so far as I may share being itself, that is moved, deeply stirred, transported, transformed, awash with happiness.

The waters of the creek run clear and cold and powerful, iridescent, translucent, an uncanny green, flowing, rushing, ceaselessly careening down the rock-strewn river bed bearing waters from glaciers high above on the flanks of Mt. Baker into the the ever-burgeoning Skagit River. I watch, I look, I become the looking, there is only the looking, the flowing, the sparkling, the cavorting, the dancing, dancing, dancing of the waters. And there is happiness.

I hold the two broken halves of the crusty bread in my hands and I say the words, “This is my body,” but it is not my body and not my words, and, though it is my hands, it is not my hands that offer this bread. I am, in that space, in that moment, consumed by a giving, an inviting, an all-consuming, but all-creating loving, that is so much beyond what I can give, beyond whom I can invite, beyond what I can create. I am invited into that space, into that moment, along with all who surround me in that sanctuary, and, indeed, with all who surround us in the sanctuary that is the earth. There is in that space, in that moment, a being, a loving, a beauty that fills us and binds us to each other and to the One from whom flows all the beauty and all the love and all being. And there is happiness.

The potter

The potter

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I am of the ground
lumpy and misshapen
not yet beautiful
but in the eye of your imagining

You knead me and you shape me
the image conceived in your mind now birthed in my body
its curves and edges sculpted under the careful caress of your fingers
its form reflecting the wonder of your genius

Like the clay in the potter’s hands
so am I in your hands

Katahdin

Katahdin

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Katahdin looms — imposing, intimidating, unnerving — its implausibly enormous bulk dominating the skyline.  Katahdin is no singularly outstanding feature of this wild landscape; it is the landscape, and all the rest — forest, stream, foothill, me — we all lurk in its shadows.

The enchanting voice of my Maine muse, Carolyn Currie, cantillates from the speakers of my Santa Fe: “Red hawk’s rising on the back of the wind and she’s circling with an answer and I finally understand how to begin.”  Red hawk’s rising.  I play the song again and again as I make my resolute approach to the campground and trailhead at the base of the mountain.  Red hawk’s rising.  It is my mantra, my rallying cry, my anthem, as I steel mind and body for the quest that awaits me.  I will not soar like a hawk on the back of the wind, but I do intend to rise.  If it will allow me, I intend to rise to the top of this fabled mountain.

Fabled, renowned, iconic, Katahdin surely is, but, today, none of that matters to me.  Today, Katahdin is not Pamola’s mountain or Thoreau’s mountain or even the mountain of innumerable Appalachian Trail thru-hikers celebrating the denouement of a two thousand mile odyssey.  Today, it is my mountain.  Even surrounded by dozens and dozens of other hopeful summiteers, I climb alone — not to conquer an adversary or meet a challenge or check off an achievement on some life list.  No, any such motive would demean, demystify, devalue the majesty of this mountain.  I climb not to overcome Katahdin, but to be deemed worthy of meeting it, of learning some of its secrets, of being welcomed for a few unforgettable moments into its numinous space.

The trail begins, beguilingly beautiful, following dazzling Katahdin Stream as it ascends gently among birch and spruce and hemlock until reaching fifty-foot Katahdin Stream Falls cascading over a series of granite ledges.  The impressive cataract is well worth the mile and a quarter hike from the trailhead.  Undoubtedly, many a casual Baxter visitor ends the journey here, contented with traversing this splendid wilderness path and rewarded by the spectacular visage of the falls.

Beyond the falls, the climb begins in earnest, ascending four thousand feet in five miles.  The trail is relentlessly steep, up and up and up, not walking a steady incline, but scrambling over ledges and boulders among scattered glacial erratics.  I feel strong and stronger yet as the path grows steeper, taking some pride as my sixty-something body overtakes more than a few twenty-something or thirty-something bodies along the way.

I emerge from the trees at the base of the Hunt Spur, the crux of a Katahdin ascent via the Hunt Trail which also serves as the terminus of the Appalachian Trail.  Steep and long and difficult, the Hunt Spur is a naked ridge of jumbled boulders — car-sized, bus-sized, boxcar-sized.  Though marked by blue blazes painted on the granite, the way up is not always clear; every step must be carefully puzzled out, clambering over and around and between the massive boulders.  The climb is physically demanding, but even more mentally exhausting.  The immensity of the mountain, the unsettling exposure, the demanding route-finding, and the unrelenting steepness make an ascent of the Hunt Spur a daunting endeavor.

And a profoundly satisfying endeavor.  I crest the top of the ridge and step out onto the Tablelands, a wide, flattish, tundra-like landscape.  I walk steadily, part of the long procession of hikers following the trail roped off on both sides to protect the fragile alpine ecosystem.  We wind our way over the plateau, pass Thoreau Spring, mount the short summit ridge, and we are there.

I am there, standing atop Baxter Peak, surrounded by dozens of other happy climbers, but still very much alone, alone surveying the breathtaking panorama — Pamola and the Knife Edge, Chimney Pond and the Cathedrals, alone steeped in the joy of this moment, alone celebrating this mountain which has now become a part of my story and I a part of its story, Katahdin, my mountain.

blood

blood

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A poem written this morning in response to an image painted by Gebre Kristos Desta, an Ethiopian painter and poet.

Golgotha, painted by Gebre Kristos Desta
Golgotha, by Gebre Kristos Desta

Blood.
Blood red,
battered, scattered, splattered.
Is this what we do best,
build cravenly cruel machines —
crosses and guillotines, gas chambers and nuclear submarines —
to batter and scatter and splatter
blood?
Blood red,
blood of hundreds of Ukrainians and hundreds of thousands of Syrians
blood of a million Cambodians and six million Jews,
blood of three thousand New Yorkers and forty thousand Nagasakians, your
blood.
Blood red,
brightly, brilliantly red,
battered but vibrant,
scattered but brimming with energy,
splattered but pulsating with life.
Blood.
Life blood.
Life is in the blood. Life is in your
blood.

home

home

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As soon as I cleared the last of the spruces and stepped from the needle strewn path out onto the granite ledge and scanned the panorama stretched out before me, green and grey and blue, I knew I was home. There were Cadillac and Newbury Neck, Long Island and Naskeag Point, Isle au Haut and Eggemoggin Reach and the Camden Hills. I could name them all, but it was not the naming that made this home. No, it was this space without edges, beautiful and mysterious, readily seen but not readily known, a space so much bigger than me, so much uncareful of me, yet unquestioningly including me, that made itself home. This is no house built of human hands, no hall or office where I strive to prove myself worthy. No, this is a home so much older, so much wilder, so much truer, a space, a place, where stripped of the need to perform, shorn of the need to prove or to be approved, that I remember, that I remember what I am, that I remember who I am, that I am home.

Rhyme Time

Rhyme Time

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Three short poems written this morning playing with rhyme …

Out of the muck

What luck
Got my truck
Out of the muck
In which it was stuck

1 John 4:18

Spiders and snakes,
heights and quakes.
Strangers and failure,
Loneliness and censure.
Falling and flying,
losing and dying.
All of our years,
filled with fears
nothing can alleviate,
nothing can ameliorate,
nothing can attenuate,
but love.

Listening to Bela Fleck’s “My Bluegrass Heart”

What fun! the fiddle diddles and dances
while banjo clucks and mandolin prances.
Bravo! the bass galumphs and ambles,
as dobro glissades and guitar gambols.
Bela and Michael, Molly and Sierra,
Justin and Mark, a bluegrass coloratura.

silence

silence

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it is not merely the notes that matter
but the spaces between them
          and the silence

four arms and four appended bows unmoving, suspended in air
the last vibrations of violin and viola and cello strings now unheard
yet indelibly etched into feeling and memory by that exquisite moment
          of silence

breath and bones and bosom seized by the sudden cry of the loon
its ebbing wail pulling water and wood and paddle and body into its ineffable yearning
yet its power to transfix, transform, transcend is released in what follows
          in the silence

it is not merely the words that matter
but the spaces between them
          and the silence

the poem speaks as much by what is left unwritten
and the sermon by what is left unsaid
the Lord is in his holy temple, let all on earth
          keep silence

Letting go

Letting go

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Sermon preached on Sunday, December 26, at Deer Isle Sunset Congregational Church …

How quickly they grow up. It seems like he was born — well, just yesterday! — and now he is already twelve years old and giving his mother fits. It was a holiday trip, mom and dad and the kids, and on the way back home, a sudden moment of parental panic. Where is he? Has anybody seen Jesus? So it’s turn around, make the day long trek back to Jerusalem, and search for their lost son. They find him still at the Temple, hobnobbing with the Jewish teachers, and Jesus is like: “What’s the problem? Everything’s cool. Didn’t you know this is where I need to be?

It’s a rare glimpse into Jesus’ domestic life. Most of us parents will recognize the storyline. Your child is growing up. He is asserting his right to make his own decisions. She is beginning to stake out her own independence. It is a rare glimpse because the four gospels have very little to say about Jesus’ birth and even less about his childhood. This story about the Passover trip Jesus’ family made when he was twelve is the one and only story in all the gospels from Jesus’ boyhood. So why do you suppose Luke includes it?

We have to remember that the gospels are not biographies, but evangelical tracts, written, as John puts it at the end of his gospel, so “you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through your faith in him you my have life.” The compiler of each gospel chooses to include certain stories and sayings, not for the sake of getting the record straight, but for the sake of conveying the power and meaning of Jesus’ message and the power and meaning of Jesus’ life for their hearers, and for us.

You may know that only two of the gospels, Matthew and Luke, include any stories about Jesus’ birth and childhood. Matthew’s gospel includes Joseph’s dream about the child soon to be born to his fiancée, the story about visitors from the east paying homage to the infant Jesus, and the story of the family’s flight to Egypt to escape Herod’s violent intentions.

Matthew chooses these stories carefully, highlighting the central themes of his gospel. He focuses on Joseph because Joseph comes from King David’s family and Matthew wants to identify Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promise of a descendant of David who would one day come to save God’s people, one who would be called Immanuel, God with us.

The worship of the visitors from the east, who were likely astrologers from what is now Iraq, underlines Matthew’s affirmation of Jesus as savior not only for the Jews, but for the whole world. From the beginning, Matthew wants us to know, foreigners, Gentiles, outsiders are showing interest in Jesus.

And the flight to Egypt? Well, who else came out of Egypt? Matthew wants to paint Jesus as a new Moses, a new savior of his people, one whom God calls out of Egypt to lead them to a land of promise.
Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth is entirely different on every point except place. Luke includes the angelic visit to Mary telling her the meaning of her imminent pregnancy. He includes the announcement of Jesus’ birth to a band of shepherds out in the fields tending their sheep. He includes the visit of Jesus’ parents to the Temple to dedicate week-old Jesus where two old worshippers recognize him as the promised Messiah, and he includes today’s story about twelve year-old Jesus.

Luke highlights the shepherds because they are poor, because they lurk near the bottom of the Jewish social ladder. Luke wants his hearers to know that Jesus brings good news to all who are poor and oppressed and outcast. Mary’s song of praise, the focus of Vicki’s sermon last week, spotlights the same theme: a world set right by turning it upside down.

By focusing on Mary, rather than Joseph, Luke also takes special notice of another marginalized group — women. Throughout his gospel, Luke draws attention to women who play important roles in Jesus’ life and story. Luke wants us to know that Jesus comes to lift them up, too.

Mary’s song and Zechariah’s song earlier in the gospel and the exclamations of old Simeon and Anna in the Temple all elaborate Luke’s portrayal of Jesus as the herald of a new age, the long-awaited age when God comes at last to save and to bring peace.

Which leaves our story, the visit of twelve-year old Jesus and his family to the Temple. Why does Luke include this story? You remember that Matthew wants to paint Jesus as a new Moses. Well, Luke wants to paint Jesus as a new Samuel! The lectionary makes no mistakes in pairing these two stories, the stories we heard read from 1 Samuel and from Luke. There are some remarkable echoes of the one in the other.

Both stories feature mothers, mothers who bear sons under extraordinary circumstances — Hannah, who has been long childless, and young Mary, who has never known a man — and the song of gratitude and praise that Mary sings is very much patterned on Hannah’s own similar song of praise.

Both stories tell of sons chosen and destined to fulfill a special purpose willed by God, and both stories describe the boys, Samuel and Jesus, as growing and gaining favor with God and with people.

So who was Samuel and why would Luke want to cast Jesus as a new Samuel?

Samuel was a key figure in the history of the people of Israel. If Moses made them a people and gave them a homeland and if David made them a nation state of consequence, Samuel was their conscience, the leader and prophet who reminded them what it meant to be a people loved and called and purposed by God.

Samuel was born into a chaotic moment in Israel’s history, a time of great violence and rampant corruption. It was the waning of the era of the judges, men and women of unusual charisma or strength or faith, men and women like Samson and Gideon and Deborah who would momentarily rescue God’s people from their enemies only to see them slide back into lives of treachery and idolatry and cruelty and deceit. It was said of that day that “everyone did whatever they pleased.” Even the religious leaders, even the sons of the priest into whose care Samuel was given, exploited their position for financial gain and carnal pleasures.

Into this time of chaos and desperation and darkness, Samuel brought light, God’s light. Samuel listened when God spoke and Samuel spoke God’s will to the people with an authority and authenticity they recognized. It was said that when Samuel spoke, all Israel listened. Samuel called the people to repent, to give up their idols and their false and cruel ways, and to faithfully love and serve the Lord their God.

And when the people of Israel clamored for a king, to be “just like all the other nations,” it was Samuel who gave them first Saul and then David, but only after Samuel sternly scolded them for their request because they are not like all the other nations, because they already have a king, because their king, their one and only king, is the Lord!

Samuel was an uncompromising servant of the Lord’s way, a faithful prophet who spoke God’s word with authority, and a kingmaker, shepherding the people through a period of unprecedented change.

And that, Luke wants you to know, is who Jesus is. Jesus listens to God and speaks God’s will with an authority that comes straight from God. Jesus is a faithful prophet who calls out the corruption and hypocrisy of the religious establishment and invites people to love God sincerely and completely and to show it by their love and care for each other.

And Jesus is a kingmaker, too, proclaiming that the kingdom of God is at hand, that God is coming to rule, to set things right, to bring peace to the earth. But there is one difference between Jesus and Samuel. Like Samuel, Jesus is a kingmaker, but unlike Samuel, Jesus is himself the king. He too reminds the people of who their true king is, but he is himself that true king. Jesus is our savior and our Lord.

There is one more parallel between the stories of Samuel and Jesus, something both Hannah and Mary must do. As our children grow up, what is one thing that all parents must do?. They must let go.

Hannah literally let go. When God answered her prayers and gave her a son, she kept her promise and dedicated that son, Samuel, to the Lord, placing him in the priest Eli’s care to live and serve in God’s sanctuary.

Can you imagine? Praying and waiting and waiting and praying for years to be able to bear a child and when at last you do, you give him up? I find it so poignant how every year at festival time, maybe it was Passover, when Hannah and her family traveled to the sanctuary to make their annual sacrifices, Hannah would bring with her a little robe she had sewn for Samuel, the boy who was her son and yet now was God’s son.
Mary had to let go, too. Maybe that’s what she was thinking about when Luke says, “she treasured all these things in her heart.” Maybe she was thinking about what Jesus had said to her, “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” Maybe she was thinking that he was right, that she had to learn to let him go.

Later, after Jesus had begun his public ministry, she had to let him go again. Once she came with his brothers to see him only to hear him say to those around him: “My mother and brothers are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

And later still, Mary had to let Jesus go as she stood at the foot of a cross and watched him die.

If Samuel was to fulfill God’s purpose for his life, Hannah had to let him go. If Jesus was to fulfill God’s purpose for his life, Mary had to let him go. And if Jesus is to fulfill God’s purpose in our lives, we have to let him go. The baby born in Bethlehem is a sign of God’s promise to us, a promise of joy and of peace on earth, but if that promise is to be fulfilled, we must let Jesus go. We must let the baby grow up.

And that will not always be easy, because Jesus is going to say things we are not ready to hear, and Jesus is going to go to places to which we are not ready to go, and Jesus is going to ask things of us we are not ready to do. But if the promise is to be fulfilled, we must listen to him, and we must follow him, and we must remember that Jesus is not merely our savior, not merely our teacher, but our Lord. Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords. Hallelujah!