In Jody's Words

The Locker Room Floor

2012-01-07T07:01:00.000-08:00

Well maybe it happens at the Beauty Parlor or the Coffee Shop but I know it also happens with us men types at the Y or Health Club locker room . I overheard it yet again the other day.

It comes in the form of glittering generalities about really complex and sometimes important issues. Whether you like it or not you can hear , because it echoes in those locker rooms for all to take in, one line comments about politics, education, how kids have no respect anymore, religion, and all kinds of comments on economic policy.

The other day one guy who was bantering on about how poor the quality of education had become rounded the row of lockers and left one last comment on the locker room floor as he left; "Well what can you do?" Well here is what I want to say, "Many times there is something you CAN do and it does no good to leave one line over generalized comments on the locker room floor and then walk away."

Do something to make things better. And quit the locker room talk. I don't want to over hear it because most of the time it is full of simplistic sound bites about some really important issues. Here's one, "Obama has spent more money than any other President we've had!" Well you know that might be right, but what does it really mean? I suppose this person does not like Obama or his policies but what locker room talk has become is like the sound bites on TV that simply make people draw lines in the sand and throw dirt at each other across the line.

It is not doing us any good. The issues facing America are not that simple and we are all going to have to learn to "play together in the sandbox" if we are going to keep talking and acting like children. These are grown up problems and our politicians need to grow up...but the truth is they can't as long as those to whom they talk still use locker room language and and act like we expect simple-sound bite-solutions to complex issues that require some painful compromise by probably all of us.

"Well what can you do?" You and I can learn the complex realities and start expecting more from our leaders. We can convey to them that they do not have to make us happy all the time and that we are willing listen to "hard" solutions that may impact our life style or even our pocketbook. It is time to quit acting like children.. in real life and in the locker room.

When was a kid playing football that kind of of talk was OK because after all I was a kid...but some guy I discovered a few years later coined a phrase that can be used for many different occasions not just religious ones: "When I was a child I spoke as a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned as a child; when I became an adult I put an end to childish ways."

Leave wet towels on the locker room floor, not trash talk about really important things...

Jody

Christmas Poem

2011-12-16T02:58:00.000-08:00

Narrow Streets
A Poem for Christmas

Familiar but only in the
distant past
Were the narrow streets
in the place of his
birth

Now he brings his Mary
for another birth
But this was not her place
but his- and not
of his choosing

And then to hear those words
“no room”
Too narrow was this
place of origins
for new beginnings

But God crowded into the
narrow streets
For starlight was tired of
waiting for us to
create the space

So the child came into
our narrow streets
The creator of all born
in cramped quarters-
What is this?

Our too full lives and
narrow places
Cannot stop the expansive
love of a God who
so longs to
fill
our narrow streets
with love.

Jody Seymour, Christmas 2011

The Candidates Debate?

2011-11-23T04:09:00.000-08:00

The words are forever etched in my generation's musical memory. "Going to the candidates debate/Laugh about it, shout about it till you have to chose. Anyway you look at it you lose."

It is the warning song for "Mrs. Robinson." Mrs. Robinson you remember is someone who gets lost on the way in the classic movie, "The Graduate." She becomes so self-focused that her longing for pleasure envelopes all who get caught in her web. Pretense becomes the order of the day. All is fine until love gets in the way. Mrs. Robinson tries to "hide it in a hiding place where no one ever goes...put it in your pantry with you cupcakes." But it does not work. It never does.

Conflicting loves unwrap the cupcakes and throw open the doors of the pantry. Well, as I watch, or attempt to watch candidates debate and listen to those who used to be candidates but who are now "elected" offer their polarized talking points I want to announce that the gig is up. I want to be like old Dustin Hoffman shaking the doors at the back of the church in the movie as a horrified Mrs. Robinson looks on. I want to scream, "Stop it all for heaven's sake."

The song says, "We'd like to help you learn to help yourself." How many of us are screaming behind those doors for candidates and elected leaders to get a grip and quit acting like children? This is crazy. No one wants to talk anymore, they just want to make points. Well, we have to learn to live together and we have to learn to give and take. It was a lesson that parents were supposed to teach. Our leaders have forgotten both that lesson and have also forgotten their manners.

"God bless you please Mrs. Robinson; Jesus loves you more than you will know." Well God and Jesus please help our leaders come out of the bubble they must be in and see that we are tired of their childish "get my way or else" attitude. It is hurting the rest of us. Look to the back of the "church" and see that we are shaking the doors and yelling, "Stop."

The song ends with "Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio our nation turns it's lonely eyes to you/What's that you say Mrs. Robinson Joltin Joe has left and gone away." We do not need Joe DiMaggio. Our lonely nation is lonely for lack of leadership that possesses the depth and maturity to know that governing means working with those with whom you disagree. We don't need Joltin Joe, we need people with the vision to know that the issues with which we are dealing are not summed up in talking points but in negotiating the complexities of where we find ourselves. It is time to quit playing with our lives as they play with political agendas. Turn around, the doors behind you are shaking.

"God bless you please Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know...Heaven holds a place for those who pray..." I now direct this old song to our leaders in Washington. God help us do better than this.

Jody

The Black Hole

2011-10-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

There is a black hole under the desk where I do much of my work. At that desk I ponder, study, and compose my sermons. She often accompanied me in my work from her place next to my feet. Cassidy, our family canine company for the last few years, was a "gift" from our oldest daughter.

She came first to us on loan. Abigail was moving to California for a "few years" and the place where she would live did not allow dogs so could we keep Cassidy for "a few months?" That was five years ago. She was black as night and unless she just returned from her trip to the groomer her long, thick black hair resulted in her resembling a small black bear with four legs.

She was a rescue dog that Abigail found beside the road. She was obviously abused and was very pregnant. Abigail cared for her and I suppose distributed the offspring. Cassidy had a good deal of Chow in her and an almost black with purple laced tongue betrayed her heritage.

She was about the gentlest dog I've ever met. The only time she would bark was if the door bell rang. She gave up running years ago even before she tore an ACL that prevented her from hopping up the steps. Often she would collapse spread eagle on the floor as her legs gave way. We would have to either help her up the steps or pull her up from her flattened position on the floor.

She was completely deaf, partially blind, and as I just mentioned could walk around only within limits. Of late she started pacing a lot like she was looking for something that she could not ever find. She ceased to be a pet a few years ago and became someone we needed to care for. But then that is the fine print of the whole pet thing. They give unconditionally to you and the favor is one of return.

Sometimes she would look up at me from under the desk with a look that said something like, "You know you are intruding on my space here. This is not really a desk, it is 'my black hole' and I do not remember inviting you here." She was so black herself that she almost disappeared in that recessed space just beyond my feet. Once in a while her snoring reminded me she was there.

We did the merciful thing the other day and "put her down." That is such a strange phrase but it is applicable because to put her down was to somehow put us down too. Though she was often invisible in her hole she was quite present in our lives as only an animal can be.

So now we have another kind of black hole in our lives for a while at least. I keep looking for her under the desk. I can still smell her. She left me with the scent of a memory and she left me with more. She left me with those penetrating eyes that seemed to say in her last few years, "I know you're having to take care of me and I appreciate it." Can any creature on this tiny speck of dust show more appreciation than a dog?

So now Cassidy you've gone beyond that black hole to wherever place it is that souls like you go. Heaven may be full of such love as you gave. I'll continue to look at that dark space under my desk in days to come...and I'll remember.

Jody

2011-10-06T13:56:00.000-07:00

The Sky is Falling
(ok here is a “poem” based on the satellite that fell on us recently…It inspired some rather childish thoughts on my part.)

Space junk up in the sky
Falling our way, my O my
Millions of dollars burnt right up
While smiling TV faces tell us “to duck”

Seems everything thrown up
Must come down
Speaking of throwing up
The S&P doth make me frown

The Sky is falling yes indeed
Doomsday predictions are the latest creed
News from Greece jerks the chain
And the screams from traders inflicts great pain

Tell those guys on Wall Street
To quit watching the news
They’re playing with my money
They aim to confuse

Let’s all calm down while looking on high
Not at space junk up in the sky
But to One who is smiling at our need to control
The One who planted down deep in our soul…

The ability to wonder what it’s all about
I wonder if God is about ready to shout,
“Hey kids settle down and take a deep breath
You’re always acting like you’re scared to death

The sky is not falling in spite of your ‘junk’
Though in your test of faith you often flunk
I’m still in love with your speck of dust in the sky
And you’re still my children, my O my”

Jody

September 11 Remembering the Right Things

2011-09-11T03:28:00.000-07:00

I offer this prayer as we remember September 11

“Remembering the Right Things” by Jody Seymour

God of all people, part of us does not want to remember that day and the other part of us knows that we must. So we call to mind first those whose lives were lost to terror but who were only flying to a destination or working at their desks or simply living life that day.

We remember those who pushed aside their own safety and who did what they felt they had to do. They were firefighters, and policemen, and all those in a uniform or not who stepped into the smoke of uncertainty to offer hope and help.

We take a deep breath and offer you our helplessness as we remember husbands, and wives, and children who did not see the horror on TV as something to be witnessed but who lost part of themselves that day as they lost the people they loved. Bring them comfort as only you can, O God, into those spaces that are still vacant.

You must do something for us God that we often cannot do for ourselves. Lead us away from anger that seeks revenge for the rage of that day seemed almost contagious. Our understanding fails us so you must grant us a vision that goes beyond our understanding of it all. Your resurrection hope can arise in the midst of fallen towers and we ask for that hope this day of remembrance so that we can remember the right things rather than the wrong things.

Your child, O God, spoke words of forgiveness as he looked from his cross into a sea of terror and fear. How did he do that for we struggle so hard to even understand our enemies much less forgive them?

Lord, have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.

O God of all the nations, even those who claim you not, we need your wisdom and your strength to remember the right things.

“Blessed are those who morn for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Those are his words….your child’s words. Bless us this day, O God, as we try to believe them.

O God our help in Ages past, our hope for years to come; help us remember the right things this day. Amen.

jody

I am Waiting....Again

2011-08-20T13:49:00.000-07:00

Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote a poem years ago where he expressed his desire that we needed a "rebirth of wonder." His poem starts out like this:

I Am Waiting
By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
Of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

In light of the recent political disarray in Washington and the continuing "fear" about our economy and our world I now offer a new "I am Waiting" poem:

I am Waiting for a Rebirth of Reason
by Jody Seymour

I am waiting for the dome to be opened
on the capital building
and some light to come rushing in
I am waiting for the darkened minds
of politicians to wake up to
real people and real life and real truth
I am waiting for all the suited talk masters
to take a remedial lesson in manners
or be given a "time out" like the
children they seem to become
when they get off the bus in Washington
I am waiting for a rebirth of reason

I am waiting for all the phones and screens
at the Stock Market to be unplugged
so that when someone drops a penny on
the sidewalk in China
the whole damn thing does not free fall
into some deep valley that seems to be filled
with crazy people who act like they are
playing Monopoly with play money
instead of "our" money
I am waiting for a re-birth of reason.

I am waiting for all the "reality shows" on TV
to get real and go away
I am waiting for the bachelor and the bachelorette
to get a life rather than a wife or a husband.
I am waiting for Good Morning America to
really be that
rather than TV talking heads throwing words all
the time at each other in an effort to always
bury the other
I am waiting for a re-birth of reason

I am waiting for religion to find God again
instead of the gods that have been made up to
sell things, scare people, argue over who is right
and who is "in" and who is definitely "out."
I am waiting for the real big God to show up
and close down some of the branch offices that
bear God's name
I am waiting for a Divine temper tantrum that
will end in tears of sadness at what we have
done to the true religion that has to do with
healing the world....and the people
I am waiting for a re-birth of reason

And I am waiting for waiting to be re-discovered
rather than everything speeding up so fast
I am waiting for the line in "Avatar" to become
something not in a movie but in real life...
I am waiting for someone to really say,
"I see you."
I am waiting for us little people to realize how
big we really are in the scheme of things and
I am waiting for us to start acting like it.
I am waiting...waiting...for a re-birth of reason.

jody

I am Waiting...

2011-08-20T13:47:00.001-07:00

The Need to be Right

2011-07-29T07:53:00.000-07:00

After watching the uncompromising situation in Washington I would like for every Senator and member of Congress to memorize the following poem.

The Place Where We Are Right
by Yehuda Amichai

From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.

The place we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard

But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.

What we have observed in the last few weeks as accusations and polarizations rule the "houses" of congress makes me feel like it is indeed a "ruined house." There is such uncompromising anger in Washington that the whispers that need to be heard can not be listened to.

The big issues are not simple talking points to prove ideological realities. The big issues are complex and will involve some very hard choices...and compromise. But it seems that the children of Washington have trampled around so long that the yard is hard because they have to be "right." While they are being right fear is ruling the money markets and the people who think that the social safety net is being unwoven.

Being right is not the most important thing sometimes. Listening to all the "rights" and realizing that all of them cannot be "true" in a system of government that is supposed to represent many interests of a very large "community" is a needed addition to the name calling and label making agendas. Ah there is the other problem. Does anyone really believe that we care about the total community anymore?

Those shouting the loudest seem to fear that community interests are "taking over" individual "rights." Somebody tell the children in Washington to stop by a local motel and steal the book that is in the top drawer of the bedside table. There they will find prophets shouting about selling the poor for a pair of shoes and living in fine houses. Being right took second place in the
bible to being just and caring about the total welfare of the community.

We seemed scared that we are going to lose something that is "ours." Look, we need to fix systems including things like Medicare and Social Security. But throwing things at each other from various fox holes with flags flying over them proclaiming various themes of being right is not doing anybody any good.

The place is hard and trampled like a yard. We need some healthy doubts to make us all realize that the solutions are complex and will take give and take. I'm not even going to mention the other word in the poem....love. There is little love left in our nation's capital. It is now full of mean-spirited "individuals" who want to be right.

My prayer is that the still small voice that often must be listened to as a whisper will somehow fill the ruined house. We need a new attitude from our leaders. Being right is not getting us anywhere but lost.

jody

Big Questions

2011-07-18T05:47:00.001-07:00

Well if you don't want to know don't ask, right. I asked my congregation a few months ago what they wanted to hear from the pulpit and I've been "trying" to preach on those subjects the past few weeks. It's been a challenge. I think I'm going back to picking what "I" want to preach about and going over to the "don't ask don't tell" philosophy of picking subject matter.

The most requested topic was forgiveness. It seems a lot of people struggle with this issue. Basically we don't' want to forgive another because it just does not seem "fair." We think we are excusing or blessing bad behavior. Forgiveness is for the person forgiving. It may have nothing to do with the person to whom the forgiveness seems aimed. It is a matter of "giving up all hope for a better past" so that one can move to an expanded future.

Forgiveness means to quit playing old grievance stories. I usually always tell Lewis Smedes story, "the Gift of the Magic Eyes" that he uses in his book, "Forgive and Forget." It is the story of a man who ends up bent over with a heavy heart because he cannot forgive his wife for her adultery. An angel informs him that though she did wrong his unwillingness to even look at her as a person apart from him who was needy and selfish was weighing him down and preventing him from moving on with his life.

He says he is "helpless" to do anything so the angel asks if he wants to be "free." He does not how so she promises that every time he tries to look at his wife as a person apart from him who acted out of her own pain the angel will come by and take a pebble from his heart. It took a long time but pebble by pebble he found a way to gain a lighter heart.

I ended the sermon by holding up a small container of pebbles and offering them to my people: "Here are your pebbles. What do you want to do with them?"

The following weeks the topics included "science and religion" and last week "resurrection of the body, heaven, and hell." Basically I said there was really no conflict with science and religion if you have a healthy up to date religion. Many believers do not practice what old Paul suggested: "When I was a child I thought and acted like a child but when I grew up I gave up childish things." The kind of religion that uses the bible as a science book misuses the bible. Mature faith studies the bible for what it is not what it is not.

God can and did use "big bangs" and evolutionary principals obviously since they are scientifically true. God is not simple or stupid. We just have to keep up.

And last week it was resurrection-heaven-hell. (I'm going back to sermons about "let just all love each other.") The summary: Resurrection of the "body" means that we take who we are and what we do or do not do with us to eternal life. We don't take the "flesh" but we do take "the body of evidence." Heaven is going to be a surprise but a good one and it is most likely "another dimension" that is as close as our next breath rather than beyond the last galaxy. Hell is biblical but often misunderstood and the words sometimes mistranslated. Consuming fire could be refining fire and what some want to translate "eternal damnation" could also be translated "pruning" after a set amount of time."....Big difference.

I simply left my people with the words of the "cheater of death" who told his fear-filled disciples, "Hey don't be so dog-gone scared...In my dad's house there are so many rooms you can't count them and I'll be there with things all prepared for you." With Jesus' few references to Hell he mostly used the word Ghenna, which referred to the burning garbage pit outside Jerusalem where often flesh would burn and gnashing of teeth could be heard as dogs scavenged through the remains. I wonder if Jesus is interested in burning up garbage or burning up people? You decide.

When you think about it, and that is what grown-up believers do, everybody starts out from different "starting places" in eternal life. What was your starting place? How much choice did you have? From my starting place I ended up a United Methodist Christian. I had love, shelter, and guidance from my starting place. Lots and lots of folks start from different places. I'm tired of hearing security seeking Christians condemn others whose starting places were very different.

Let's get on with helping God heal the world and give the judgement stuff back to God whose job it is to begin with....

So in summary: We need help with forgiveness because it hurts "us" if we live in the past. God is very big and very smart and can do science better than we can...and...Heaven is real, what we do matters, and Hell is a mystery that God will have to figure out...personally I think God will have to "take out the garbage" in the end. We don't do so well with it.

Jody

Is Anybody Paying Attention Anymore?

2011-06-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

Ok the other day I turned out of my driveway and drove my usual route to work. I passed four people out walking. All of them had their heads down looking at a phone. I suppose they were texting.

Two of them were literally in the road. They were not even on the sidewalk which I suppose could be considered a "safe-texting-zone." So here's my point. Pay attention to where you are going. I don't mean that as ugly as it sounds. I mean pay attention to the walk not the text. You are passing by flowers, trees, people, (cars), and well....life.

Those who are not texting are talking on the cell phone as they walk. Leave the phone at home. It will be there when you get back from your walk. Walk and pay attention. I read this week that the Painted Bunting is on the loose. They are mutl-colored birds that do not visit us for long. One them could land on one of the texter/talker' shoulders and he or she would not even see the colors for the text/words or whatever.

We are becoming too "connected" for heaven's sake. Separate yourself from technology at least for a walk. There are sounds out there that are not coming from a device. They are coming from crickets and birds and why did you know that the breeze even makes a sound. You have to be sort of quite to hear the sound of the breeze but it is worth the wait.

Look up when you walk. Listen to the breeze when you walk. Life is getting too full. To fill our walks with ears full of sound waves and our eyes full of "text" is to leave us empty.

As Emily said in the play "Our Town" after she was allowed to come back from death to observe one day in her life; "Does anyone realize life while they are living it?"

I hate to tell you Emily but it is worse than when you came back.

Realize life...now.

Jody

Going Green

2011-05-19T03:34:00.000-07:00

Going Green is in these days. It is an expression that offers the chance for environmental sensitivity. It means that whatever activity is going to happen the priority will be to use up as little of earth's resources as possible.

Well it seems that nature had the idea first before it became a slogan. Spring is the time when all of life goes green. My wife's garden is definitely going green and red and yellow and bursting out all over. It is the season of new creation.

The birds sure love it. I can barely keep the bird feeders full. Their favorite color seems to be green. They sing about it, play in it, and fly through it. Life is happening all around and green is its primary color.

I recently spoke words of encouragement to the class of 2011 at the College from which I graduated 42 years ago. Wait a minute let me catch my breath....42 years ago? The college colors are, you guessed it, green and white. Those eager faces who listened to my words were "green." They were new to the world. They may think they are ready to burst forth and be full blown grown ups but I reminded them that they were "green" and it was OK. They were supposed to be.

I cautioned them to be mindful that they were beginners in learning not graduates of it. I offered them a poem that I often read to those standing before me who are being married. Here it is:
EPITHALAMION
The raw materials of love are yours–
Fond hearts, and lusty blood, and minds in tune;
And so, dear innocents! you think yourselves
Lovers full-blown.

Am I, because I own
Chisel, mallet and stone,
A sculptor? And must he
Who hears a skylark and can hold a pen
A poet be?
If neither's so, why then
You're not yet lovers. But in time to come
(If senses grow not dulled nor spirit dumb)
By constant exercise of skill and wit,
By patient toil and judgment exquisite
Of body, mind and heart,
You may, my innocents, fashion
This tenderness, this liking and this passion
Into a work of art.

I told them if they lived life carefully they would remember these words so that even though they were not yet adults "full blown" that "by patient toil and judgement exquisite" they might fashion the life they were given "into a work of art." In so many words I reminded them they were still green and they were supposed to be if they wanted to truly grow.

And now for the rest of us I remind all who read these words that we are always to remain a bit green. If we think we are finished then we are. Life is about growth. We must be open to what the day's sunlight will bring us.

This Sunday I'll speak to another group of graduates. This time it will be high school students. Yes, they are even more green but they probably think they are farther along than they are. They'll learn in time that they are not "full blown." So I'll give them some additional words from the lips of "Red Molly." It is a song I use sometimes at points of transition to remind all who will listen that "this is the best time of your life." Here are the words:

MAY I SUGGEST
From: New Non-Fiction (2001)
Copyright © Susan Werner
May I suggest
May I suggest to you
May I suggest this is the best part of your life
May I suggest
This time is blessed for you
This time is blessed and shining almost blinding bright
Just turn your head
And you’ll begin to see
The thousand reasons that were just beyond your sight
The reasons why
Why I suggest to you
Why I suggest this is the best part of your life
There is a world
That’s been addressed to you
Addressed to you, intended only for your eyes
A secret world
Like a treasure chest to you
Of private scenes and brilliant dreams that mesmerise
A lover’s trusting smile
A tiny baby’s hands
The million stars that fill the turning sky at night
Oh I suggest
Oh I suggest to you
Oh I suggest this is the best part of your life
There is a hope
That’s been expressed in you
The hope of seven generations, maybe more
And this is the faith
That they invest in you
It’s that you’ll do one better than was done before
Inside you know
Inside you understand
Inside you know what’s yours to finally set right
And I suggest
And I suggest to you
And I suggest this is the best part of your life
This is a song
Comes from the west to you
Comes from the west, comes from the slowly setting sun
With a request
With a request of you
To see how very short the endless days will run
And when they’re gone
And when the dark descends
Oh we’d give anything for one more hour of light
And I suggest this is the best part of your life

So...May I suggest to you that we are all "green" and that if we stay open to continued growth this is the best time of our life.
Jody

Left-over Easter

2011-05-13T11:04:00.000-07:00

I've been on a blogging vacation...but for now I thougth I'd share with you what I shared with my people on Easter...It's all about "Mr. Saturday Night"

Mr. Saturday Night Gets the Last Laugh
John 20: 1-18

His name was Buddy Young and his older brother and supporter was Stan. The whole movie Stan puts up with Buddy and his insults. In fact Buddy’s main form of humor was insults such as looking at a woman in the audience during one of his Saturday night stand up comic routines and pointing her out saying, “Wow who puts on your make-up, Ringling brothers?....or …Did you get too close to the Avon Lady when she exploded.”
Another scene in the movie after Buddy is an aged out comic and is no longer a headline he looks at his brother Stan and says, “So what do you do down there now that you’re retired?”… “I play golf and enjoy my friends,” responds Stan. A surprised Billy says, “You got friends?” Stan shoots back, “Yea they came with the condo. You could get friends or cable so I chose friends.” Buddy responds, “Over cable?”
Then comes a famous line I want you to hear today. Buddy says to Stan, “Did you see what I did there?” This small line is full of meaning. It is an inside way between brothers of saying something like, “Did you pick up on my way of turning things around so that the joke worked…Did you see what I did there?”
The movie I am alluding to is “Mr. Saturday Night” a 1992 movie staring Billy Crystal who plays the aging stand up comic Buddy Young. Throughout the movie his older brother Stan tries to help Buddy but there is really no helping this self-absorbed sarcastic but very talented comedian. But at various times in the movie Buddy says to Stan, “Did you see what I did there?” This line is a way of describing the moves of a joke. Of course if you have to explain a joke it looses something but between brothers this is a way of pointing out the talent behind the comedy.
Well today I offer you another Mr. Saturday night. It seems this Mr. Saturday night pulls off one of the greatest jokes of them all. He outflanks death on Saturday night and come Sunday morning he gets the last laugh. Jesus leaves an empty tomb and in today’s story he sort of says to a mystified Mary, “Did you see what I did there?”
Of course no one quite gets it in our story today. The only laugh they hear is the deep dark laugh of death that overcomes their hopes and dreams. Sure Peter and John run to the tomb but they are not quite sure what to do with what they see.
I mean did you hear the story? Breathless from their run to the cemetery after Mary comes to fetch them to tell them that the body is missing, Peter and John lean into the dim light of the vacant tomb and then..and then…They go back home.
What? This is like saying, “He won the 10 million dollar lottery and then went back home and enjoyed his oatmeal.” Come on something happens here. How could they just “go back home?” I wonder if they could really respond to a Jesus who says, “Did you see what I did here?”
I mean let’s not miss the stand up that Jesus pulls off on the Sunday after Saturday night. He plays a cosmic joke and Death is the fall guy. Woody Allen once said, “I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” Well our Mr. Saturday night is there when it happens and the joke is at Death’s expense.
There is a book out about the start-up careers of the famous comics of the 1970’s. The title comes from another famous line that comics often use when things are not going well in their stand up routines, “Can’t you see I’m dying up here?” The book is, “I’m Dying Up Here: the Heartbreak and High Times in Comedy’s Golden Era.” The book chronicles the journey of such people as Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Robin Williams.
The introductory line for these comics who follow their “shot in the dark” dream to LA is, “Hey I can be broke anywhere, I might as well be broke somewhere where it’s warm.” Jesus takes a shot in the dark and ends up playing a joke on Death that last jokester who would like to say to us, “Turn out the lights the party’s over.”
Do you ever wonder where Jesus goes those three days that the joke is on him? Well of course we do not have documentation on this but some who study such things think that on Saturday night he is “playing” in Hell. That’s right the oldest version of the Apostles Creed says that he “was crucified dead and buried, he descended into hell, and on the third day arose from the dead.”
It seems that such an ancient affirmation states that there is nowhere that the love of God in Christ will not go…even to Hell looking for the lost. And here I thought at least Jesus would get some rest after 3 years of intense ministry but then this is Jesus we are dealing with here and when it comes to finding lost coins, lost sheep, and lost people..well to Jesus it seems no laughing matter.
Our Mr. Saturday Night is busy even in death because our God will not have death be the last word or the last laugh. Jesus seeks the lost even after he says from his cross in the midst of the laughter of darkness, “Can’t you see I’m dying up here?”
What would it mean to think that on Saturday night when Mary is in the midst of her grief and anticipating going to the cemetery to morn her dead Lord that Jesus is even then looking for the lost? What does it say about a God whose son never gives up even in death though Peter and John are locked away on Saturday night full of fear and left over denial?
It says that we have a Mr. Saturday Night who gets the last laugh on Sunday morning. Part of me would like to think that after what Jesus goes through from Thursday to Friday that he would have at least have a 3 day vacation from trying to save the world. I mean give the poor man a rest…but listen..we are dealing with a God here who longs to save the world. So even though some of us no longer say it in our Creed maybe our Mr. Saturday night is working to save the lost even in his death.
I work with people who are going through hell…the hell of grief..the hell of lost dreams…the hell of lost health…the hell of depression. The hope of Easter is that our Mr. Saturday Night never gives up even in the face of death and Hell.
So today what does this story say to you? Peter and John run to the tomb and really want to believe but notice that they simply “go back home.” Is that the way you came today? Part of you wants to run up here on this Easter Sunday and proclaim “He is risen” but in a few minutes you too will “go back home.” How will you go back? Will you go back home wanting it to be true but not really knowing?
Our story says simply that Peter and John went back home for “they did not yet understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.” Well perhaps my task today is to send you back home understanding the scripture. Notice that the sentence does not say he “would” rise from the dead but that he “must” rise from the dead. Why…because God will not allow death to have the last laugh.
As a pastor I deal all the time with people who have trouble accepting a God who allows so much death in life. I know people who will not come to church because they want nothing to do with a God who allows children to suffer, or tsunamis to happen, or cancer to spread, or wars to rage. Well you do not need me to tell you that there is enough hell on earth to go around but I’m sending you back home with the words ringing in your ears that Jesus “must rise” from the dead because there is too much death out there. There is no place God’s love will not go even on Saturday night. Easter is about victory over death…all kinds of death…not just the death we experience when we take our last breath.
Easter is about a God who is with us on stage when our Saturday nights turn bad. When we or the people we love feel alone on the stage and want to at least whisper because of our fear, pain, or grief, “Can’t you see I’m dying up here?”
Well Jesus can see. He’s been there for you and me. His suffering and death is a way of God saying that you are never alone…even on your dark Saturday nights.
And then there is Mary. I wonder what Mary is doing on that Saturday night before we find her in the garden looking for the body of a dead Lord? Does she go over in her mind what she will do when she arrives at the cemetery? Does she wonder if she can persuade the guards to let her into the tomb so she can say a final goodbye to her lost dream?
But what does she find? She finds an empty tomb, the cruelest of jokes. She assumes that the last sacrilege has happened. Someone has stolen his broken body and laid even more waste to it. She too does not understand the scripture that he “must” rise from the dead for she is still hearing the laughter in the darkness that comes from that black Friday when she heard him say, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”
Mary joins by asking that same question for now this is a God forsaken world. Her Saturday night has convinced her that there will never be laughter again in her life.
So can you imagine when Jesus walks up behind her in her grief and says, “Say why are you crying so much here on this beautiful Sunday morning? Why the sun’s coming up and it looks like to me it’s going to be a wonderful day. What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this anyway? It’s a cemetery after all. Are you looking for somebody?”
And then Mary not knowing the punch-line that is about to come from this very special Mr. Saturday Night steps into Jesus’ stand up routine. “Listen, I do not know who you are or what you are doing here but if you know what they did to my Lord’s body please tell me and I’ll go find him and put him back where he belongs.”
Then comes Jesus’ version of “Did you see what I did there?” All he really needs to say is her name, “Mary” and she knows the joke is on her…and for that matter the rest of the world. Death has been defeated. Mr. Saturday night has the last laugh.
When Mary turns toward the sun she sees not the gardener, nor a dead Jesus. What she sees is Jesus’ “stand up” routine as he stands up in the face of darkness and the laughter of death. Jesus is the ultimate Mr. Saturday night who gets the last laugh on Sunday morning.
Now to all of you who came today I say it’s time to “go back home.” But I send you back home not even as Peter and John went back home. I send you back home with a hope for understanding of the scripture that he “must” rise from the dead. I send you back home hopefully with a smile on your face from the realization that not even hell is safe from Jesus’ reaching love. I send you back home with laugher ringing in your ears from the ultimate punch-line as Jesus laughs in the face of death for us all.
I send you back home with the assurance that even in moments when you utter the words, “Can’t you see I’m dying up here” that you have a God who not only sees but who has been there. I send you home with the Easter promise that the words “must rise from the dead” are true. He did rise from the dead and perhaps he says to you and me today with a resurrection smile on his face, “Did you see what I did there?”
So let me send you home today with a story that will put a smile on your face and laughter in your heart…In a certain village the townspeople always had a Passion Play each year to portray the drama of Holy Week. The people of the village played the various characters.
One particular year they could not persuade anyone to play Jesus. Finally the only one who would agree to play the part of Jesus was the rugged town bully. He was always getting in trouble and often picked fights with the people of the town.
So it came as a surprise when he agreed to play Jesus. The people very much believed in doing the play so they went along with the deal. As the play came to a close the very man who had for so many years pushed his way around town but who was now playing Jesus was carrying his cross toward the scene of crucifixion. The people of the village playing the parts of the crowd who was mocking Jesus on his way to his eventual death were really getting into the part especially since it gave them a safe chance to yell insults at the town bully.
As “Jesus” passed by one man in the village who was in the angry crowd got carried away at his chance to shout at the town tyrant and he suddenly spit in the face of Jesus. At that moment everyone got quite wondering what the cross bearing Jesus would do.
The town bully stopped, looked over at the man, and just before going on with his cross bearing pointed to the man who had spit in his face and simply said, “I’ll be back to take care of you after the resurrection.”……..Did you see what I did there?

Smile…laugh…our Mr. Saturday night gets the last laugh on Sunday morning….and yes even in those moments when you say, “Can’t you see I’m dying up here” he will be back to take care of you after the resurrection.

A Good Friday Meditation: He Didn't Want to be There

2011-04-22T08:49:00.000-07:00

He Didn’t Want to be There
Meditation for Good Friday

He didn’t want to be there. Pilate usually spent the days at the coast enjoying the cool breezes of the Mediterranean at his palace in Caesarea. His balcony overlooked the sea and he could dream of the day he would be able to return to Rome and get back to civilization away from this forlorn place that seemed to be loved by crusty prophets and religious sages.

Pilate on the other hand had no use for their strange religion of one god. All he cared about was keeping the peace so he could get back home. But he had to make the trip to Jerusalem for their high and holy festivals where the fools would flock to their temple and chant their strange words of hope that had no basis. He had to be present to oversee the crowd control but he didn’t want to be there.

And this time he found himself dealing with another one of their “kings.” Empty words of promise and religious platitudes were fine with Pilate but don’t go calling yourself a king. That did not make for a peaceful religious holiday nor did it set well in the belly of Rome. There was to be only one real king and his name was Caesar.

O, Herod could have his quaint title as “King of the Jews” but everyone knew what that really meant. It meant nothing. It resulted from a back room handshake late at night so that the mob could at least say they had a king. Herod was under Rome’s thumb and everyone knew it including Herod but it worked for the festivals.

But now we had this upstart king who talked about kingdoms not of this world. Pilate would rather be sipping wine on his porch in Caesarea and now he had before him a rather pathetic looking character that seemed to be stirring up the crowd. He tried a ploy to satisfy the mob by offering a good faith gesture. After all Pilate just wanted to get back to his porch by the beach and then eventually back to Rome where they all knew who the king was and who the gods were.

But now the mob would not even accept his offer of release for this donkey driving king. He obviously was no real threat but even the presumption of kingship was a danger with these desperate people. They could make a king out of nobody if left alone and Pilate knew he could not leave them alone but he sure did not want to be there.

So he ordered his bowl of water and washed his hands of the matter. All this guy was to him was crucifixion number 637. He had people crucified with the same frequency he had his evening wine. “Get rid of the bum I want to go home.”

Simon did not want to be there either. He was coming in from Cyrene to enjoy the festival. He got caught up in the crowd as he tried to make his way into Jerusalem. The mob was making their way out screaming as if they wanted something to happen that was not happening fast enough.

Simon found himself pushed to the edge of the teaming swarm when suddenly words came to him as if a landslide covered his tired body. He was weary from his trip and simply wanted to get to his relatives in Jerusalem. He didn’t want to be there, but he was.

“Carry this,” screamed the soldier. “My God this was a cross. This isn’t my cross. I did not earn this burden. Why me?” He didn’t want to be there.

Before Simon knew it the wooden beam was pushed his way. The man who had been carrying it looked half dead already. Simon quickly surmised that the reason he was being forced to bear this cross was that the soldiers must have realized that the crucifixion would not happen if this poor criminal was forced to keep carrying his means of execution. He was going to die on the road and deprive the crowd of the main event.

Simon struggled under the weight of the cross. He didn’t want to be there.

And then there was Jesus. Just the night before he told his father that he didn’t want to be there. “Is there a way to take another road, father? This cup before me is beginning to taste like poison.”

But he was there…broken…beaten…betrayed…beyond hope of saving. Jesus barely made it to the place of the Skull and there his arms were again placed on his cross and the nails driven deep into his writs and feet. He looked up at the horizon and saw Pilate’s courtyard. He looked down from the cross as they lifted him and it up and he saw Simon still recovering from his brief time of carrying the unwanted burden.

Pilate…Simon…Jesus….they didn’t want to be there, but they were.

And because they were there so we are here facing this cross. I do not know about you but I too don’t want to be here.

Could we not fill out some form or go through some exercise of will in order to be redeemed by God? Could we, like Pilate, find some retreat place of solace and go where we could simply hear God speak to us of better days? Why can’t we join Simon in slipping through the crowd and get to a place of calm and safety? Why do we have to be here facing this cross? But we are here because we have to be.

Jesus did not want to be here. He fell in love with life and he so wanted to offer it abundantly to all who would listen and follow. But his way of love was rejected and the one reason we are here despite our unwillingness to be is that his way of love is still rejected…rejected not only by this “not wanting to be here world” but also rejected by us…by me.

So we come and we say first that we are sorry for walking away from his ways of love and forgiveness. We then come to say “thank you” for his willingness to overcome his desire to not want to be here.

So now we know that in all those places we will go that we will not want to go…those places of sorrow…grief…failure of our bodies…and yes even in those places of darkness and evil…wherever there is the deep darkness …where we do not want to be…he was and is there…

And in that place where we forget…in that place we have no other word to call it but “sin”…for us sinners he was there.

Jesus did not want to be there…but he was…Thanks be to God.

Jody

Jesus and the Moon Roof

2011-04-14T03:08:00.000-07:00

Can't you just see Jesus smiling and waving to the people as he makes his way through the crowded streets. His arms gesture back and forth as he acknowledges the acclaim of thousands. From his perch inside the Mercedes he has an excellent view of the teaming masses and the open moon roof helps protect him from a might be trouble maker...even a lone assassin. Secret Service agents posing as disciples surround the car and push away any who would come too close.

Of course it did not happen this way. Jesus ends up on a "colt"... a donkey...some disappointed bystanders may have even called it a jackass. Jesus sure made a fool of those who thought he was going to set up a new kingdom where the gospel of success would rule. Of ccourse they thought it was Jesus who was the fool. But hey Jesus got what he deserved it seems for disappointing all those people. He ended up out on the town garbage heap uttering even more foolish stuff about forgiving those who hung him up there.

Jesus' entrance these days continues to disappoint many people. Lately the rhetoric about priorities of how we are going to allocate our money is heard rather than "Hosannas." Underneath some of these phrases is a view of Jesus' words that somehow seem to come from that moon roof. "Love God and you will be blessed. God wants you to be successful. You are a child of the king and you should live like a king in your castle."

Forgotten are the words that the man on the donkey would have used from his ancestor the prophet Amos: "Thus says the Lord...for the three transgression, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes....they trample the head of the poor into the dust, and push the afflicted out of the way."

Jesus spent a good deal of his time with those who had been "pushed away" and the latest debate about local school budgets and our national budget seems to be willing to do just that so that "we" can make sure we do not lose any of "our" resources for our castles. Sure our systems need reforming. Sure we have created a welfare system that breeds too much dependence. But for God's sake let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater nor change the donkey into a Mercedes.

The gospel of success is a mockery to the man who came into our world in a stable and on a donkey. This coming week is Holy Week. The human face of God will again strip off his shirt and kneel to wash the dirty feet of surprised disciples. He will tell them that real love is serving those who need to be reminded that they are cherished because they do not feel cherished.

He will raise a cup and say "Love is not love until it is poured out...so go pour yourselves out...life is not about keeping...it is about giving." OK, that is a loose translation but it is an extension of what he meant. The cross of Jesus stands today amidst an i pad/i phone/i pod world. None of this technology is bad but the pronoun in front of the device is a symbol of an "i" culture.

Jesus came on his donkey to remind me that it is not all about me. Let's work to make our systems that help the "needy" be made better but let's not sell out for a pair of shoes or a Mercedes.

jody

The Blogosphere Inquisition

2011-03-27T01:46:00.000-07:00

Well I better be careful. I attended a clergy ethics training event recently that drilled into my head that what you write "on line" is available to all and can be dangerous. This is evident by the recent "dismissal" of a United Methodist student pastor for what he wrote on his blog some of which was about Rob Bell's new book, "Love Wins."

It seems that brother Bell is challenging the "standard" concepts of heaven and hell and " the all who do not believe in Jesus are forever lost" stuff. Well I like my church and my job so what am I to say? I probably should sign off right now. But the truth is this kind of thing has always bothered me even before there were blogs and tweets and texting. It seems those of us who claim the name of Christ have trouble dealing with a text that predates the thumb producing constant barrage of words that fill the space of on line information.

What we do with the Bible is rather amazing. Rob Bell's words are just the latest battlefield for a new round of Bible Wars. Rob simply pulls "out of the closet" the same thing that many people have hidden in their hearts and minds. I deal with these people as a Pastor. It is usually is in a one on one situation because they are almost afraid to say the words in the light of day. "Is my Jewish friend going to Hell?...Are all Muslims doomed to damnation?...If Jesus is the only way what does that really mean?"

The little bit I know of Bells' new book is from the reviews and the video on Y tube. His basic premise is that the rigid literal view of a burning Hell where all who do not believe a certain way are assigned for all eternity seems to represent a God whose love is limited by the people who interpret the ancient text. I like what the Biblical scholar Karl Barth once said when confronted by a reporter who said to him, "Dr. Barth it sounds like you do not take the Bible laterally?" Barth responded, "I take the Bible far too seriously to take it literally."

When I teach about the Bible I often use Martin Luther's image of the Bible being the "cradle of the Christ Child." I then refer to a very special cradle that was given to us as a present by a man when we served a small rural church. It was a surprise gift. We still treasure it even though our children are far removed from needing it. If you step back from it you notice that it leans a bit to the right because the rockers are not exactly even. Remember it was hand-made. Running your hand across the top of the cradle you notice that the finish is a bit rough for it is made of different types of wood blended together by the hands of its creator. It was and is a gift of love. What really makes it special is what it held; our Amanda.

The Bible is the cradle of the Christ Child but remember it is hand-made. There are rough parts in the Bible that need to be understood and even explained. It holds within its hand-crafted exterior the love of God given to the people of God but it is not made in a factory or by a programed machine. It is an earthy book made by people. Yes it is filled with "inspired" words but those words of inspiration come through people like you and me so they often times need the gift of discerning study.

The Bible is important enough to be studied for not simply what it says but what it means. Rob Bell challenges the interpretation of the Bible that leads to a rigid understanding of the "fires of Hell." Study shows that the image comes from the people in Biblical days remembering the burning flesh in the valley of Gehenna where the burning rubbish from Jerusalem Temple sacrifices was collected. It is a pretty brutal image and is often the predominant one used when people want to make sure that the Devil gets his due.

There are a few passages where Jesus is quoted as referring to a place where "there shall weeping and gnashing of teeth" but those are mostly related to parables and stories where Jesus often uses exaggeration to make his point. Most of the time Jesus deals with "Hell" it is the hell people are living in. He goes there...places where people are outcast, poor, despised, forgotten, and in darkness.

In the oldest version of the Apostles' Creed the phrase "he descended into Hell" is found. We Methodists tend to leave that out because it does not sound "nice." But I like the assertion that love never gives up and goes to "Hell and back" to find the "lost." I wonder if that is Rob Bell's point; that love never gives up. Why would that bother Christians so much? Are we afraid that someone is going to get what they do not deserve? Just how small or big is heaven anyway? How big does a Hell need to be for a God whose love seems to know no bounds? Do we decide the size of eternity and do we get to limit God's love?

It seems that some Christians have to have Hell in order to have faith. Hell has often been used in the Christian proclamation to instill fear into people. It's the "If you think its hot here in July...remember Hell awaits those who do not believe." The "perfect love casts out fear" stuff ends up in the drain that goes down to the Gehanna sewer.

I'll leave Hell to God. Most of the fire mentioned in the Bible seems to refer to refining fire rather than consuming fire. The God that Jesus talks about most of the time is the God of the prodigal, the God of the shepherd who unwisely goes after the one lost sheep, and the God of the cross whose boy gets a "hell of deal" when he gets strapped to a tree near the city sewer. Jesus goes to hell and back for love. I wonder if that is what Rob Bell is getting at?

Why don't we spend our time helping people get out of hell now...you know the hell of poverty, racism, sexual exploitation, even the hell of religious intolerance that can lead to people killing each other in the name of God? Takkum Olam, is a Hebrew expression that means to help God "heal the world."

So...do I still have a job?
jody

The Temptation Buffet

2011-03-15T02:28:00.000-07:00

Have you ever stepped up to the Temptation Buffet? I passed it up one time but now wish I had "partaken." No, this is not material for an afternoon soapopra. I"m talking about the time I was in Israel and we went to the traditional place where the Devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness. It says that Jesus fasted 40 days before the Devil tempted him with the old "turn these stones into bread" routine.

When we arrived at the spot the guide pointed to a rugged mountain that was the supposed site where Jesus met up with that rascal who loves to tempt anyone who will pay attention. It was about lunch time and we were hungry. So we were escorted into a restaurant that was in the valley that looked up at Temptation Mountain. We did not fast. We ate.

And you guessed it the name of the restaurant was "The Temptation Cafe." I had a sandwich but I noticed that if one desired there was a buffet. We did not have much time so I did not partake of the buffet but just think if I had I could say for all time that I "ate at the Temptation Buffet." I even passed up the temptation to purchase a shirt with words imprinted across the chest that said, "I Ate at the Temptation Buffet."

So what's on your temptation buffet? We all pass by it do we not? I suppose you can accuse the Devil of preparing the offerings or you can use the line I used recently, "Lead me not into temptation, I can find it myself."

The original "buffet" consisted of "Hey aren't you hungry already? Here take this rock and make yourself a Wonderbread sandwich. You can do it. I know you can." We can dismiss this as not really on our buffet because it sounds like a magic trick but that would be what the Devil would want. It seems to let us off the hook.

This temptation is really about using our personal power because dog-gone it we deserve it. We're hungry and no matter what, it is time to fill ourselves. The reality that we might should do without is dismissed. "Go ahead eat that doughnut even though your waistline is telling you otherwise...Go ahead step outside your marriage vows. After all she/he hurt you and does not really understand you...go ahead spit that hateful word back at the person who spit one at you. He/she deserves it."

Get it?

The second offering on the buffet was something like, "Hey, do a two and half off the top of the Temple and land on your feet. That will put you on Oprah for sure." This has something to do with proving ourselves. How do you prove yourself? Getting the approval of others can be a "black hole" of sorts. It takes a lot of energy and it can suck the life out of us. And do we ever accomplish getting the total approval of others? What tricks do we have to do to gain status, love, esteem? Might as well jump off the top of the Temple...

The third item on the buffet has to do with "Who you gonna serve?" Bob Dylan wrote a song about this one:
You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you may like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you're gonna serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna serve somebody.

So as in days past, the Temptation Buffet is open for business...always open...24 hours a day. The offerings are constantly being served up. The only question for us who stop by is the same question asked on that mountain long ago and again asked by a modern day songwriter: "Who you gonna serve?"

I've discovered that when I do step up to the serving line it helps to invite someone to come with me. He's been there before. So as I look over the offerings I can whisper to that one who wrestled with the Devil the first time, "Well, what do you think?"

Bless you
jody

Mining for Dust: A Poem for Ash Wednesday

2011-03-08T15:06:00.000-08:00

Gold is now selling for $1441.00 per ounce. I thought of this as we step into Lent with ashes placed on our foreheads as we hear the words, "From dust you came and to dust you shall return...repent and believe the good news." I offer you this poem for Ash Wednesday....
jody

Mining For Dust
A Poem for Ash Wednesday

Our hands reach toward
a shinny past hoping
to strike it rich
So we strain through the
dirt of our lives
to mine it for
a gold that
often eludes us

But the maker of it all
mines not for the
glitter of our world
Our God mines for dust
and through those
ancient hands there
is a sifting
for what is precious

As the earth makes gold
and we long for
its lofty worth
So the God who formed
the earth and its riches
cares not for the gold
but loves infinitely
the dust

The dust is God’s gold
for into it the divine
breathed life’s breath
And those old hands
shaped us into living beings
whose value is
much beyond
shimmering nuggets

And to sanctify it all
the old miner
of all Creation
Sent the child of Bethlehem
to sift through
the rubble
and be dust
himself

Standing knee-deep
in the running waters
of an ever-flowing stream
God Almighty reached
into the earth
and pulled from it
the dust
now gold

“From dust you came
and to dust
you shall return”
Are the customary words-
But when spoken by
God
they really say,
“The dust is my gold”

Jody/Ash Wednesday/2011

What Me Worry

2011-03-01T02:50:00.000-08:00

That smiling foggy faced gap toothed image haunts me. Alfred E Newman smiles at the onlooker with the words imprinted below his picture; "What Me Worry." He may imaginatively walk the halls of "Mad Magazine" but he also appears once in a while in my mind's eye reminding me of my worry habit.

I was almost over my irritation of waiters and waitresses responding "No problem" when I thanked them for my food when the phrase changed overnight. I mean I am not talking about problems when I say "thank you" so why should the response be "No Problem?" Have I bothered them or something and they are excusing me? My youngest daughter insists that I'm hung up and that this is simply her generation's way of saying, "You're welcome."

So just about the time I settled in to "No problem" I started hearing, "No worries." What? Do I look worried when I look up from my hamburger? Did I oversleep only to wake up in a world of "no worries?" Wouldn't that be nice.

I recently preached a sermon on Worry. I had to admit to the congregation that me giving advice on not worrying was like Osama Ben Laden giving a lecture on peace and love. So as I have often done before I was preaching first to myself.

I used Jesus' famous, "Why are you worried so much" talk that he gave to his tiny band of "worried" disciples. It seems he sat them down in the middle of a field of wild flowers, picked one of them, and said,"Look long and hard at this flower...does it look worried?...The birds flying overhead, do they seem to suffer from anxiety?...My dad seems to be able to provide for them so why are your brows so furrowed and your stomachs in knots?"

So while I preached I held up a single wildflower and reminded me and any who would listen some interesting tid-bits about worry...Want to hear some of them?
-40% of what we worry about never happens
-30% is worry over the past so we can't do much about it
-12% is needless worries about our health
-10% is centered on petty, miscellaneous worries
-leaving 8% worth worrying about.....so 92% of our worries are as Earl Nightingale in his book "The Essence of Success" says are "pure fog with no substantial chance of happening."

How about them odds?

I also mentioned signs of unproductive worry as listed by Robert Leahy in "The Worry Cure."...
-you worry about unanswerable questions
-you worry about a chain reaction of events
-you reject a solution because it is not perfect
-you think you should worry until you feel less anxious
-you think you should worry until you control everything

Can't you just overhear a flower say, "Hummm I wonder if the sun will come up tomorrow...and if it does not how will I survive...and if I have trouble surviving what about the seeds I was going to spread next Spring?...and if I can't spread seeds then why am I even here?...but if I concentrate on these 'what if's' at least I can keep from being so afraid...but how can I get hold of the one who controls the sun???"

There is a kind of strange silliness in my/our efforts at worry. It betrays a need for control but also a deeper need to develop the art of letting go so that we can again be faced with the issues of trust and faith. Carl Jung once responded when asked if he believed in God, "Believe...? I know there is a God! God is my name for all things that I did not myself create that come across my path and gets in the way of my carefully developed plans and desires."

It is not just a saying on a cross-stitched wall hanging. It's wisdom: "O God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...the courage to change the things I can...and the wisdom to know the difference."

What me worry? Today I will attempt to pay a little more attention to those few flowers that are attempting to break Winter's grip as they remind me that Spring is coming. When will it come? If you listen to the breeze that blows those flowers to and fro you will hear a a gentle whisper that says, "No worries."

Bless you
jody

To Be or Not to Be...a Minister

2011-02-12T13:22:00.000-08:00

This week I was part of a long intense process where candidates for ministry come before a Board of Ministry to be "reviewed and evaluated" as to whether they are ready "to be" a minister. After seminary there is a preliminary "testing" and if you pass that you are checked out for a 3 year "provisional" period. Next you write a whole bunch of papers in response to a series of questions, video tape a sermon and a bible study, and come before 3 separate committees to respond to what you have prepared.

I would not want to have to do this "again." I did it 38 years ago and wonder if I would make it through now. My understanding of some of the doctrines and theology that are evaluated...well are different than what a committee might want to hear. Wear and tear do that. Doctrines that come out of books take on a different "look" when exposed to the light and the dark of real life.

Then there's the preaching committee. I listen as candidates have to "defend" their sermons. The sermons get picked apart by well meaning ministers who make up the committees and whose task it is to pick them apart for the good of the cause. I know my sermons get evaluated most every week but I often do not have to see the "report card." And fortunately my folks are not sitting out in the congregation holding up numbers on cards like they are scoring an ice skating performance or diving competition.

The picking apart probably happens at the same time families are picking apart chicken on a plate just after service. But at least I don't' have to listen. The candidates I sat with last week do.

Each would be minister's call is "questioned." You may think that to be strange and even a bit cruel but that is the way it is supposed to be in this church we called Methodist. God's call is real but it is meant to be examined by the church one is "called" to serve. Then we ministers have to equip ourselves for ministry. It's important stuff so that equipping is examined as to its quality and effectiveness.

Around 40% of the candidates do not make it through the first time and are deferred for another year when they must come back and do it again having learned something and often needing to do some more work in a certain area. It is hard telling this "called of God" people that they are not "ready."

In conversation we hear expressions like, "It's not rocket science"..or "It's not brain surgery" when someone is referring to a certain skill level. Well what we ministers do is neither of the above but we do work with people's lives and we do handle "the scared word and the holy elements." Yes, one can actually get some kind of license to be a "minster" from a magazine but you can't do that in our system. We've decided that this "work for God" stuff is too important. You have to be tested. Some may feel they have been "drawn and quartered" but it is all done by those of us who had to do it ourselves. We know it is important and it is needed.

So now I'll stop this and go back to preparing this week's sermon knowing that I will not have to take it before a committee but before a "real life" group of people who are not as much interested in taking it apart as hoping it will feed their spirits and help them experience the divine while discovering meaning in a world where challenges are at every turn.

Personally I think the sermon this week is a 7.8....but I never know until I dive off the platform...

God bless those dear people I faced this week who are willing to go through this time of testing. It's worth it...it really is.

jody

A Preacher's Groundhog Day

2011-02-04T04:23:00.000-08:00

Was it because it actually was near Groundhog day or was it due to the natural anxiety that anyone has about being caught "not prepared?" I've been told that the "naked dream" is common when it comes to our shared human condition.

You know what the naked dream is do you not? It is when you dream that all of a sudden you are in a group of people and you do not have any clothes on. So you hide under a desk or in a closet or you hear the laughter of those who observe. The resulting panic and embarrassment leads you to wonder just how in the world did this happen? Whose fault is it?

Those who make their money writing books about anxiety and worry and dream interpretations say that this "naked" condition represents being "exposed" in a state of being unprepared. The pop test is put in front of you and you have no idea what the subject matter even is. It is time for a speech and the audience is waiting and your name is called but you did not know you were giving the speech. It is time to pay the bill but you have no money. You are "naked."

Well I had a kind of strange naked dream last night. It was a version of the movie "Groundhog Day." It started with me marching into a crowded church and giving the same sermon every day. Each time I marched into the sanctuary the crowd was the same, the people lining up to go into church were always in the same line with the same expressions on their faces. They didn't seem to much care to be there but the conversation never changed.

And...I kept giving the same sermon...and I got the same reaction...sort of bland but acceptable...nothing really special but then the time was over and...well...it stared all over again....same crowd...same sermon...

And then...

I was walking into the same church but the person walking beside me was different, the crowd seemed like mostly the same crowd as before but all of sudden it was "the next day" or something...but alas I had that same sermon that I had been preaching to the same crowd over and over again...but this time I was supposed to preach a different sermon but....you guessed it I was "naked." I had no other sermon. What I had was that same old, tired sermon that was about to drive me crazy. I was tired of hearing myself all those days...but this crowd had not heard it like I had. They were expecting not the sermon from "yesterday" but a fresh new one "today." But all I had were yesterday's words...If I preached it "again" I would see the expressions of their faces of bewilderment. "Doesn't this clown know he preached that same sermon yesterday...what's the matter with him?" Naked!!

I did not have time to run to the "file" and find an old sermon that I could give in a fresh way that the crowd had not heard. I did not have time to "compose" new material. All I had was the old "Groundhog" sermon.

The great thing about the "naked dream" is that you wake up, usually with "some" clothes on. So I woke up, laid there a minute tyring to figure out if this really happened, and then took a deep breath that it was after all a dream.

But then I got up and saw my shadow....O my

Bless you...and Happy Groundhog day
jody

Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself...but There's a Lot of It

2011-01-22T04:12:00.000-08:00

Those words spoken by President long ago to reassure a shaky nation that "we have nothing to fear but fear itself" are hope filled words that seem to be falling on deaf ears these days. Perhaps our deafness is caused by a constant bombardment of fear-filled words coming to us from 24 hour news that has now been amplified by intense and polarizing rhetoric from the "right and the left."

In a recent article, "Faith Verses Fear in America" Katherine Marshall offers a telling observation. When fear is in control four things tend to happen: 1 Thinking is shut down 2 There is a heightened stereotyping of others 3 Actions and words are driven by emotion and 4 People are more susceptible to charismatic leaders.

Mix this with what Frank Fured terms "cultural cooling" and you have a recipe for a fear casserole. Fured in his book, "Culture of Fear" writes: "A culture of fear estranges people from one another and breeds an atmosphere of suspicion that distracts people from facing up to the challenges confronting society."

So we are afraid that illegal immigrants will be the ruin of society. We fear Muslims are plotting to take over the world. We fear that too much money is going to inner city schools thus depriving children with "real potential" the resources to exceed. We fear crime so we buy more guns and get very angry if someone suggests that we do not have the right to arm ourselves with whatever kind of gun we chose even if that gun might be a danger to the "larger welfare of the whole community." We fear the loss of individual rights in the face of creeping government intervention.

The partial truth is that all of the above mentioned "fears" are grounded in some reality. The question that is lost, however, in an atmosphere of fear is how much of it is truth and how much of it is amplified by the magnifying glass of our fear. Donal Walsh came up with what the letters for "fear" sometimes really mean: False Evidence Appearing Real.

I'm not saying that we should roll over and play dead when it comes to real threats in our society but what is the role of "people of faith" in the face of fear? If the saying, "Feed your faith and starve your fears to death" has any real meaning it is time for a faith banquet.

In the Christan tradition we attempt to follow a man who looked into his first follower's eyes and saw fear. He loved them very much so instead of scolding them for not having enough faith he simply said, "Do not let your hearts be so troubled...believe." Research shows that the world he selected for "troubled" actually means "terrified." Jesus knew that fear was human and natural. He told his disciples basically that it was okay to be a bit afraid since they were all journeying toward a city where death awaited, but he said do not be "too afraid...do not be terrified...do not be scared to death for heaven's sake."

For a follower of Christ fear is to be put into a larger context. Do we feel that some of the things we fear will be "the death of us?" What will we lose...freedom...money...rights...life? Psalm 27 says, "The Lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear. The Lord is the stronghold of my life of whom shall I be afraid. When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh, my adversaries and foes, they shall stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident."

Those words might be a good start for a faith casserole. Fear robs us of vision. Fear steals the ability to risk loving. Fear wants to rule. Fear likes an enemies list and wants to limit the people on our love list.

Having faith does not mean that we are naive and stupid but having faith has always meant risk. After all faith is faith. It is sometimes called a "leap of faith." That does not mean jumping off the cliff of reason but it does mean not sucking in the atmosphere of fear that is being offered so much lately.

Fear is doing a number on us. It is time to feed our faith so that at least we can make some of our fears "anemic."

The "faith manual" says something like this...What can separate us from God?...shall tribulation, distress, persecution, peril, famine, sword (have I gotten to your fear yet).. neither death, nor life nor principalities nor powers...nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth (are we there yet?)...nor anything in all creation shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus... That about wraps it up.

Bless you
jody

Numbered Days

2011-01-13T03:25:00.000-08:00

OK I admit that the only "blackberry" that I have is hidden behind the frozen onions in our frig. And my "i phone" is simply bad grammar for, "Yes, I have a phone." In other words when it comes to technology I am Rip Van Seymour. I awakened into a world that sped by while alas I did sleep...or something.

Anyway I was made aware of all this when it came time to "change calendars." My friends pull out little pencil like gizmo's and punch in code on blackberry-druid-i phone-type devices while I pull out my spiral bound pad, not i-pad, and gently slide it into the hard plastic cover that I have used for, O 20 years or so.

I then look at the penciled in dates that I scratched in for the next year in those tiny blocks that allowed me to predict the future by writing words in "next year's calendar" that is always at the back of "this year's calendar." This can make one fall victim to the illusion that somehow we are in control of time. We block it in, fit it in, cancel it out, scratch it out if written in pen, or simply erase it from memory with pencil in hand. What power!

Of course the creator of all time must get a kick out of our efforts to make time, find time, keep time, or even delete time. The old wisdom saying offers the counsel; "Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom." So when I go through my yearly ritual of changing calendars and transferring dates I get the chance to literally "number" my days.

This year I paused while carrying over time. I thought of the young mother with two children who has not many numbered days left. Her battle with cancer is nearing an end. She is counting days in a different way. Teach me a better way to number my days O one who "calendars" all our days. I so often live days like they are postage stamps I use to send something off somewhere. I forget that each day is not only numbered, it is sacred. It does not have to "be." It was not scheduled or ordered from a catalogue. Each day is "given."

The square space on my calendar cannot contain the day, only an image of the sacred space that awaits my presence. So the next time you go to either the frig or your pocket for your blackberry...or the next time you enter an appointment on your i phone pause a moment and realize that time is a special thing. Pay attention to those beings that are passing time with you rather than spending too much time with the devices we use to "contain" and schedule time. My spiral bound old fashioned "device" is not the time I have. The numbering cannot really be done by a calendar. The numbering must be done my me. And the number that matters is the space I occupy now. That is all anyone has.

So teach us to number our days...one at a time...gently...respectfully...fully aware and awake...so that we may gain a heart of wisdom. So on some device it says that today is January 13, 2011. Wisdom says, "This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." You can plug that date in any device you use to "measure" time.

Bless you
jody

An After Christmas Pre-Easter Wish

2010-12-29T11:53:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I know I have these strange thoughts but since Jimmy Stewart and his wish that it would be better "if he had never been born" is still hanging around my mind I wonder what would have happened if Jesus had a angel show up that night in the garden when he felt so all alone and fogotten? Like Clerence, this angel might have heard Jesus in his agony say something like, "Maybe it would be better if I had not come."

After all it seemed that all was lost. Those he depended on were sleeping off that last glass of wine. The guy who was the treasurer for the group was out adding to his take with a fresh 30 pieces of silver and wouold soon cash in on the deal. Maybe it would be better if Jesus "had never been born."

Can't you see some aspiring angel look up and say something like, "Well what do you think. It might work. Maybe this would help him out if he could see that he really does and will make a difference."

Then zap it happens. Jesus gets to see a world where he was never born. It all happens quick because it has to. After all Judas is on the way over with his merry men and the disciples are almost ready to wake from their reoccurring nightmares that what is getting ready to happen might happen.

Jesus in a flash gets to see Peter and his brothers out fishing...not for people, for fish and that's all it will ever be. Matthew is sitll sitting at his tax table exercising his right to cheat whomever he fells like cheating. Thomas fills his days with skepticism and doubt and will have no reason to ever believe without seeing.

The only one who seems better off is Judas who truly is better off because Jesus never shows up. Then there is the rest of us....in a flash of time Jesus is shown a world where he is not. For one, Jody never has a vision of hands reaching out to him at age 17 and touching his own hands as if to say, "I want you to be one of my ministers." Jody ends up being...well...maybe a teacher or a UPS driver....or something...anything but a minister of a church that does not exist...

And the world...would we even be here or would we have gone done a path of self-destruction where there are no schools or hospitals that bear his name? And of course there would be no churches where people light candles on Christmas Eve and sing "Silent Night" hoping that the dark outside is not the final answer to life.

So Jesus for an instance gets his wish to glimpse a world where he was never born...He wipes the sweat from his brow, nods toward "his" angel...whispers something about "not my will but thine be done" and allows the drama to continue....but perhaps with a bit more assurance that his life and upcoming death really will make a difference.

So its time to take the Christmas tree to the street and put the manger scene back in the attic...but hey, in spite of the dark and all the heavy stuff of life because he "was" born it's a wonderful life...

blessings
jody

A Snowglobe Christmas

2010-12-24T03:53:00.000-08:00

Suspended snow swirled around her. She was frozen but it was not because of the temperature. Her gaze was transfixed on the child. She would not take her eyes off his face even though the snow seemed to blow into her wide open eyes.

As the scene unfolded without unfolding "Silent Night" played from somewhere beneath the holy couple. They were captured in a world all their own. Unlike that first still night they were protected. The elements that would in reality be bitter and cold did no harm to them now.

Snowglobes are a sweet way to remember a not so sweet story. These snowy renditions are like our manger scenes. They come out once a year and adorn our homes, but the "real" characters of that first Christmas, that we now freeze-dry to remind us of the story, were not surrounded by a glass dome or packed away in Styrofoam peanuts for safe keeping. They were probably cold and for sure they were homeless.

For the real-life Joseph and Mary there really was "no room" and the smell of animals was ...well...the smell of animals. Snowglobes are really wonderful but they are not "real." The real Mary felt the pain of her labor. Joseph still wondered how this could be happening. An innkeeper figured these folks possessed really poor judgement for being out on a night like this with a child so close to being born. Those real shepherds would not have been welcomed in town because of their reputations as riffraff, thieves, and scoundrels. (Yes snow globes may clean them up but shepherds were at the bottom of the food chain back then.)

So wind up those snowglobes and let them play their music while soft flurries surround a frozen baby. But rest assured that the reality is that it was a labor of love. For Christmas Eve this year I'm using a song by that name...just so that we will remember that the story is "real."

Here are the words of the song to help us remember the "real" story:

Labor of Love/ lyrics by Andrew Peterson

It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David's town
And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With tears upon her face
Had no mother's hand to hold

It was a labor of love
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love

Noble Joseph at her side
Callused hands and weary eyes
There were no midwives to be found
In the streets of David's town
In the middle of the night
So he held her and he prayed
Shafts of moonlight on his face
But the baby in her womb
He was the maker of the moon
He was the author of the faith
That could make the mountains move

It was a labor of love....

So just as Jimmy Stewart in the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life," "woke up" from his dream-like trip to a world where he no longer existed to discover that he was in fact "real, imagine a frozen Joseph escaping from your snowglobe to run through you house screaming, "Merry Christmas world!"

O holy child of Bethlehem be born in us today.

jody

A Christmas Identity Crisis

2010-12-17T03:03:00.000-08:00

Each year at Christmas I have this identity crisis. The Sunday before Christmas it is my tradition to take on a "character" in the Christmas story. I've been the innkeeper, a shepherd, a wise man, Herod (mean, nasty guy), Joseph (a confused "dad"), a guy who happened to be staying at the inn that night(lucky fella got a room)...and one year I attempted to be Gabriel...I'm not doing that one again. I simply cannot be an angel. Ask Betsy.

So this year as you can see I've run out of anyone near the manger that night...but alas...there had to be other people in Bethlehem that did not get into the scene...at least into the Bible's version of the scene. So using the old imagination I discovered this potter who lived in Bethlehem. I woke up in the middle of the night to "let him out"...so now he is on the printed page. I'll bring him to life this Sunday in church.

I never know who these people "are" until I put words to paper. Can you guess what Christmas present the potter ends up giving? ..... Give up? He gives him a chalice...a cup. Mary promises to tell her baby when he grows up about this gift of love given that night. The potter ends up following the adult Jesus around later. Because of some interesting circumstances the potter finds himself nearby when Jesus and his friends have a meal.

Yes, you get the picture. Jesus lifts the Christmas gift that night at the table and says, "Take this...take this cup...it is a gift of love." Merry Christmas world. It is a gift of love.

I also woke up in the middle of the night with a poem to go with the story....so here it is:

The Cradle and the Cup

Empty that first crystal
clear evening-
the wood waited
expecting
food for familiar guests

But suddenly it was
full of hope-
a manger that
became
a cradle for a child

What it held was love
for a waiting world
but the cradle was
only
the beginning of the journey

Empty was the cup
that night
he lifted it to
pour
out a covenant of healing

His lonely mind remembered
as he poured-
a story from Mary
of a cradle
filled with surprise that night

So that evening filled with words
of invitation
to "take and drink"
he thought of
the cradle and the cup

And as he looked into
their eyes
he saw how empty
they were
and what was needed

So now again we have the
cradle and the cup
so both may be
filled anew
for the world's waiting emptiness

Emmanuel-
God with us
in
the
cradle and the cup

Blessed Christmas
jody

The Christmas Mirror/ My Annual Christmas Poem

2010-12-14T07:46:00.000-08:00

The Christmas Mirror

It was her own reflection
that she glimpsed
the first night
she looked into
his eyes

Those eyes-they seemed
to already know
so much even
though he was
newly born

Mary saw herself in
this mirror of
love that was after
all a whispered
miracle of God

So now close your own eyes
and try to imagine
his eyes looking
into yours for
that
is what Christmas
really is-
You too are God's child.

jody

How John the Baptist Stole Christmas

2010-12-05T11:17:00.000-08:00

If you read Matthew 3: 1-12 you will hear crazy old John screaming in the wilderness yet again this year. Between the bugs in his teeth and his sweet tooth he shouts words to the church folks who've come out to hear him. With breath that smells of "wild honey" and left over locusts John tells the people of First Church Jerusalem that they are no better than snakes and that they better shape up or their family "trees" are going to get the ax.

Wow, Merry Christmas to you too John. John thinks that before we get to the Christmas carols and sweet baby Jesus that we need to clean up our act. He sounds like a combination of Euell Gibbons (you know the "wild hickory nut" guy who used to advertise Grape Nuts cereal) and a street preacher. So John eats his natural wild honey and it energies him to scream "repent before it's too late. " Sounds like the Grinch to me....but his words of warning for us to "repent" are simply his way of saying that if we are going to unwrap the present that comes in the manger we need to "change direction" and find some new ways to think and act. Repent simply means to turn and go another way.

So for my folks this past Sunday and for you out there in the Blogosphere I've composed "How John the Baptist Stole Christmas."
Here you go....Blessed Advent to you.

HOW JOHN THE BAPTIST STOLE CHRISTMAS
All the religious types in Jerusalem
Liked Christmas a lot
But John who lived out in the desert did not
He ate bugs and sipped honey
No one quite knows the reason
But he kept screaming "Repent,
Before you get to this season"

He yelled and he yelled at the
Church folks who came
He told them their religion
Was nothing but lame
With all of them wanting
Their tensel and glitter
John said it was all going
To turn to cat litter

"There's one coming whose ax will
Cut your Christmas trees down
Santa Claus this year will
Not come to your town
One's coming to separate the
Wheat from the chaff
No need to wrap all those
Presents you have
You better come clean and
Get right with God
Then up the chimney John went
With a blink and a nod
(O Well I'm combining stories here...be patient)

The people were left with stockings
Empty and hanging
While sugarplums and questions
Filled their heads with a banging

Perhaps Christmas cannot happen
Until we come clean
Just what did old John in fact
Really mean?
Turn around, turn around before
It's too late
All those shopping days until Christmas
Will Just have to wait

John's message is clear but it's
Not popular now
He says, "If you want to come
This year to the manger and bow
You have to shed your old skin
As does a snake
When it comes to the Christmas rush
You must put on the brake
It's time for a change in
Some of your ways
It's time to rearrange the way
You've been spending your days

So for Christmas to come no
Grinch heart needs to grow
It's your heart my friend
That must change and must know
That the best Christmas present
You can give the Christ child
Is the change in y0ur heart you've
Been putting off for a while

So this Advent season John
Sounds like the Grinch
And yes his words are like lightning
That may cause you to flinch
So get ready for Christmas by
Not just putting up a tree
Get ready for Christmas by
Repenting you see
For what God wants from all the
Church folks this year
Is a heart full of love
Not a cup full of cheer

John's words in the desert-they come
With a reason
To help us get ready for
The whole Christmas season
"Turn around," he says with
Bugs in his teeth
And John the Baptist himself
Hung a giant Christmas wreath.

Bless you
jody

Wild Turkey

2010-11-22T07:41:00.000-08:00

"Wild Turkey" can lead to some spirited conversation. You can begin the conversation with your ABC's or at least at the store with the same name. But I'm not talking about "brown water" that comes in a bottle. I more or less have in mind the wild turkeys I've seen lately out and about. They are the ones who you will not see on our tables at Thanksgiving. They know nothing of the holiday and would be in mourning for their tame relatives if they got wind of such a thing.

For me Thanksgiving makes me pause and remember. Somehow every thanksgiving I fall down a rabbit hole and pass Alice and the Mad Hatter as I turn left down a winding pathway of memories.

I remember going to Betsy's Lutheran church the night before Thanksgiving and singing, "Let All Things Now Living." I loved that song for some reason. It was not in the Methodist hymnal so when I "grew up" I would steal it and print the words so my congregation could sing it. It is now in the Methodist Hymnal supplement for which I am of course "thankful."

The next day we would all cram ourselves into probably the smallest house of all the extending family dwellings. Reason was not the operative norm. This is where "the family" gathered and that was it. Maw Maw Lee's house was in the country next to the Christmas tree farm where we always hiked after lunch in the hopeless effort to "walk off" what we had just consumed.

And of course gluttony was the sin of the day. I can still taste some of the casseroles and the desserts. There was one uncle who would always disappear for a while and come back from his car a little happier than when he went out. He evidently found another kind of "wild turkey" to help him get through the holiday season.

I can't find those casseroles anymore. The house belongs to someone else. A good number of the people I remember are gone to the place not made with hands eternal in the heavens. We are trying to create new traditions but you can't go back home again....at least in some ways...I suppose we are not supposed to.

Our youngest child was born on one of those Thanksgiving mornings. She messed everything up that day. I never got a taste of one of those casseroles. At 11:17 we had a 10lb 2oz turkey named Amanda. I've always kidded her about that. She now laughs. She did not use to.

On another Thanksgiving evening my mother did her usual second feast for us in the evening. We had a grand old time. She read an essay written by our oldest daughter who was then a "I'm not paying attention to most anyone but me...and no longer want to go to grannies house cause my friends are everything...type of teenager." The essay was about "the person who influenced me the most in life." The words were about my mother. They told of "Grannie breakfasts" and times of singing "Fly Little Blue Bird." The message was of a woman who made that little girl feel like a queen and who saved pantie hose "eggs" to put toys in for her even when my mother did not need any more pantie hose."

My mother cried...said, "I thought you had forgotten"...hugged that not so distant adolescent...and then later that night while reading a book simply bowed her head and died. When I got the phone call from my father saying that, "She was gone," I looked over at Betsy and said, "Well I'm thankful that at least we had a going away party without knowing we were having it." She was only 67. I had other questions for her. I think of her often, especially on Thanksgiving.

So Thanksgiving is "loaded" with memories. I'm thankful for most of them. What about you? Close your eyes this Thanksgiving and smile. Pull out from your flock of wild turkeys a special memory then turn toward the present and create one for the future.

Blessings
jody

Killing off the King to Have a Baby

2010-11-16T03:22:00.000-08:00

The Christian year ends in a rather strange way. On the last Sunday of what is called "ordinary time" time takes a not so ordinary twist. All of the scripture readings have to do with Jesus dying. The one I picked this year has Jesus standing all beaten up and bleeding before Pilate. Pilate asks Jesus if he is in fact a king.

Jesus says something like, "Well that's what you must think." Pilate has no use for this guy who is making him work on a holiday and replies, "Look idiot I'm not a Jew...I kill Jews for a living and you better start showing some respect for your superiors."

Jesus' reply, which you have to read between the lines is, "Whatever." He then offers Pilate something that Pilate would never quite get. "Look Mr. King of Rome, my kingdom is something you would not understand anyway. My kingdom will be around when you are dust."

Pilate then finds some hand sanitizer and washes his hands of this poor soul thus showing Jesus once and for all who is really king. Of course we now know that there is no First Church of Pontius Pilate but there seem to be plenty of places around that have King Jesus at least on their signs out front.

But as soon as we kill of Jesus at the end of the year it is time to have the first day of the year that begins the Christian New Year. We call it Advent. We have the death and the birth right up next to each other. What gives?

It seems that for the Christian we need to be reminded about what kind of king that God sends in a manger. Actually the manger is not as far removed from the cross as one might at first think. There was the death of a dream that night that Mary was told there was "no room." After all she was promised by none other than an angel that she would be the mother of the new king of the world. What kind of king would be forced to be born in a barn.

So we face the death of expectations as we start the New Year. Advent is a season to be told, "ready...set....stop." This is no countdown for the shopping days left until the credit card statements come. For the Christian there is the speed-bump that jars us to a stop if we take it too fast.

Stop....you have a king that gets crucified by the world. Stop...you are to be servants of a servant king. Stop...the world can be different if you serve a different kind of king...the kind of king who rules with a shepherd's staff and who wears a crown of thorns.

This Sunday, as I have done in many years before, I will place a chair in the chancel area of my church, place the processional cross behind the chair, put a crown of thorns over the cross beam of that cross, lean a shepherd's staff on the cross....and invite my people to come kneel and say "thank you" to this servant king.

We face the death before we hear the soft cry of the baby. It is the reason we can say "thank you" to a God who is willing to come suffer with us and promise us a new day beyond our suffering. Shades of Christmas are present even as a wounded Jesus looks at another king and says, "My kingdom is not of this world.....but it will make a world of difference."

Before Mary has her baby we are reminded that things in the new kingdom will be upside down in order to set things right side up....Happy soon to be New Year...
jody

For All the Saints

2010-10-29T12:29:00.000-07:00

I last wrote about going to my 45th High School reunion and the request for me to do a "memorial service" for those in our class who "are no longer with us." It was an interesting evening. Wow, those people got old somehow.

We looked at a power-point slide show of "the ghosts of High School Past" as we ate our food and chewed on memories. My old girlfriend was there and I spoke briefly with her despite my dear wife's accusation that I flirted with her at our last reunion. I figure we are owed a few reflections from the past. After all she was the first to break my heart. Yes, she fell for an older guy while on a beach trip. She ended up marrying the guy but all I remember is the deep ache that was new to me.

The ache started somewhere below my stomach and came up around my windpipe, then seeped into my chest. It was a strange feeling. I did not know someone could do that to someone else. I had only played with feelings until that point. What was this sensation that felt like a roller coaster going down and not coming up?

So how do "you" describe a broken heart. Anyway I lived even though I thought for a while I would not. Sure we all can laugh now about those first love downdrafts but it sure was not funny then. So all that rushed by as I listened to her tell stories of her grandchildren.

But back to the "saints." Yes I conducted a brief memorial time for those names that were below the pictures that were mounted on a board in front of us. The pictures were from the High School Annual. The all looked so young and so hopeful and now they were memories. They were gone from our midst. It was a somber moment in the swirl of laughter and surprise at how we have changed. So I'll share with you the poem I wrote to read to my classmates. It is based on that reflection I shared with you earlier where many of us gathered just before graduation and sang a song of both hope and desire: "Climb Every Mountain."

I share it with you for those of you who read these words and have climbed your mountains and discovered your valleys....

The Mountain Climbers

We sang of mountains
That could be conquered
And with our knapsacks full of
Hope we set out...
Maps and charts were not needed
For at first we were
Full of hope
That needed only time

But soon we found that mountains
Have valleys between
Their rugged peaks so
We stopped our separate
Marches and joined
Hands with another or many
For in our days
Of youth we dared
Not ask about
the fear of mountain climbing

So today we gather to smile
even about the tears
For remembrance is our tool
That we strike into the side
Of this- yet another peak
That we call "reunion"

And as we stand beside this
Slope of a past whose
Story is much bigger than
The simple song we sang
We step into a sacred silence
As we hold in our hearts
The names of those climbers
Who are beyond the
Range of our gathering
But
Who are not lost to the
One who made all mountains
And who transverses all valleys

Hold on to them
O God who listens so well
To songs of youth
But who knows how quickly
Hope can be swallowed up
As pilgrims on the way
Discover their need
For ropes and charts and
You

So we hear their names and
Speak them tenderly
From yet another mountain
That we climb this day
Hear them O God of all
Knowing...and complete
Their lives that are
So sacred to you...

jody

Climb Every Mountain

2010-10-16T13:17:00.001-07:00

We sang "Climb Every Mountain" and swayed back and forth in our melody. Then we set out to climb those mountains. We had no idea how many valleys there would be. You don't ask about valleys when you are 18 and full of hope.

Now those singers will gather next weekend for our 45th High School reunion. The mountain climbing song was a last minute idea for our senior class day play. We sang it and then headed for various mountain ranges.

At the reunion they always want me to read the names of those who have climbed their last mountain and are now in that "place not made with hands but eternal in the heavens." Of course there are always more names at each reunion. There was Vietnam that took some of us and then came traffic accidents and those various diseases and infirmities that no one thought would catch up to those idealistic mountain climbers.

After a few words and the reading of names we'll play some beach music and shag a bit. We will not sing the mountain climbing song. It was only for one shining moment anyway. We'll shag and offer a toast to those who have crossed over. Old romances will be remembered and maybe even a strange embrace will take place.

We've encountered a lot of mountains and valleys since our chorus 45 years ago. We've learned to sing the "blues" too. The text I used last Sunday reminds me of the distance from the peaks to the valleys. A group of people gathered one cloudy afternoon much longer ago than a few years and tried to sing but found it hard:
...."By the waters of Babylon we hung up our harps for our captives required of us songs...'Sing one of your holy songs now that you're up the creek without a paddle'...but How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" (Psalm 137)

Maybe I knew my reunion was coming up or maybe it was one of my teacher's comments that led me to write a blues song based on the Psalm. Mrs. Messiemer put on my report card, "If Jody does not quit showing off he'll never amount to anything."

So I'll close my nostalgia with the song I sang in the sermon as I spoke of the need to sing the spiritual blues when we are sad. I dawned my sun glasses and with some piano blues notes in the background I sang "The Babylon Blues"....here goes:

"Been thrown in the River
They call Babylon
Been stripped down to my soul
Seems my God is gone

Ain't singing no sweet songs
No hymns coming from me
Done tossed my harmonica
Out to the sea

I'm crying in exile
This land seems so strange
My captors done told me
Things ain't gonna change

I've got the Babylon...Babylon...Babylon blues....o yeah....

Climb every mountain...forge every stream (walk through every valley too) follow every rainbow till you find your dream....(even if some teacher tells you to shut up)

jody

Honesty in Exile

2010-10-06T05:05:00.000-07:00

So this week I've been preparing a lesson on the book of Revelation for a class I'm teaching and working with the scripture text for this Sunday's sermon, which is Psalm 137. On one hand I'm dealing with the "mark of the beast" and the four horseman of the apocalypse and on the other hand there are the words, "we hung up our lyres because we would not sing one of the songs of Zion" for our captors who mocked us with such a request.

Both Revelation and Psalm 137 are cries from "exile." The folks to whom the Revelation is written are in a type of exile. They think Jesus is coming back any moment and hopefully will take them out of the evil world that seems to be becoming more evil every day. John tells them to hold on because "the time is not yet." He does affirm that it is exile indeed and that it is going to get worse before it gets better. It is not the news the people really want to hear.

In the middle of it all God is still in charge, believe it or not...and some do not. Beasts with horns and horses with riders who spread destruction all over the place are rampant. In the middle of the "tribulation" and mess is a wounded lamb who reminds the hurting people that they are not alone and that the lamb knows and feels what it means to lose. The lamb announces that the victory's been won but the war seems to be still raging. (For those of you without the 3-D glasses the "lamb" is Jesus.)

A vision of heaven is thrown in to make sure that those who lose know that "no more tears" is not just a baby shampoo but is a promise for those who hang in there. It is the good news in the midst of the bad news.

Psalm 137 goes along with all this because it is the Bible's version of "the blues." It goes something like, "My God seems to have left me and I ain't gonna sing one of those happy songs from the past." Like those lines from David Wilcox's song, "Levi Blues;"..."I was doing my laundry baby/I thought I'd do my new jeans too/Yeah, I was doing my laundry/I threw my new jeans in too/And when the spin and rinse was over/Every single thing in there was BLUE...

The people find themselves captive in Babylonian exile and in the spin cycle. God seems gone so after the rinse phase they hang up their harps. They also feel like laundry that has been hung out to dry...and blue on top of that.

So from Psalms to Revelation the people of God are called to "Make a joyful noise"...and when necessary to "sing the blues." How "do" you sing the Lord's song when you are blue and are in exile? Well...you sing the blues.

God always listens....maybe especially to the blues.
bless you
jody

The Holy Spirit and Horton the Elephant

2010-09-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

I think I frightened the church staff the other day when I did the worship opening time at our weekly staff meeting. I told them that as I was preparing what I was going to say, Horton the Elephant spoke to me.

Ok I admit I've been feeling a bit stressed lately. As I told our daughters when they were teenagers and trying to grow up fast, "You might want to slow down. This grown-up thing is not all it's cranked up to be." That day before staff meeting I was a little tired of the grown up world. It is a world full of meetings and budgets and reoccurring problems. As the "leader-CEO-Main Guy-Head of the Team-Sr. Pastor" a lot of the list comes my way.

So I told my befuddled staff that this week I was tired of some of it. I was tired of some of the negative stuff I had heard of late. I was weary from my work even though much of it is still very worthwhile and after all it is "God's work." But I took this moment because I also told them that I thought maybe Jesus was giving me a "pass" to do so for a brief moment.

I had been working on what to say the upcoming Sunday on Children's Sabbath. I was working with that text where Jesus reaches over and pulls up a small child and places her on his knee and says to a bunch of "grown-up" disciples who were having trouble getting along and arguing over who was top dog; "Look at this child. Come as child and you'll finally get the idea of what this new Kingdom I keep talking about is like."

So that morning before yet another "meeting" I noticed a small statue of Horton the Elephant starring at me. I must have used it for some children's thing I did years ago and one of the support staff found it when she was helping me "organize" my office. Horton seemed to whisper something to me.

Horton the elephant heard "a small sound but there was no one around." That small sound was the cry of a Who and he decided that it was "some sort of creature of very small size, too small to be seen by elephant eyes." But Horton knew he had to respond because "after all...a person's a person no matter how small."

Remember that the third "person" of that very grown-up doctrine we call "the Trinity" is the person of the Holy Spirit. So it was on an early morning a few days ago the "still small voice" of that spirit spoke to me in the form of Horton.

"Listen," it said, "to that small voice within your busy world...You are my child...that's all you need to be right now...the grown-up world will wait for a moment....just be my child right now."

Jesus told stories about sheep and coins that got lost in the busy world. He often said that his kingdom was like tiny seeds or small bits of leaven. "The kingdom of God comes in small ways" he reminded his grown-up disciples. "Come as a child."

So this week I was blessed by the parable of Horton the Elephant who reminded me of the small child who never grew up that lives in me...that small child that is not supposed to grow up. It is the child who reminds me to stop, look, and listen. Once in a while the fast paced world can wait...wait for me and you to "come as a child."

I need to sit on Jesus' knee occasionally and remember. Giving to others in his name is wonderful and yes tiring at times so the whisper that came this week from a blue Elephant who listened to a small voice was a wonderful spirit filled reminder.

Bless you
jody

The Far Country

2010-09-17T12:21:00.000-07:00

I talked with a prodigal recently. He was "home" now and pretty grateful but he shared with me how he actually missed the "far country..." that is before the pig-pen stuff.

A preaching professor told me a few years ago to be careful using the image "prodigal" and assuming that young people knew what you mean. He said young people were no longer familiar with stereotypical biblical images because they had not read the bible and did not grow up hearing such things as, "You're going to end up my prodigal."

So for those of you who are "young" I'm referring to the story of the prodigal son that is in Luke. Luke is in the bible. If you don't have a bible you are welcome to steal one from the next motel you find yourself in. The Gideons actually want people to steal them. By the way the Gideons are people who "push" bibles.

What am doing? Young people aren't reading this...are you? Anyway the prodigal I talked with was longing to go back and visit the far country. He missed the excitement and told me that the "good life" was not as full as he had hoped it would be.

He was feeling really guilty about all this and perhaps that is why he was telling me the story. He had been viewing travel posters of the far country...in his head of course...and he longed just for a quick trip back to some of the places where he discovered some really wild stuff before he got lost and had to "come to himself."

"I never thought I would want to go back," he said. What he realized was that he left part of "himself" in the far country and he could not really find it at home.

Have you ever been to the "far country?" A lot of people who have not been there quickly judge those who have. It is one reason maybe people leave the certainty of home.

I wonder if the father in the original story had ever "strayed" when he was young? Maybe that is one reason he ran down the road to grab hold of his "stinky" prodigal child.

I told the prodigal that he probably needed to "stay home" but that it was okay to share the memories and longings with me. The one who originally told the story told it to portray how "his father" was like the father in the story. So I put my hand on this "prodigal's" head and I blessed him and his wondering thoughts. He will of course go unnamed but I blessed him in the name of the one who knows his name and who loves him like a father.

If you are in the far country when you read this...try to go home. If you're the "elder brother" loosen up and try to understand prodigals. If you're a parent of a prodigal pray for patience and remember life is messy and nobody is exempt from longings that lead to pig-pens. And if you don't have a bible...steal one or something...It's a good story worth reading.

jody

Homecoming

2010-09-12T13:33:00.000-07:00

I've served seven churches over the years. I just went back to one I left thirty-one years ago. Where did the time go?

I helped baptize the child of a child I baptized when I was there. How many children have I baptized? I should have kept a record but somehow when it all started I thought it would not matter.

One reason I did not keep "records" is that I thought I would not be doing this ministry thing for this long. I looked for a way out early on. I had too many strange thoughts and my understanding of God was too big and the church was too small...for me. At my "little country church" one of the Furr boy's pegged me when he was overheard to say, " This new preacher will never make it. He's too short, he's too young, and he's read too many books."

Well I'm "old" now and if I carry on in my father's tradition I'll soon start to shrink so I'm destined to even get shorter. I've read even more books and even written a few. I suppose most days I'm glad that brother Furr was wrong.

What a joy it is to hold a child and drip water over his or her head. As I looked around during "Homecoming" I remembered being at this church of my past. The sanctuary seemed smaller than when I was there. The people all looked older of course and when some of them said to me, "Why you haven't changed a bit" I remembered why I loved them so much when I was with them.

"You can't go home again," it is said. I suppose that is true. It felt strange and memories came up like those sayings that popped up in that novelty item called "an eight ball." Do you remember those?...You held the eight ball, turned it slightly and a sayings would pop up in the tiny window in the ball. The sayings that seemed to come from nowhere were supposedly an indication of what your future might hold.

Well these memories that popped up were full of the past not the future. I did not find a way out of the ministry. It seems I found a way "through" it and now it's been 38 years. I can count the years even though I've lost track of the babies.

You can't go home again...but it was good to drop by and remember. Life needs some "homecomings." We travel so fast theses days. It is good to at least "visit" home again. For so many of us "home" is constantly being made as we go.

It was T.S Elliot who said, "We shall not cease from exploring and in our exploring we shall come to the place from which we started and know it for the first time." As I looked around the old place that I used to call home I pondered that I am coming to know that life is daily and home is where you show up...really show up.

As I got in the car to leave "homecoming," I remembered what the choir sang to me as I walked down the aisle my last Sunday with them: "Happy trails to you until we meet again...Happy trails to you keep smiling until then.." I smiled...I remembered....and I said, "thank you" to that amazing presence who would not let me out of this wonderful, crazy, thing called ministry.

Bless you
jody

It's Only a Matter of Time

2010-09-06T05:33:00.000-07:00

It is an expression used to designate a situation in which fate will have its say. You know, you meet someone and they seem friendly but you sense that there is an underlying agenda in the friendship and you feel that something will happen to reveal what is hidden. "It is only a matter of time."

Well this past week I experienced time. I stood overlooking canyons that had been "cut" out by the Green and Colorado rivers. Revealed before me were layers of history all the way down to the bottom of the canyons. They tell me it reveals 300 million years of geological history.

Everything was "big" last week. The reason I was out there in nature observing "time" was that I was attending a conference of the largest 100 United Methodist churches in America. I serve one of them. I did not know that until I got the invitation to attend.

So after observing big canyons I sat in a room full of big church pastors. My church barely made the list because the biggest canyon when it comes to churches is 17,000 people attending every Sunday. I wonder how long it took that guy to create that canyon?

Anyway it was a big week but it reminds me that time happens one second at a time. The river does its work over time. The 17,000 can seem vast and the 300 million can seem completely beyond grasp but it all happens one instant and one person "at a time."

Overlooking all these vast numbers I realized that God's hour glass must be really big. We look at our watches and hurry off in order to make an appointment while the river keeps cutting away its path. It's only a matter of time.

"So teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom." Believe today that whether it comes to big churches or big canyons God notices every grain of sand that passes through the hour glass. After all the old story says, "that a thousand years in thy sight is as a watch in the night." So it takes 300 million years to make one of those canyons and it takes one member at a time to make 17,000....I marvel though that the God of all time counts by individual sands and individual people.

Don't get lost in time...take time...feel time...one moment at a time...It's only a matter of time.

Blessings
jody

Counting for Something

2010-08-25T04:00:00.000-07:00

So what do you count for? It may not be good grammar but you get my point. To the world you are a Social Security number. To the State you are the number on the back of your car. I had a "number" during the last Selective Service draft. It was an important number: 305. It meant I "did not have to go to Vietnam."

I have two more numbers for you: 2,394,415, 296 and 498,836,520. No it is not anything to do with the National Debt. Unfortunately both of these numbers are far too small to even approximate what we owe.

The numbers are from the calculator found on health discovery.com. You put in your date of birth and you find our what "you count for." So the first number is my number of heartbeats since the time of my birth. The second number is the number of breaths I have taken.

You might want to stop now and see what you count for. Both of those numbers are really "what counts" not the number of dollars in your stock portfolio or what is left on your mortgage. Either of those numbers do not really matter if you don't have the first numbers.

I would imagine that no one reading this right now has as much money as either of the first two numbers mentioned. If you do we need to become really good friends before you take your next breath.

When I saw "my numbers" I almost lost my breath...nice turn of words, huh? I mean I have not been counting, have you? But someone has because those breaths and beats come from somewhere.

Psalm 139 says that the place from which the breath and beats come has this cosmic calculator. It seems we are "known" inside and out. Every aspect of our insides are known. There is a phrase in this Psalm that I love, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made." We are not put together on an assembly line nor or we ordered from some kind of "Lands End" catalogue. We are fearfully and wonderfully made.

It may sound strange to say "fearfully" because we live in such a fear-filled world where terror lurks around corners but this is the kind of "fear" that means "wow...awesome...unbelievable." It is the kind of fear I felt when I looked at our first child just after she came out of the womb. There was joy mixed with...well...fear at what just happened.

We loose that fear and wonder don't we. We just go about our days beating and breathing as if it does not "count." Well, it counts to someone. Someone is doing the numbers. It all adds up.

So today I think I'll stop somewhere and listen to my heart and pay attention to my breath. If I do that perhaps I will pay more attention to all the breaths and hearts out there around me.

Part of the problem in our wonderful yet broken world is that we no longer see each other as fearfully and wonderfully made. That is why we can blow each other up in the name of the wrong kind of fear. We need to go back to the beginning where real fear and wonder come from.

It all counts...people count..."breathe in breathe out move on"....

Blessings
jody

Does the 800 Pound Jesus Give Medals?

2010-08-20T02:13:00.000-07:00

For those who know the Bible well or at least have hung around it for a number of years (there's probably a difference) the words on the page can become a bit like elevator music. You hear the words but they blend into the background of the familiar so that the "tune" sounds good but you do not really pay attention and then go on about your business.

I don't think it's supposed to be that way. So being one who has "hung around the Bible" for a number of years and who falls victim to the "elevator music syndrome" I use Eugene Peterson's translation of the Bible, "The Message" so that I can hear the words in a different and often refreshing way.

He translates Jesus' words at the end of Matthew 5 this way: "If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run of the mill sinner can do that...In a word GROW UP. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity."

Last week I used a wonderful song in the sermon by Sawyer Brown, "800 Pound Jesus." Here again sometimes we need different words to really "hear" Jesus. The song is a country song so of course it tells a story...and as often happens in country songs the story has a sad ring to it but offers "redemption" in the end.

The story song tells of a guy on the way home one day who sees an 8 foot statue of Jesus at a garage sale. The concrete statue "held out his arms and seemed all alone so I loaded him up and drove him home." The new owner paints the rebar and concrete statue "white with a long purple robe" and then declares "He's a rock of ages on a gravel road."

Now don't you love that phrase! Eugene Peterson could have used that somewhere in his translation.

Anyway, back to the story. The guy who lives on this gravel road loses his job to tough times and his best girl to his best friend so life becomes unbearable. He takes a rope and climbs up on the 800 pound statue of Jesus which happens to be placed next to an old oak tree. He is going to "buy the farm" and end it all when he jumps off the limb and lands in the "arms" of Jesus.

Hold on there's more. Realizing that Jesus has "saved" him from a moment of despair he acknowledges that he has never had a more "solid friend...so he planted some flowers all around his feet and bought him a flock of ceramic sheep."

I mean come on this is too good to be true. So the chorus is now a haunting refrain in my mind:
"He's an 800 pound Jesus standing taller than a tree.
He's an 800 pound Jesus, a bigger man than you or me."

So do you think this 800 pound Jesus gives medals if we are simply nice to those who are nice to us. Such a big man expects much more of those who get caught up in his arms. He even talks about loving enemies, for God's sake!

I'm sorry but I'm not usually "big" enough to love those who "give me a hard time." But then I/we are dealing with an 800 pound Jesus...or in reality one even bigger than that. Most of us want medals if we show up at church and try to be "nice" most of the time. Well....this Jesus is "bigger" than that and expects bigger things than simply being nice.

To really follow Jesus is to take a "flying leap" and hope that he'll catch us because living as "kingdom subjects" will require us to really "grow up." Can't you just imagine an 800 pound Jesus coming to life and walking around saying something like, "What have you people done with what I gave you? You have domesticated it like some pet. What I gave you is untamed and wild and you've locked it in a cage only to feed it once in a while and go on about your life. Grow up."

He's an 800 pound Jesus, a bigger man than you and me....and he doesn't give medals, he gives instructions...commands...to love...not to be nice...to love...even our enemies. You say, "That's ridiculous these days." Well, that's because he's the "rock of ages on a gravel road" and remains a "bigger man than you and me."

He probably does not need any more ceramic sheep but I bet he could use a few good followers...so once in a while take a flying leap. Don't expect medals when you jump but you can expect some pretty big arms waiting to catch you...

Bless you
jody

Leaviing the Faith and Keeping the Faith

2010-08-14T13:34:00.001-07:00

As I read the recent article about the author Ann Rice who announced that she was "no longer a Christian" and that she was "leaving the faith for the sake of Christ" I could not help but think of Billy Joel's song, "Keeping the Faith." Joel tells in this narrative song of how he was "saved" by the music of "wild boys." His hunger for that music later lead him to be what he is today so his refrain is, "the good old days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems" so he's "keeping the faith" and singing his music.

Ann Rice says that she is leaving the faith because she can no longer be part of a faith that is full of rigid doctrines and people who condemn homosexuality while speaking of love. She then goes on to say how she does not want to be part of a Catholic Faith where the Pope issues an "edict" preventing people from using condemns in Africa in spite of the AIDS epidemic and then excommunicates a nun who allowed a woman to have an abortion in order to save her own life.

Well Ann, "the good old days weren't as always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems" so there are ways of "keeping the faith" in spite of the faith. Heck, years ago I left the Christianity you just left and I'm still keeping the faith. The problem with most religion is that we all paint with broad brush strokes when small fine brushes are needed to paint such an important canvas.

Ann, the faith you walk away from also includes those folks mentioned in the book of Hebrews who were fed to lions and set on fire for "keeping the faith." Don't paint with such a large brush. In fact I do not want to be included in your painting.

At the place I hang out, called church, we are starting a New Faith Community for people who once thought they had to "walk away." In fact some of them have and we are inviting them to look at Jesus for a second time. We are offering them a faith "in" Christ and not just a faith "about" Christ.

The religion about Christ comes in a lot of different forms some of which I walked away from years ago when I realized that the Jesus "they" were espousing was not the Jesus I had come to know. The Jesus I came to know included people who were excluded. The Jesus I discovered did not recite creeds but told stories about lost boys who deserved not to be taken back but who were, lost sheep whose finding caused a party even though the "ninety and nine" did not quite understand, and a Jesus who got the door of religion slammed in his face. In fact it was religion that contrived to slam him up on a cross to make sure that "orthodoxy" and business as usual stayed put.

No Ann, leaving is too easy. Staying...well that's another story. I've wanted to leave at times. The most judgemntal folks I know are church folks and yes the church, if it is not careful, can end up being a self-preserving, condescending institution focused too much on survival. But so many before who have kept the faith have known that the "good old days weren't always good" but they kept on believing that "tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems."

Hey Ann, don't leave. Come join our New Faith Community and stay restless within the church so we can help that revolutionary Jesus who started the whole thing keep on keeping on. Yes Ann, the church is a mess. It's made up of people like you and me. Remember what that Catholic heritage of yours emphasizes, "The church is the BROKEN body of Christ," but it still offers so much healing for so many.

In my rebel days when I tried to walk away from a God I thought too distant and a church I felt was too confined to be relevant, my dear mother pointed her finger in my face and said, "Look boy, I put up with the church so the church can be the church when the church needs to be the church."

She's gone now but because of her and some of those distant folks who hung in there and who were hung out to dry for their faith I think it's worth "keeping."

jody

Bonhoeffer, Spiders, and Sunrises

2010-08-11T07:07:00.000-07:00

What do the above all have in common? It takes time to take them all in.

Last week I had time. The new biography about the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is almost 600 pages so that takes time but it and he were worth it.

Then there was that spider that spun its web just off the porch at the beach house where I spent the week. I watched him or was it her all week. After seeing the patience it took to both spin and constantly repair the web I'm going to assume it was a "her." No man would ever be that enduring when it comes to the persistence it took to tend that web.

And then there was the waiting. She waited. She waited through an unbelievable storm one evening. The winds blew at 40 miles per hour. The rains came in torrents. She held on and never moved. Most of her web held although there were noticeable spaces where the wind took its toll.

It takes time to weave a web and it takes time to watch a spider. Jesus missed a chance by not telling the parable of the spider or maybe he did and those busy minded disciples were again not listening. They obviously did not know how to "ponder and consider." That's why Jesus sat them down in the middle of a wildflower field one afternoon and told them to "consider the lilies." They were not paying attention.

I also got to ponder some sunrises. To watch the sun come up over the ocean early in the morning is one definition of "mystical." You observe the sign of the gift of another day. As the massive star peeks over the horizon you realize that for some this will be their last day and for others it will be their first day. For most of us we are somewhere in between but that between is sacred space...but...we do not pay attention.

We simply assume the sun rise and go on.

So on those sunrise days I spent some time with Dietrich Bonhoeffer...a lot of time. I do not usually read anything that takes 600 pages but then I usually don't have...you guessed it, time. Bonhoeffer's time was one of standing up to the church and to the government in Nazi Germany. I could not help but wonder if I had anything in me that was anything like him.

Would I have gone against "my" church when it went along with the nationalistic tidal wave and forgot who its true master was? Would I have risked family and everything because the haunting voice of God would not let me alone? Would I have walked away from the woman I loved, as he did, to tie his morality to the convoluted knot that lead him to participate in a plot to murder the evil leader whom we now know was a true personification of cruelty and deception?

How many times have I sold out because the masses wanted comfort? How many times have I spun a web only to desert it because I could not hold on? Bonhoeffer believed enough in God to offer his life for a cause he felt was bigger than the popular religion that opted for the road well traveled.

So today I did not take time to watch the sunrise. I'm back to business as usual. There's probably some spider outside right now "holding on" but I will not see her. And Dietrich....well he's gone but not really. His holding on will haunt me as it should. O God of sunrise and spiders let me not forget how hard it is to hold on in the face of the storms of comfortable culture. I figure you and Dietrich are having ongoing conversations about how we miss so much in the time we have. Help us pay attention....

jody

Intolerant of Intolerance

2010-07-26T04:54:00.000-07:00

Yea I'm getting intolerant of intolerance. I got another one of those "anti-Islam" e mails today full of incorrect assertions and seething with intolerance. The Internet is fine sometimes but when it is used to spread fear and ignorance in the name of free access or "free speech" somebody needs to say "stop."

I liked the article in the paper today that tells of an "inter-faith" camp where kids come together and share their lives and their faith perspectives. There were Baptists, Methodists, Muslims, Hindus, and a Unitarian or two. They did not "back off" their beliefs or water them down, they simply spent time together, shared worship together, and listened to each other.

The Jesus I believe in would have liked that gathering of young people. Where did we Christians get the idea that to claim our faith as unique and wonderful means that we condemn those who seek God on a different path? I know, I know there are a few passages of scripture that if interpreted as some chose to see them seem to exclude anyone who does not see Jesus "our" way.

Well, like dear old Mary Chapin Carpenter sings, "I'll take my chances" by saying that the intolerance of such positions is not Christian. I like the way Eugene Peterson translates Jesus' message in his version of the bible known as "The Message"...He has Jesus say in Matthew 7, "Knowing the correct password, saying Master, Master for instance isn't going to get you anywhere with me...doing my Father's will is what is important...(to me) you missed the boat...all you did was make yourself important. You don't impress me one bit."

We need to learn to listen, live together, appreciate each other's faith, and let Jesus do the sorting out. That wheat and weeds parable he told is a good analogy of how we need to learn that we are not good "sorters" when it comes to judging what is "wheat" and what is "weed."

I have some dear folk who are leaving our church now because they want more certainty and do not like the questions that are raised when one is open to a God who is really big. I understand their need for a black and white world where a certain view of faith is fixed and prescribed. They also want a Bible where there are no questions or different interpretations. I wish them well but I could not go where they wanted to go much less lead them as a pastor to that place of certainty.

The spirit and love "of" Christ is bigger than the religion "about" Christ. What do we really think that the power that overcame death one morning wants us to do in a world where so many people differ in their views of faith and God? Are we to build walls or bridges?

We can still hold to the uniqueness of our faith without condemning those who walk a different path. We can especially listen to the "truths" about other faiths without spreading false realities based upon a lack of understanding. Most of what comes out of the mouths of "radical Islamists" is a complete misconstruing of that faith just as some of what I hear coming out of the mouths of certain "Christians" is nothing I want a part of. (See, I'm intolerant of intolerance...told you.)

In Isaiah God makes an offer that we need to take up: "Come let us reason together." Religion that is based on fear is usually unhealthy religion. God is at work in all sorts of places in this world. Those of us who claim the title, "Christian" must be careful not to think of it as an exclusive "password" that get us in while we claim that other are left out.

The one who gave us this marvelous faith cautions us not to make our spiritual journey a seeking after a password but a following of a "way." That "way" is a way of love, compassion, attentiveness to others...especially those with whom we disagree, and a joining with God in the healing of the nations.

Blessings
jody

When Preachers Lose Faith

2010-07-19T13:24:00.000-07:00

That was the title of the recent article in the newspaper. I suppose those who read it and who were not one of "us clergy" probably thought those words have the same ring as a life insurance salesperson who does not have their own policy, does not pay a premium, and in fact does not really believe in life insurance. Would you invest with such a person?

We who "wear the robes" and use the lingo read that article with different eyes. We know that using the language does not mean that we always live the language. Hey, listen I understand that you do not want your personal trainer to have a "spare tire" around his or her middle section so you probably do not want your pastor to....well...have doubts.

Well don't get too close. You might discover the "man behind the curtain" (or woman of course) does in fact have some doubts. I am sure you will find a different variety of doubts depending on the individual clergy but if you peer behind the robe and the ritual you'll find some garden variety uncertainties.

I remember a certain person in one of my churches being very disappointed when one of her former pastors "crashed and burned." It seems he used poor judgment when it came to hanging around a certain woman. He barely survived and was allowed to stay in ministry but he was moved and given a much smaller church. This disappointed woman simply said to me after sharing her sadness at his "failings", "Well, I suppose ministers are human too."

I turned to her and said, "If you only knew how human it would scare you." She seemed startled.
Do you folks out there in the blog-0-sphere think that when we get ordained that we go through some kind of security check point that somehow renders us well...not human? Check out the David story in the bible. Old David was "chosen of God" to be the leader but wow was he ever human. Seems he could write wonderful lyrics that later became Psalms but he could also bribe, steal, and become the material for afternoon soap-operas with that Bathsheba affair.

Yea, we're human alright, real human. So you might suppose we have doubts and even crises of faith...you know like those people we try to serve and care for. We did not receive an inoculation against the ups and downs of the spiritual journey. We are on the road, the same road as the "flock" we attempt to shepherd.

I've written a book about all this because I know that we who spend so much time giving other people water can become thirsty ourselves if we are not careful. I've learned the hard way that my weekly preparation and study for the sermon is "not" my spiritual stop by the well for water...it is my "job." It is up to me to stop by the well for just me....to drink for me...not my people...for me. Handling the water is not drinking the water.

So...shock and awe...we doubt at times. But take heart, in the midst of all those doubts is the reality of what Alan Jones, one of us, taught me. He said, "The opposite of faith is not doubt, it is certainty." If you are certain and sure of everything you do not need that faith that often times has to take a leap or believe in spite of rather than because of...

I wonder if the guy who responded to Jesus that day and said, "I believe Lord, help my unbelief," was investigating being a minister? In the valley of doubt, dark as it is, guess who is present...a shepherd..."the" shepherd...thank God.

Bless you,
jody

A Bush Full of Butterflies

2010-07-15T03:26:00.000-07:00

We two legged creatures seem fascinated with the winged wonders known as butterflies. It may because they literally squeeze time in front of our very eyes. If one pays attention the sequence of life can be condensed for observation.

In a time span that at most is a year an egg on a leaf becomes a caterpillar that becomes a cocoon that becomes the colorful winged creatures that now cover the three "butterfly bushes" in our backyard. These butterflies seem to be really having a good time. They glide from flower to flower while absorbing the sweet substance that keeps them flying.

All this joy lasts on average "two weeks." Some butterflies only live five days. Monarchs get as much as an extra year. We get to watch all of this. We have a little longer so we become the observers of their lives.

Relatively speaking this tiny speck of dust we inhabit is to "the" cosmic observer a bush full of butterflies. We have our own kind of "seed" and for a while inhabit a warm dark space which resembles a cocoon. The difference is that we do not do our own spinning. Our warm hiding space lasted about nine months and all was taken care of by someone called, "mother."

We did, however, burst forth from that time of development and stretch our "wings" so that we might explore the new light around us. Our pace was of course much slower. We were not suddenly able to dance from flower to flower like our nature's kin. Perhaps they are more advanced than we are.

They seem so eager to enjoy the flowers of the butterfly bush. Is it because they know they have so little time?

Long ago a poet came up with a phrase, "So teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom." I wonder. Are we the wise ones or is it the butterflies? They seem to know how special every day is. There's is a dance of joy.

We are the "observers" who get to watch "their time" and get to see it end. Listen this day and perhaps in the breeze there will be words whispered by that cosmic observer: "Your days are like the butterfly only you seem so unaware of it."

Someone who said he came directly from the "studio" of that cosmic observer once commented to a busy-minded group of followers, "Consider the lilies." I think he meant, "Pay attention, now...Where are you going so fast? Enjoy each individual flower and each individual day."

So today I will take a few "longer" moments and observe the bush full of butterflies and realize there is one who observes me...and I will say, "Thank you for the time."

Bless you
jody

Mourning for the Death of the Internet

2010-07-11T03:24:00.000-07:00

OK I'm sort of lost between two worlds. Part of me is a poet-Renaissance-kind of guy who loves to ponder. Then there is the part of me that has one foot in the "tech" world. After all I'm doing this blog thing but I'm lost in the I-Phone stuff and part of me does not like the twitter effect that seems to be doing in some forms of "real" communication and community. So, I'm lost.

I'm not sure which part of me found amusement at what popped up as I logged on today. There was the face of "Prince" with the words, "Prince says the Internet is dead." I'm not a Prince fan so I do not even know what it means when the next line says, "the artist formerly known as Prince." So the guy has had some kind of metamorphosis but he's... well still Prince sort of.

Anyway where I'm going with this, I think, is the star/celebrity world we seem to live in where stuff like the Lebron James phenomenon grows in the fertile soil of a media-tech-driven feeding frenzy kind of atmosphere. I'm not sure how a guy like Lebron or Prince or whoever he is today keeps any kind of perspective. But then maybe they don't and that is the problem.

Fame has always been a blessing and a curse. Now the Internet and fast paced broad based information sharing fuels the fame flame. Hey, I like that, "fame flame." You can quote me. I did not google the phrase so I might not be original but until I do it's original for now.

Fame and idolatry are first cousins. As I understand it first cousins are not supposed to "get married" or there is trouble ahead. I rest my case on that one.

So for now I will not mourn the announced death of the Internet. I seem to have a love-hate relationship with it. E mails are helpful and demonic at the same time...know what I mean? Too much of a good thing is a bad thing...

I'm not sure what all the above was about, but after all it's a blog. I guess I wanted to "say" something before the line went dead. After all Prince sounded the call and he's Prince..or at least used to be.

Bless you,
Jody...the blogger formerly known as Jody

Inserting God

2010-07-01T07:37:00.000-07:00

Ah what a country. Recently a group of atheist got together and pooled their resources to put up a billboard reading "One nation Indivisible." They wanted to make a point that the original Pledge of Allegiance did not include the words "under God."

The huge sign ended up being placed on none other than Billy Graham Blvd. The "don't insert God into my life or my pledge" group claimed innocence at the placement of the billboard and "pledged" that they were not trying to do the "in your face" kind of thing by putting their protest on the road named for a guy who spent his life putting God into most everything. The atheist simply said it was "the cheapest place" to put their no-God advertisement.

The saga continued a few nights after the sign went up. Some folks figured out a way to get high up using evidently two ladders (figure that out) and spray painted the words "under God" just below the atheists proud words. The "under God" graffiti had an arrow pointing upward just in case folks did not get the need for the insertion.

So now we have clandestine God inserters roaming about with spray-paint cans. I suppose that you could consider this act as one of "defacing" the professionally done billboard.

I wonder if God needs this kind of help or if there is a willing suspension of the rules to allow for graffiti if is in the "name of Almighty?" I suppose God doesn't mind being "inserted" when left out but then from what I've seen God is used to being left out of a lot of things.

We used to insert God into public school prayers and before High School football games until the "not in my back yard" atheists lobby made enough noise to get the High Court's attention. God was "overruled" or at least the insertion of God was. I'm personally convinced that omitting "school prayer" and pep-rally type prayers are not the real problems when it comes to the leaving God out issue.

Leaving God out of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag might be a "sign" of the moral decay around us or it might just be full of sound and furry signifying not much of anything. I wish the pro-God sign painters would have inserted the words "feed the hungry" or "work for peace" to leave passer-by's scratching their heads in order to figure out why those words were inserted.

Such graffiti might lead the observers to a God who is more concerned with justice and mercy than with whether his/her name is left out of a pledge. Let's insert God into where God really needs to be: in the messy stuff of life where balance is needed when it comes to what America is really all about.

Where did I put that spray-paint can?

jody

Bloom Where You are Planted

2010-06-28T07:38:00.000-07:00

It is that time of year when Methodist ministers move. In the past few weeks you may have seen those of "our type" sneaking in ABC stores trying to quickly obtain boxes...or maybe some other stuff. After all moving is stressful.

We've moved 7 times. I celebrate that I was not on the list this year although it is almost a reflex action to start looking for boxes this time of year.

I think back on the memories of moving. There was that move from seminary to our first church. A hurricane came through the night we moved. We packed in the rain. When we arrived at our new parsonage the guy we followed had attempted to save a few steps and planted his rented moving truck at the front door with the wheels on the lawn. When he attempted to leave he bogged down in the wet grass. The tow truck also bogged down so when we arrived it looked like someone was putting a septic tank in the front yard...or maybe a swimming pool.

My first thought was, "The people who come to see us will think I did it and know that their new preacher must really be stupid." I quickly put the word out that it was that other "stupid" preacher not this one.

I then remember the move where we decided that we had enough money to actually have someone move us. That was the good news. The bad news was that the guy showed up with another preacher's furniture already in the truck figuring that Methodist ministers do not have that much stuff...He got only half our "stuff" in the truck and then said, "You must have been hiding things when I came to give you an estimate."

What? So I ended up borrowing one of his other trucks and driving it to the new place. When we got there his movers were quite drunk. They must have helped some other Methodist preachers find boxes at the ABC store and hung around a while.

I remember finding my dear wife crying out in the backyard of one of our "new places." She told me that moving was hard. I reminded her that when we started dating years before she informed me that "She always thought she wanted to marry a minister." The problem was that her "model" for this was her Lutheran pastor who was with the church for 35 years. She married the wrong denomination...and maybe the wrong guy...but not really.

Anyway I remember and empathize with all those dear ministers who just moved. We Methodists laugh at our Baptist and Presbyterian minister friends who talk of "interims." Presbyterians often have as much as two years of interim time before they get a new minister. The interim time for we Methodist ministers is "two hours."

Everybody moves the same day. You say bye in the morning and hello in the afternoon. It is kind of like those divers who do not "de-compress" and come up too quickly from the depths. They get cramps called "the bends." Well...such quick transition can give one the emotional "bends" as we go from tears of goodbye to greetings of hello...but that's the way it is.

"Bloom where you are planted," is our motto even if there is a bit of "transplant shock." So to all my Methodist minister brother and sisters I send a prayer your way...let me know if you need me to make an extra trip for you to the ABC store...you know to return some boxes for refunds or something like that....

jody

Jesus Has Left the Building

2010-06-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

The newspaper article was accompanied by a photo of people taking pictures as it happened. From street level the cameras were focused on the roof as Jesus left the building. The 12 foot sign which read "Jesus Saves" was taken down the other day by a crew that was donating their services in order to "save" the Jesus Saves sign.

It seems that Jesus was being saved so that he could reside at another church campus that is offering him a home and another building to inhabit. They want the 60 year old "Jesus Saves" neon sign to continue to be a landmark for people who need to "find their direction today."

It seems that a campaign was launched to save Jesus from the wrecking ball that was soon to destroy the building upon which his name rested for all these years. Progress was going to destroy Jesus. His saving sign would no longer beam across the way. So the powers that be came together to save Jesus so that he could continue to "save" all who would pay attention.

I wonder how many who passed by paid attention to the sign? Are we saving a piece of history or are we saving something else? Do some people see Jesus much like they view this sign? Is Jesus like a museum relic? His shinning message was nice but now it is time to move on. We must make a place for modern things and new highways that take us places faster.

We no longer have the time it takes to pause and watch the on and off flash of words that say, "Jesus Saves." What is it that Jesus saves anyway?

Maybe one day it was a sign that people heeded but after all it is a bit "dated" don't you think? My friend Ed Kilbourne says in one of his songs, "I'd rather be 'used' than 'saved'". Well this Jesus was so used up that he almost fell victim to the recking ball.

So Jesus has left the building. The truth is that he left long ago. His rusting sign may have graced the roof for years but he was not there. The neon lights may have peered into the night but if you had investigated you would find the same thing that those distraught women found early one morning long ago when they went to find a relic in a graveyard. To their surprise they faced an empty tomb with a sign across it that read, "Jesus has left the building."

The "Jesus Saves" sign is something that some of his followers came up with much later. I suppose that "sign" has turned as many people "off" as it has turned people "on." I used to have a book entitled, "I'm Saved, You're Saved Maybe."

The Jesus I encountered a while back can never be confined to a sign or a building or a phrase. Religion likes to capture him but he will not have it. Jesus is...well...out there offering transformation to all who will pay attention. The choice is not whether to preserve an old flashing sign or relegate it to a museum. The choice is whether to be "used" by the very alive spirit of Christ or to be safe and "saved" from a world where change happens all too fast.

Jesus has left the building. Jesus "saves" all right; he saves us from hiding in the past and relegating his revolutionary message to a placard that decays along with that famous "moth and doth that corrupts."

Bless you,
jody

Old Dust

2010-06-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

Wow and I thought that the dust in our house was old. We just spent 200 million dollars to dust an asteroid. It seems a spacecraft was launched in 2003, landed on a 1600 foot piece of rock that is 2 billion miles away, collected some "dust", and returned a few days ago.

So let me get this straight. This was a 4 billion mile trip in order to dust? I have a hard time hitting the squirrels in my back yard with a BB gun. The rascals want to gorge themselves with the seed reserved for my birds so I try to pester them with tiny pellets to keep them from thinking they are guests at a free backyard buffet. The squirrels are quite safe due to my inability to hit the broad side of a barn. (Except that one who fell victim to a lucky shot a few months ago but that is another story)

With our technology it seems we can hit a moving target that is 2 million miles away, gather some asteroid dust, and return the "dust broom" safely back all in seven years. Why do we need to dust an asteroid? Well, why did the chicken cross the road? Why climb a mountain? Why pay taxes?

Anyway we did it. As if we do not have enough dust on the top of our refrigerator we have to go millions of miles to bring some more of the stuff to earth.

It seems this dust is really old. They think it will help reveal how planets like ours formed. It seems that the "building blocks" for planets were asteroids. So you do a little dusting on a chunk of rock 2 million miles away and alas what is under the dust is none other than the great, great (keep on going) great grandparent of well...us.

"From dust you came and to dust you shall return"...so goes an old saying. Well now we've "returned" some dust that may tell us about our own "origins." As the water soaked Wicked Witch of the West said as she returned to dust in a cloud of smoke, "What a world, what a world."

Next time I do some dusting in our house I shall smile and think of the big time Creator who, according to the old, old story, created us humans from...you guessed it...the dust. It seems this same creator created most everything. There are billions of galaxies out there, a lot of them dust covered.

It seems now that God does not have to do any dusting throughout the heavenly hosts that we call the universe. We do the dusting for God. What a world!

Blessings

jody

What a Tangled Web We Weave...Us not Spiders

2010-06-08T04:40:00.001-07:00

This morning I marveled at the overnight work of a spider who wove her web between two day-lillies. The sun's rays caught the morning dew that collected on the web illuminating its almost perfect symmetry.

Spiders use special internal glads to "spin" their silk. Usually there are at least two kinds of strands in the patterned web. There is the sticky filament for the unsuspecting prey and there is the non-sticky one for the spider itself to walk across. Flies, wasps, and large creatures who gawk at such wonders on sunny mornings do not know the difference. So if you run into one of these pieces of art work that happens to be stretched between two trees on your morning outing you need to whisk away both types of spinnings because somewhere in the "trap" is the creator of the web. Ask the fly corpse you see in some webs if this "ain't so."

How does a spider know how to do this? Do baby spiders spend time at the "knees" of momma learning lessons in how to weave? Are there late night lectures on the "art of web making?" Does each spider have to take an end of semester test that they must pass and in order to be set free on the world to weave?

Unlike the spectators who marvel at the spider's web these multi-leg spinners simply "know." They are born with the wisdom it takes to weave what would take us years to learn. I suppose this should be a lesson in humility.

The webs we weave are often messy. We seem not to know the difference in the "sticky" and the non-sticky so we often get stuck in our own web.

We "spin" out harmful words that pull in those we hurt and find they we are also trapped by our own creation. We weave patterns that we call habits and then sit beside the web complaining that we are victimized by some unseen power forgetting that we are the spinners of our own webs.

Perhaps we need to spend some time with our spider sisters. You know, watch and wait and learn. They simply know. We, however, wise masters of technology that we are...must learn.

Blessings
jody

Getting Off Our High Horse

2010-06-02T03:04:00.000-07:00

I believe it was my grandmother who first used the expression, "Get off your high horse." I found it to be rather strange since as a child I noticed none of our family owned a horse.

I later came to realize that she was not talking equestrian etiquette. She had in mine something that was closer to a dinner table image; "Eat some humble pie."

It seems lately we've had to get off our high horse and eat some of that pie whether we want to or not. Clouds of ash ground our mighty birds of the air so we can't travel. Billowing masses of oil gush from the pipes of our progress and our robots and our might can't stop it.

Psalm 8 might be a good place to "dismount" from our high horse so that we can walk over to our Creator's "table" and have a piece of pie.
"O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth...
When I consider Your heavens and the work of Your fingers...
What are mortals that You are mindful of us????
...Yet you have made us a little lower than the angels...
You have given us dominion over the works of your hands"

But alas the Psalm ends as it should, "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth." Our dominion is but dust and ashes in the face of a mighty volcano. Our wisdom and the fruits of our technology cannot produce an "on/off" switch so we have to wait.

Then from the depths of the mighty sea we again watch as our "power" fails us. We witness our self-made destruction of the very creation the Creator gives us dominion over. It is time to get off our high horse and chew...slowly...our humble pie.

I wonder what we will learn? Is there some "power" for which we cannot drill but must wait on in order to gain? Long ago a wisdom teacher instructed his followers to "wait on the power I will send you." They were ready to mount their horses and ride off into the sunset but they were told to wait for power. The result was something called Pentecost.

So pillars of smoke make us wait and plumes of oil cause us to wonder how in charge we really are. Humble pie is not as sweet as I would hope but I suppose it is time for a piece.

It seems that we cannot see all that we need to see from atop a high horse. I hope we will notice things more closely now. Mother Nature, as we call "her" has a time-table we cannot set. And it seems we need to be more "care-filled" about how we use our dominion over the earth. After all the earth is not ours. It is a gift on loan from one who probably needs to hear just now, "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth."
Bless you,
jody

An Apple and a Flag

2010-05-30T03:37:00.000-07:00

Don't you wish that people did not have to stand beside a flag in a cemetery and weep? The flag represents what the person died for and why they died. Our word for it is "war."

I suppose it all started with an apple. Two people were told that they could have most everything but that there was something they were not supposed to possess. But a tempting voice told them that limits were something made up by those who were different from them so they stepped over the line and took it because they could.

We fight wars over land, causes, and maybe because "we can." Wars used to have a kind of strange nobility to them...if you can call killing someone who breathes the same air you do, noble. People would face each other wearing the garb of their nation. Flags would fly representing the "cause" and then it would start...the killing.

People looked at each other while they took life. A soldier would fall and another would step up and take the place of their comrade. The arrows would fly or later in history the smoke would clear and "time out" was called so that the dead could be buried.

Now we are "smarter" so we have smart bombs and drones that kill from a distance. They say our technology saves lives. It's tempting to believe this but then the apple was tempting too.

It would be nice if we could go back to that "garden" and try a "do over." Maybe this time there would be a debate as to whether or not the cause or new freedom was worth it.

But we live east of Eden. I wish we could be more careful with war though. It seems that all of our weapons these days are ones of "mass destruction" because they kill in powerful ways and even from great distances so that we no longer look at the breathing of the breath we take.

As the poet/song writer once said, "they may say I'm a dreamer...but I'm not the only one...someday I hope you'll join me...and the world will be as one."

For now I offer a prayer for those who stand beside flags and I remember those who could not wait for the dream to come true but who stepped into the cause because they felt they had to...

Bless you
jody

Stock Markets and Stray Dogs

2010-05-25T03:27:00.000-07:00

That' it. It's official. The stock market is like a stray dog at a whistler's convention. Someone whistles in China and off goes the dog. Then someone whistles down at the Gulf Coast about a leaky well and the dog's head jerks in the other direction and it runs toward what must surely be the beckoning of yet another "master."

Then for a while "man's best friend" sits obediently at the feet of the latest one to call, but then there comes yet another whistle from some far corner and since the poor thing does not really have an owner off it goes on another chase. It is no way to live life.

I went to the Y the other day to "work out" and there on the screen were the talking heads and the ticker running at the bottom of the screen with those little colored "arrowheads" pointing both up and down. To look at the screen was to counteract any effort I was putting forth to "stay healthy." From the corner of the room I think I heard someone whistle because some of the arrows changed direction and color.

The word "faith" has more to do with trust than it does belief. Faith is not really opinions about something but rather reliance on something. It is hard to trust a stray dog who does not know who its master is.

A wise man once said, "No one can serve two masters...you will end up loving the one and hating the other." It is not that the stock market and all it represents is bad but I'll tell you it makes a "hell-of-a-master." But then according to the old wisdom it is not supposed to be a master.

So I have to again decide in what do I "trust?" Trust has to do with what you lean on. My mother used to love the old hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms." I'm learning why she liked it. In our high-tech world of instant communications where whistles can be heard from far too many places in rapid fire succession maybe we need these old words from some music that should be sung and not whistled:

"What have I to dread, what have I to fear
Leaning on the everlasting arms
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near
Leaning on the everlasting arms
...O what peace is mine....leaning on the everlasting arms."

Bless you
jody

Dog Days

2010-05-19T04:01:00.000-07:00

I think "dog days" are supposed to be in the sultry month of August, but I almost had one recently. It seems our aging dog needs "hormones" so we have these small pink pills that must taste like bubble gum because she swipes them off my hand without a thought.

With sleep still playing with my eyes I pressed down on the cap of what I thought was my blood pressure medicine the other morning and started to toss the medical wonder down the hatch only to discover that alas the small blue pill that was meant to keep a lid on my bodily temperament was pink. I almost took the dog's hormones.

I wonder what would have happened? I suppose one thing for sure, my blood pressure would have been up that day. Would my voice have a slight high pitch to it? At mid-afternoon would I suddenly be compelled to scratch behind my ear? I might find myself wanting to get under my desk rather than sitting at it.

Upon returning home would Betsy comment about how sad my eyes looked and was it that hard a day? But would all be OK after she rubbed my head and tossed a treat my way? I suppose I would have had a "dog day."

I remember years ago when I discovered that I had high blood pressure. I barked come to think of it. I could not believe it. I ran every day, I was not overweight, I ate little red meat....I was supposed to be healthy. I growled at the doctor who asked me if anybody in my family had high blood pressure? "Well, my mother did before she died of a sudden heart attack...and yes my dad had it...so?" He looked at me and then asked, "And from your chart I see what you do for a living."

That ended the conversation. I was given my little blue pills. It was a dog day but I've been panting along ever since so perhaps taking one of the dog's pills would have been fine.

As I write this she is snoring beneath my feet...under the desk. It's her favorite place to spend the day. She likes quiet dark places. Her days of chasing squirrels and running beside me are over. Now she simply looks up at me with those eyes and more or less says, "Give my my pills, scratch my head a bit, and move your feet so I can get under the desk."

It's a simple life but she seems quite content. She has trouble getting up steps these days and when I clap my hands to see if she wants a dog biscuit her old dance is rather subdued. I suppose the pills help. Where is that bottle? I wonder if it does taste like bubble gum?

Bless you
jody

The Butterflies are Back

2010-05-13T02:53:00.000-07:00

I was lost in thought I suppose. I get that way a lot. Sometimes I end up somewhere way down in a kind of valley where "thinking" covers me like a heavy fog on a cold morning. So the yellow creature of the air almost ran into me.

In the midst of the fog there was a butterfly. He or she had been in their own dark valley. How much "thinking" did it take to risk spinning that cocoon that would lead it to a surrounding pattern of thought that rendered it incapable of seeing any light?

Ah the purpose of that spinning is beyond what I do when I get too heavy in thought. The butterfly anticipates something more. Its pondering points toward a new beginning where old thoughts become simply bricks that will be used to build a temple to the sky.

I need some butterflies. This past season the world again turned toward that needed dark so that seeds could ponder growth in their graves of anticipation, trees could do their waiting as their empty branches reached toward the cold sky, and grasses could turn brown knowing that colors of Spring would not be rushed. So it was with the season of my soul. There was a lot of death and part of my ongoing "job" is to plant those seeds of lives lived and speak words beside graves that give grieving people the hope that a Spring will indeed come. But the job has its "side effects." I find myself, if not careful, becoming heavy with thought.

So I welcome the season of butterflies. This bouncing yellow angel of creation seemed to whisper in the breeze, "Hey wake up. I did....the time of pondering is over for a while...live life now."

Perhaps the skeptic will say, "Ah but butterflies do not talk." But they do if we listen. An old prophet who was lost in thought long ago found this truth the day the creator of butterflies asked him why he was so down on himself. The heavy with the task prophet responded from his dark cave of hiding that the "work" was just too much. So the story unfolds and earthquake, wind, and fire appeared...I suppose to get the old boys attention. But the truth he needed came in the form of a "still small voice." One translation says, "the sound of gentle stillness."

It's time to listen to the butterflies. It's the season of resurrection and that's worth pondering with ones eyes open and an ear to the breeze.

Blessings
jody

A Final Goodbye

2010-05-07T04:10:00.000-07:00

It took a while to get there. They wanted to make sure we could view her favorite place when we said our final goodbye. Her favorite place was "Nippers."

Nippers is a multi-colored outdoor bar overlooking the Sea of Abaco. Caroline learned to swim in one of its two small pools. So she got to do two of her favorite things while visiting Nippers: dance and swim.

The boat's motor ceased its gentle roar. I reached into a small gray box and pulled from its darkness the wrapped ashes of Caroline. Her tired eight-year old body was now reduced to this small package. The stain of the cancer that she fought so bravely all her earthly life I suppose was still contained in those ashes. But as the sun came through the clouds and the boat slowly rocked back and forth the wind whispered to me, "Ah but she is not in the ashes or trapped by some disease."

But still there was the need to say some kind of goodbye at the foot of Nippers. So along with a few friends and her beloved parents I took Caroline's ashes and scattered them into the vast sea. I spoke some words but now I almost do not remember what I said. The words were also tossed into that waiting motion of the same waters that God used to create all that is.

I think I said something like, "O Caroline we give you back to the Creation from which we all come. This is what remains of what we remember of your small body but as we give it back to the sea we know that you are not here, but we are. Your body we commit to the oceans but the real you, no longer trapped and held down by disease, is dancing with God."

I then turned to Caroline's parents, Kirk and Mary, and placed my hand on Mary's bowed head and prayed, "O God, hold Kirk and Mary who love her so. We know you loved her even more. Give them healing one day at a time...gently...and we shall know that dear Caroline is completely healed in the wonder of your love."

Then.... after some tossing of flower petals her way and some healing tears the boats engine cranked and we went to Nippers. I discovered why she loved it so. From its open air dance floor you could see a breathtaking view of the ocean...and there was music...loud music...and people from all over the world, literally, were dancing. We toasted Caroline with some of the local beverages, we ate some really good food...gosh did that girl love to eat....and yes, we danced...O did we dance...we danced with people we did not know and who did not know Caroline...because that is what she would have done.

We bought caps and shirts consisting of loud colors...some of them pink because she loved pink...so that in the future on days when the sun may not shine as bright as we need we shall put on the bright colors and have people view what we wear as they ask, "What is Nippers?" And we'll get to tell Caroline's story. We'll get to tell of her love for life. We'll help her live again as best we can...but the truth is our story will only be at best a tale told from the side of a "glass darkly" but she....sweet Caroline lives just the other side of that dark glass. She dances with the God of sea and sky.

It was a final goodbye...but not really. We will never be the same because of her. Her ashes may now be part of God's big Creation but her spirited life is now more alive than ever. I'm going to stop now and go put on my Nippers shirt.... We love you Caroline....we always will.

Bless you,
jody

What Have They Done to Our Lady?

2010-04-26T06:29:00.000-07:00

I suppose she could be considered, "Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows." Her head is missing and the lost-to-some-cause vandal who cut off her hands as well as her head is I suppose looking at the same picture I looked at this morning in the newspaper. The act of rage is now for all to see.

She still stands in the midst of the flowers that her eyes used to watch over. She was placed there by some artist so that those who passed by her would not pass by her without stopping and remembering. Someone must be very mad at her or perhaps the God or church or son she is associated with. This butcher wants her to be remembered as thoughtless and helpless. After all he took her head and her hands so surely she must now be useless.

But alas this statue of the Virgin Mary is not only the subject of this article but she is in the news yet again thanks to some poor soul who wants to do away with her. She is used to being dismissed. Joseph was offered a chance to "put her away" when her shame was exposed that night in Nazareth. Her son even slighted her one day when she showed up to speak to him. "Hey your mother and your family want to see you," they shouted. Jesus responded with something like, "My real family are those who follow the will of God." I wonder if Mary thought, "Gee thanks for the support son?"

No one paid much attention to her when she stood beside his beaten body that day. She probably begged somebody to stop it. She was only part of the crowd the afternoon that they nailed him and his cause down for good. She is used to being dismissed.

But she keeps showing up in my life and in my writing. I've probably written more about her than any character in the Bible...except maybe her boy. She wonders around my soul I think. It may have something to do with hanging around my Catholic dad when I was young. Maybe that water that poured over my head from the hand of some priest when my father had me Christened seeped into my mind.

Whatever the reason I really like Mary. And now I get to write about her again because of one of her enemies. I bet that is not what you wanted is it O one who wants to chop her up?

Her eyes still peer into my soul and her hands still reach out to me. Her tender yet strong love cannot be destroyed by hate. She taught her boy well. Who do you think helped make Jesus who he was? No, it was not all God's doing. God picked Mary for a reason.

You reach to me once again, Mary, from your woundedness. Though a stranger took your silent smile with a stroke of anger you still reach out to me from your silence. Your hands go missing but they are there as they always are...reaching...hoping...loving.

Wherever you are O stranger, I hope you discover that in this act of destruction you have allowed Mary to live again...even in these words. In her tradition she prays for you. Perhaps you thought that you silenced her but her words are for the ages. Her hands that you thought you destroyed are even now seeking to comfort your hurting spirit.

Hail Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners...as you always do.
Blessings
jody

From Teapots to Billy Graham

2010-04-21T04:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I know how to create some "steam." Light a fire of words under a teapot. It seems that some of you out there in the blogosphere have some "heated" opinions about the tea party movement and what it is and what it is not. I will close that "conversation" from my side by saying I still think such "movements" in our culture today are foils against which we can ask what is the nature of community in light of what are "my rights" and what am I willing to offer, give up, share, in order to create the kind of "people" that Jesus calls us to be....so I'll put the teapot on the shelf for a moment and switch to Billy Graham.

How is that for turning down the heat so the steam subsides? Of course there are some people that even get "hot" about dear old Billy. They say in his prime that he was a little too cozy with certain Presidents. Then there are others who may not like his style of Christianity that focuses on the need for an "hour of decision."

But then how many people found out about this Jesus I talk about all the time from the lips of Billy Graham? My style of talking about Jesus is sure not Billy's but you need to know that he is in part responsible for me talking about him...Jesus, not Billy.

This blog is being offered because of the recent newspaper picture of Billy in a wheelchair being ushered into the library named after him. He can't hear anymore and his speech is limited. He said a few words and offered a prayer at the event. He said he was glad that the library named after him was not a "memorial to him" but a place where people could see ways to study about and ponder the one he talked about most of his life...that would be Jesus.

Billy touched my life the night I went with mom and dad to one of his crusades when I was ...O around eight I think. Dad went only to appease my mom because they had a dispute about something to which I was not privy. All I know is that the "peace settlement" for the evening included my father saying he would go to the crusade. That was not like my Sunday-go to early Mass-then get to the golf course father. But he went.

So since they went I had to go. Billy did his usual thing that night. I have no idea what he said. He usually said the same thing with a little variation. It all ended with the "time of decision" and all those people getting up out of their seats and flocking toward the podium. My dad got up. I assumed he was going to the bathroom so I followed him.

He walked by the bathroom and joined the crowd that was standing in front of Billy. "Just as I Am" was filling the room but as I looked up at dad I wondered "just what he was." Here was my rather stoic father crying and looking up. I reached up for his hand but he was somewhere else. He probably held my hand but he was being held by something else.

I went with him to the little "counseling" area where he and I, since I was there with him, were told that we would be receiving materials as a follow up. The "minister" who talked with dad challenged him about his Catholic faith and the way he was living it. I'm not sure that was correct or sensitive or theologically savvy but that's what he did.

Dad returned and was in agony. The next week he informed his priest that he would be joining the Methodist church so that he could be with his family and start anew his "real" spiritual journey. Dad received a letter in a few days telling him that his soul "was in danger of hell-fire." Don't you love the church?

Anyway, dad and I received the promised "materials." I remember answering the questions and sending in the completed work that was returned to me and us with comments.

I went a different path later on. It was not my father's path nor was it in the style of Billy. But as I saw him looking out at me from that wheelchair I spoke a prayer. "Thank you Billy...for being a part of my journey and so many journeys. May this last part of your journey be peaceful and may you know how many people are different because you spoke about the man we both love."

Bless you
jody

Would Jesus Have a Tea Party?

2010-04-16T05:04:00.000-07:00

America is a great place. We seem to be able to have a "party" at the drop of a hat. There are Supper Bowl parties, St. Patrick Day parties, parties for benchmarks such as anniversaries; and now we are having "tea parties."

I've tried to listen to the reasons for the tea parties. A lot of people get together, make signs, and make a lot of noise. This time the noise is not about celebrations but about "rights." As I listen to the voices it seems that a good number of the party goers seem to think that their rights are either being taken away or infringed upon. One voice screamed that "I don't want to pay for someone else's insurance." Another voice said, "I don't want anyone messing with my life and especially my guns."

Well talk about guns and taxes and you have an argument for sure. I just got through listening to the tax lady tell me how much I paid in taxes. It was a lot, I think. I could sure use the money for some things on my list rather than someone else's list. I don't own any guns. Well, that's a small lie. I do own two BB pistols that I in the past used to ward off those dog-gone squirrels from eating all the birdseed...that is until I...well...accidentally killed one of the rascals with a lucky shot. It was a sad scene that reminded me of something like original sin. I killed not for food or protection but for rage...anyway that's another story for another time...and besides the guns are now in a drawer.

I wonder though if Jesus would have or go to a tea party? Would he be upset to pay for someones health insurance if they could not pay for it. Would he stand at the door and protest and respectfully tell someone that they could not have any of his guns? What would he have to say about his "rights?" I do not remember him ever using the phrase "big brother," but I do remember he often talked about his "father." Who did he consider his "brothers and sisters" to be if he claimed that we could all have one father?

Rights are important. I want to live in a world, however, where people value community more than individual rights. Did I take a wrong turn somewhere in the past? The old stuff talks about the rights that this Father of Jesus "required" was to "care for the orphan and widow...and to make sure that the stranger had a place to stay and the poor had shoes." I do not remember much being said about rights.

Last time I checked I'm as bloody a capitalist as it gets. I like my things. I do not much like anyone threatening to take my stuff away. I believe people appreciate life more if they work for what they get. All of this is fairly important to me, but you know....it's not all about me. This Jesus I kept bumping up against often challenges me. His words about thinking of others first and the risk of giving without expecting returns is...well...not my nature.

Anyway....this is a blog and I was just wondering if Jesus would go to a tea party.

blessings
jody

Recovering from the Resurrection

2010-04-08T05:41:00.000-07:00

Well if Jesus had to "recover" from the resurrection I suppose it is okay for those of us who proclaim the old story to make it new every year to do the same. This year there were four funerals leading up to Easter, the last of which was for dear eight-year old Caroline. I needed Easter.

But of course since I am one of those clergy-types I am partly responsible for "helping Easter happen" for the crowds that come that day. People come out of the woodwork for Easter. We again had overflow spaces filled. Lots of people "need" Easter.

There's a bit of pressure I feel to make sure it "happens" for all those who show up. Sounds kind of silly does it not? Me, thinking I have to make Easter happen...Like that Native American tribe that believes if they do not do the morning prayer to the sun that the sun will not come up.

Jesus seems to "come up" with or without me...thank heavens. Easter is something very deep it seems. Resurrection is part of the DNA of life. We long for it, we need it, and it is there. Jesus is once again set free to battle the principalities and powers that he tangled with long ago. We are to join him in that battle.

When the lilies are limp and the Easter baskets are empty the work of Easter is still needed. So for right now I think I'll "recover"....take a deep breath and go back to "work" on what Easter is really all about...a resurrection power that invites us to join in the healing of the world.

Blessed Easter
jody

Too Nice for Black Friday

2010-04-02T13:53:00.000-07:00

It's Good Friday but it's too nice a day. Good Friday was "black Friday" before it was "good." As a child I asked the question anyone ought to ask unless they get too religious too quick: What's good about Good Friday? I mean he gets betrayed, denied, beat up, and hung out to dry on a tree of death. Did Pilate wash his hands in that bowl and say to a bloody Jesus, "Well, have a GOOD day" just before he sent him off to that barren hill to be crucified?

So I'm driving up in the church parking lot with the top down on my car. The pink petals are falling off the cherry trees like a spring-time snow shower. The tulips are starting to break open at the front door of the church. All is "good" with the world....and then I think...in a few hours the sanctuary lights will be dimmed...the story will be read...and the Christ candle will be taken from the room to remind all who gather than the "light of the world" is "gone out."

It's too pretty a day for such a story. I came in and told Linda, our church receptionist, "to cancel Good Friday services...It's too nice a day to kill Jesus." She looked at me like she's looked at me before when I say strange things. "I'm serious," I said. "It should be cloudy with rain dripping from the cross atop the church roof."

But then that is what makes Good Friday, good. It is a day for all our days. He is after all "fairest Lord Jesus...ruler of all nature...a nature that is "robed in the blooming garb of spring." But then he is also the one whose sacred head is wounded,"with grief and shame weighed down."

It is good because what we have today in this sudden spring with pollen ready to break out is an advertisement for Easter. But before we get to the beauty of the sunrise of resurrection no matter how pretty a day it is we have to stop....stop at the cross and remember how much this God of ours loves us on good days and bad days.

So who knows, it might be pouring down rain on Easter morning when we long for it to be a pretty day. Now, its a pretty day on "black Friday" but that is "good" because no matter what the atmospheric conditions are the cosmic weather person says on the other side of the dark clouds that surround a cross, "the sun will come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be sun...just thinking about tomorrow wipes away the cobwebs and the sorrow till there's none..."

Yea, I know, it's not so religious and it's not a hymn but it is why this is Good Friday....no matter what the weather....good or bad...it's good.
jody

Hey Jesus, I Need a Little Help Here

2010-03-29T03:42:00.000-07:00

It was time to go upstairs and do what I had prayed for seven years not to do. She was eight years old and I had walked the road of constant chemotherapy and radiation with her parents for seven of her eight years. At least three times the odds dictated that she would not make it. Every time she paid no attention to the odds and continued to dance. She loved to dance.

Every morning I started my prayer time out in the tradition of the Jewish way of "demanding" something from God in a very bold way. We Christians clean up spirituality and make it "nice" but in our heritage the Hebrew scriptures are full of "in your face" language. So I said to God, "I do not want to do her funeral." Then I went on and prayed for her and her dear parents.

I guess it sounds selfish but so be it. Yesterday I had to do her funeral. I was with her when she struggled to breathe her last. I saw the pain in the face of the parents who held her as they said their goodbyes. I wrapped my arms around the three of them knowing that all I could do was "tell" God to wrap bigger arms around them.

But it was time to go upstairs and do her funeral. There would be dance, and celebrative songs, and planned laughter to go with the tears...but...I still had to "do" it. I had seven years of requests built up in me and I was a bit worried about "how I would do." I knew me. I wrote her a poem and I crafted a service of celebration. It all looked good on paper, but I now had to do it.

As I started to walk out of the office a bit of fear and emotion swept over me. That was not good. So I turned back and walked over to my wall that held a special crucifix given to me by Edith. Edith took that large crucifix off her mother's chest. Edith' s mother requested that she be buried "with him." But just before they closed the casket Edith reached in and grabbed Jesus and said to her mother, "Mother I need him more than you do."

For many years he hung on Edith's wall and she told me that she would look up at him looking down at her and he always helped her in time of need. Edith asked me to come by to see her before I moved from the church I had served for eight years. I was her pastor and she was undergoing treatments for cancer.

She brought me up close to him, hanging on the wall and she told me the story of her grabbing him. Then she reached up and took him off the wall and handed him to me, "Here, you need him now."

I did Edith's funeral a few years ago and I brought him with me. I again took him off the wall and told her story. I said to all who listened that he was Edith's but she had given him to me and I still needed him.

So...yesterday I walked over to that wall and I looked up at him looking down at me. I cried a bit and said, "OK, I need you." I did not "hear" any response but there was one. Edith heard it too. I walked upstairs and lead a church full of people in a real celebration. I "did" fine. All kinds of people beginning with her dear parents hugged me and thanked me and told me what a marvelous job I "did." I thanked them and told them it was a honor to have been invited in to such a sacred space with this dear family.

I "held up" fine. My fear of coming apart was contained. I walked downstairs and back into my office. I took off my robe. I walked over to him. I leaned up against the wall and I looked up at him and I came apart. I leaned against the wall and I leaned against him....and as I softly cried I looked up into his face with his silent head leaning down from his cross and I said, "Thank you...thank you."

I suppose it is what this week ahead we call Holy is all about...
Thank you....thank you.

jody

March Madness: The Other Version

2010-03-20T04:27:00.000-07:00

It's called March Madness for a reason. The brackets are full of big name schools and some names that even after you hear the name you ask, "Where is that?" As the brackets shrink and the days toward the finals approach there are fewer and fewer names.

My strange mind thought of all this as I helped put together our church's "stations of the cross." The stations are composed of original art pieces made by members of our congregation. The walking prayer journey begins with a sculpture by none other than the resident artist of our house, Betsy. It depicts Jesus with his hands wrapped in prayer kneeling in the garden. He leans against a large rock and of course, since this is Betsy's doing, there is a garden around him with small tress and plants.

His eyes are closed and he is offering that now famous request that is heard through the years, "Can you take this cup away from me?" As you leave Jesus in the garden you walk toward a musical selection that can be listened to through ear phones of a piece from a requiem that our Chancel Choir did recently. Then there comes the stations where Pilate condemns Jesus, he picks up his cross, he falls, Simon of Cyrene helps him, he is nailed to that ugly tree, Mary holds the body of her dead boy, and he finally is placed in a borrowed tomb.

It's March Madness. As I walked through the stations I felt the "brackets" narrowing. Jesus is still in the "game" to the surprise of many who look on. In fact he makes it to the finals even though most of his "team" fouls out.

The odds makers are proven right after all as he is defeated. His hoped for "one shinning moment" is shrouded in darkness as a cloud appears over the scene of his loss. The crowds who were shouting earlier go back knowing that business as usual is around the corner and March Madness will soon take its place along side other left over newspapers that will be tossed. The brackets are no more.

Except in this "game" the loser ends up being the winner. It takes a few days for the dust to settle but the "madness" of it all ends up being a road to victory after all. Why does it take such madness to get to a final one shining moment for the guy whose image is frozen in a kneeling position at that first "station?"

It is because the one who created this teaming cosmos of ours decides to "play the game" with us knowing that our defeats matter. He does not just show up and declare victory. He comes, offers a game plan, and then takes the court with all the madness involved.

The difference here is that with the cut down nets still hanging around the neck of the team that thinks it holds the trophy there is a sunrise a few days later that ends up being a final victory. It seems that even though the brackets were completed by those who bend and abuse the rules to get to the finals there is one who offers a last comment that is perceived as "real madness" by a world bent on going its own way. Just as people start to go back to work after March Madness God whispers, "O death where is thy victory, O death where is thy sting."

It seems that Jesus is "not" frozen forever in that kneeling pose nor is he frozen by the power that always reaches the finals. So...when we get to the "finals" March Madness will have a different ending. So as I say at the conslusion of all the funerals I do, "Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ."

Blessed March Madness to you....
jody

If Now Was Then

2010-03-12T13:59:00.000-08:00

I spent the last week interviewing new candidates for ministry. To be a United Methodist minister you have to complete 3 years of seminary then go before 3 committees and defend your "call,"answer questions about a sermon preached, and explain your doctrines and theology. If you pass that, and 40% of them did not, you are examined for 3 years as to how well you "perform" in a church setting...then you do the committee thing all over again.

I don't think I would pass now. I'm not sure how I passed "then." That was 38 years ago. Maybe they were more lenient back then. I know I had trouble with some of the doctrine stuff...and the audio tape of my sermon did not work the Sunday I taped it so I had to preach it again the next day... this time in an empty room.

One of the Board of Ministry members "back then" said the quality of the tape sounded almost like it was done in an empty room. I did not respond. He then asked me if I preached this sermon in front a congregation and I simply responded, "yes." Well, I did the first time.

So is my whole ministry in fact built upon a lie? Anyway, after examining these new folks last week I'm glad I"m on this end of the interviews. I never took a preaching course, my beliefs "then" and "now" are not exactly orthodox, and my call was one I continually wrestled with. I think if the tables were turned and those folks with whom I am now on the Board of Ministry got the chance to put me down at the "other" end of the table, I might be selling cars for a living.

The truth is that the longer I live the bigger God gets. Doctrines that are the basis of hard questions asked of candidates do not seem nearly as important to me as making ways for people to find the various handles that open doors to paths that lead to an authentic spiritual journey. Preaching for me is now more of an exercise in engaging imagination than technique.

I really felt for some of my younger colleges that didn't "measure up." Some of them should not have. Some of them probably should not be ministers, but some of them simply did not answer the questions the right way or did not preach up to par.

Ah but alas my credentials now hang on the wall. I'm "in" so to speak. Now my test comes most every day when someone sits across from me and asks questions with their lips or with their eyes as to why they have cancer or if God really is involved in the challenges they are having with their family?

The "examination" now is done by a large number of faces into which I offer "the Word" most every Sunday. I can sometimes tell if I'm passing or failing by looking into those faces.

I'm glad it's "now" and not "then." I've grown comfortable with my hybrid heretical thoughts. They are like an old pair of shoes that I wear because I have no interest in breaking in new ones. I'm too old and set in my strange ways to finally "learn" how to preach...and...in terms of examining the credibility of my "call"...well...God simply would not let me alone and I could not escape. Jonah's fish is a good image and I was spit up on the shore long ago only to find that this wonderful and crazy thing called ministry is what I simply have to do...

Blessings
jody

Stuff

2010-03-07T11:45:00.001-08:00

What kind of stuff do you have? In the past few weeks I've been cleaning out my father's stuff. He is now in one of those "Assisted Living" places and he does not need all his "stuff." (I sometimes think "Assisted Living" places are the purgatory of life...not the dreaded end that we call "nursing homes" but also not the home living that we try to make them look like.) Going through his stuff and deciding what to do with it was both hard and sad.

I found some of my "stuff" along with his...you know, old pictures that remind you that at one time you had more hair and less body. There were old, new things that I had given him that he never opened. There were things that were probably special to him but not to anyone else. There were "gadgets" that I'm not sure what they were.

A wisdom teacher once said, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and dust corrupt and thieves break in and steal..." Well, I started to leave the door open hoping that some thieves could simply come in and take...they did not even have to steal it. What to do with all the stuff...

The footnote to the saying above could add, "or that Goodwill will get someday." What are we collecting all the stuff for anyway? So I started thinking of ways to get rid of some of my stuff before my kids had to go through it to figure out what the heck to do with it.

I also pondered just what stuff was worth keeping and what stuff was, you know, important. I found a yellowing set of papers that contained the words I said at my grandmother's funeral. I came upon a picture of my mother when she was 18. Her half-smile and rouge covered cheeks looked strangely like our youngest daughter...somewhere in there.

And then there were all the things that ended up in bags...some for friends and family...some for the kind folks at Goodwill...and some for the truck out back that would journey to the graveyard where we offer last rights for our "stuff."

I need to start getting rid of some of "it"...not getting too much more of "it"...and trying to be more careful about just what is worth "it."

Bless you....and some of your stuff (not all of it)
jody

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

2010-02-25T03:45:00.000-08:00

I've been reading about fear lately for a sermon I'm preparing. Seems like I'm always "preparing" a sermon. Didn't I just do that last week? It's kind of like shaving. You just have to keep doing it even though you seemed to have just finished.

Does not sound very "holy" or reverend does it? Well, this is a blog, not a sermon and if you really know me there are times I'm not very holy. I guess you might say it is one of my fears: that people will find out how really "not holy" I am.

Anyway, back to fear. There are the top ten fears. It seems that speaking in front of people is one of the top fears. No wonder I don't sleep at night sometimes. Then there is fear of flying, fear of dying, fear of crying,...maybe fear of lying, or sighing, or buying (too much), or if you are a hardshell Baptist maybe there is the fear of "frying." (You know the old Hellfire and damnation routine)

In my fear research for the sermon I encountered that scene where Jesus is told to "run for his life" because that nasty old Herod is out to get him. Herod had already relieved John the Baptizer of his head. John was pretty "hardshelled" himself and told Herod that he was persona-non-gratta for messing around with his own brother's wife. After a late night party Herod got all excited when his new wife's daughter danced around some pole and then slithered up to the old king with that "what have you done for me lately" look. Herod, who probably could have done a Viagra commercial, found himself boxed in when he told the sweet young thing that he would do anything she asked. She winked at her mom and said she wanted nasty old John's head on a platter.

Herod bit his tongue but it was too late. Since John was conveniently wasting away in Herod's dungeon John became dead man walking before the night was over.

So you can see why some well-meaning folks thought Jesus ought to run away from Herod. Jesus had a lot to fear because according to some polls Jesus was next on the list for Herod's ax. So what does Jesus say and do? He started singing, "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf." Well, that is a loose translation. Jesus said that he had work to do and he was not going to duck and run from that old "fox." He called Herod a fox...that's first cousin to a wolf.

So Jesus called his fear by name and faced up to it, which is what all this reading and study I did on fear says you have to do. Years earlier Herod's dad was told that he had "nothing to fear" from some obscure prophecy that foretold of a new king that would be born, but when he was told that the event may have happened in little old Bethlehem Herod had every child whose birthday even came close to that starry, starry night killed.

So it is no surprise that Herod's boy, Herod Jr, knew how to kill kings and prophets and would be saviors. Jesus had reason to fear.

But Jesus told those who offered him tickets to some far away place, to go tell the fox Herod that he was headed to Jerusalem and if the old scoundrel wanted a piece of him he could find him in the Holy City. Herod did eventually face Jesus in a kind of trumped up trial in which the aging king had his few minutes of stardom as he faced down Jesus and mocked him up one side and down the other.

Jesus basically said, "You can huff and you can puff but you can't blow my dad's house down." Herod and his side-kick Pilate said, "We'll show you" and hung Jesus out to dry "in the wind." So now we come upon another one of those top ten fears: fear of dying.

It seems that Jesus stepped into that fear also, right after the wind quit blowing. A few days after Herod and Pilate quit giving high fives to each other Jesus stepped around the corner of death and reminded his bewildered disciples that they still "had nothing to fear" because death was taken care of.

So fear not, or at least that's what those "sore afraid" shepherds heard that night. The truth is that we will fear. It comes with our wiring. (I found that out too in my study time) But if you wish... do as the old hymns say one way or another: "Hold on to Jesus...and let him hold on to you...He understands fear."

What or who are the "foxes" in your life? Step toward them and ask for a little help from the one who refused to run away so that we would not have to...
Bless you,
jody

Imposition

2010-02-18T03:59:00.000-08:00

Well, I did it again. In the ancient language it is called "the imposition" of ashes. The faithful, or those who are trying to be, line up and come down to the altar to be "imposed."

It is an interesting word. "I hate to be such an imposition but...." "I know to show up like this is an imposition but..." To impose means to intrude or to lay on somebody what they would rather you not lay on.

So what is this imposition of ashes stuff? Does anyone really want to hear, "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return?" No wonder it is called imposition.

But every year this "interruption" happens in order to get our attention. I mean if reminding someone that they are made of the same stuff we kick up under our feet each day does not get your attention then we really are numb.

The truth is if you are at all like me I do not much want God to impose much of anything on me. I have my agenda and my schedule. Not to worry, I'll work God in...when there's time...and space...and well money. But see that is the problem. We work God in...in between.

So each year those ancient words from Joel are read, "Sound the alarm, declare a fast, rip out your hearts and quit tearing up garments like so much religious ritual that you keep doing." It seems that God wants to be up front not in between or worked in. So we hear another old word, "Repent, and believe the Gospel."

Repent means to turn around. This year I used the image of those "spikes" that rise up from the pavement in some parking garages or lots where rental cars are dispersed. If you go the right way over them they fold down nicely and you drive on. If, however, you attempt to sneak out the entrance without "paying" those spikes stay firmly in place and puncture your tires. Go the wrong way and you "will" pay.

Repent means to stop, look, and listen to see if we are going the wrong way. For most of us to stop, look, and listen is an "imposition" but it looks like we need it.

So ashes are imposed on our foreheads so that we can "see" that mark of the cross. A little girl in our church asked her mother to guess what the little girl's favorite letter of the alphabet was. Mom started the guessing with "s" because that was the first letter of her daughter's name. "No mom, its 't'". "Why 't', asked her mystified mother? "'t' stands for church, mom. That is the place where I know that God loves me and the place I hear about Jesus." "But where do you get 't' in church honey?" "You know it's up there on the table...a big "T."

So this child of God sees what we grown-ups fail to see. That is why we need an imposition. We need our lives interrupted so that we can kneel and have a "big T" put on our foreheads to remind us that we are very special dust.

Each year I write a poem for Ash Wednesday. Here's this years "imposition."

A Dusty Pause

Say it no more
that I am dust
For I have knowledge
that I am more
not less

Accumulated are my
trophies of living well
And your words attempt
to burn away
my earnings

Is not life more than
food and bank accounts
But then that is fair
sounding poetry
for I know better

I am known by my titles
and my possessions
They grant me the identity
that I wear
like a coat

But you tell me it and
me are still dust
Waiting to discover
that in the end
there's no escape

So mark me with the
ashes and the cross
And I shall pause and
remember the
finality of love

Sound whatever alarm
will cease my wandering
For it all ends in dust
and only your breath
remains-
A promise of new life
for the dust

Bless you
jody

Sins as White as Snow!

2010-02-13T06:30:00.000-08:00

Well it snowed "again" and now I'm in the role of a kind of School Superintendent who has to decide if there will be school (church) "tomorrow" or will the "kiddies" have another play day. Alas the scripture came to me, "Come let us reason together; though your sins are like scarlet they shall be white as snow." Trust me, just because I am a minister does not mean that I sit around all day with scriptures simply "coming to me." I'm actually kind of a worldly guy who neither thinks in technicolor nor in scripture sound bites...but...with all the snow this blast from the past came cascading my way.

So, hey, here is another reason to come to church on a "snow day." You can get your sins "snowed away" for heaven's sake...so to speak. I did not make this stuff up. It seems that old Isaiah says that God feels this way.(Isaiah 1: 18) Maybe it was some snowy afternoon when God "said" those words; "come let us reason together...though you've messed up really bad...have a seat and let's talk. I could see red and be all mad at you since your list of transgressions are like scarlet, but I'm going to give you a pass and...well...take a look at some of my snow...I'll make them like that. You're forgiven."

It's like a "get out of jail" card or something. Some folks have trouble with what is called in Christian code words, "the doctrine of the Atonement." I may be one of those people. As a child I did not like the constant reminder to me that "Jesus had to die for my sins." If God is a father, what kind of dad needs his child to die so that I can live? I thought even back then that God needed a good dose of some expanded imagination to come up with a better plan.

No one ever told me that all this "blood of Jesus" stuff comes from a very Jewish understanding of "fixing things" when someone messes up. It seems that in Jesus' day if you wanted to say, "I'm sorry" something had to die and some blood had to be spilled...you know to show that you were really serious and really sorry.

The Bible is written so that it seems Jesus had no choice but to "go along with the plan." Well, most of them were Jewish after all so it made sense. Quite frankly it does not make sense to me and never has, but then God did not ask me. I do think, however, that Jesus did have a choice. He actually begged to live that night in the garden when his best buddies were sleeping off too much wine and too many words. I think of all the people who have ever lived that Jesus loved life more than any of us. I also believe he could have lived on and shown us how to love life as he loved it. I think that is what he was asking for that night in the garden...and when he said, "But not my will but your will be done"...it was really not that he had to die but that if God did not stop it...intervene...then Jesus was going to die. Jesus did "offer" his life in the sense that he would not back down from the way of love and sacrifice.

Love to be love has to have a choice. The choice was there. They/we could have accepted this new way of life that Jesus offered. But he poked the religious types in the eye and he offered a way of risk and sacrifice that turned over all sorts of tables. He spoke about the need to "let go...(or die if you want to really get serious)...to an old way of seeing and being in order to be born into a whole different world/kingdom.

I believe everything could have changed and God did have the kind of imagination to not make someone die in order to atone for our addiction to selfish, ego-centered living. But Jesus did die and ever since that cloudy Friday afternoon religious folks have been coming up with various "theories of the atonement" to explain why he "had" to die and what that death "did" to "get us right with God." One can debate which of these theories makes most since or if any of them do, but this is what I am sure of: The world and its ways nailed Jesus' kind of love down so that it would not disrupt business as usual. God did not stop it but God sure said, "I'm going to do something with this death that changes everything." I think God was very "affected" by all this and the death of Jesus became an investment into the very fabric of existence.(If you think I'm really off base here you can find something called Process Theology that says something like what I am suggesting.) Jesus did "die for us" and "with us." He was hung out to dry for us so that our suffering is now "redeemed." See I did get around to using a religious "code" word.

God "used" Jesus' death in a big way. I know some of this may not be "politically" correct or even sound a bit heretical to some people, but I believe that God was pulling for his boy the week that we now call Holy Week. What father would not want things to go different for his child. O I know, God "knew" it would come out the way it did because God knows us. But I believe that the love of God was agonizing with Jesus that week. Even God hopes and loves, you know. My heart tells my mind that God wanted Jesus to "live" for our sins but God knew that his very special child would lay his life on the line...and he did.

After God spent three days grieving and crying, God simply raised Jesus from the dead. (I know this is "commentary" and not scriptural but I warned you that I do not always think in scriptural ways.) So now God can really say to us, "Come here my child and sit down and let's talk. You keep messing up but I want you to be whole again. I long to forgive you...My own son came to live with you and for you...and even die with and 'for' you so let's reason together...and besides look it's snowing outside...."
Bless you,
jody

A Pocket God

2010-02-09T04:21:00.000-08:00

Wow we are really smart. These days we can have a pocket calculator, a pocket phone/computer/radio. From our pocket we can listen, send, even watch the ballgame. In days past there was a sense of wonder that an invention was able to not put time in a bottle but in one's pocket. Someone long ago figured out how to take a big, bulky time piece that was mounted on a wall or a mantle or even perched high up in a tower and put in all in a small metal orb that you could...yes...put in your pocket and "tell" time.

Now we've done the same thing with information. What used to reside in some dark basement with magic wheels that would spin with tapes of information now rests in our pockets. How did they get all that from the basement to our pockets?

So now we are fooled into thinking that we have time in our pocket and the totality of information in our grasp. So perhaps it is "time" that we pause a moment and put some things in perspective.

As I listen to how God is captured in containers of late I wonder what basement some have been wondering around in. It seems now that God can provide riches if we follow the right formula. God can champion specific causes for certain countries. God, while we were napping, took flight lessons and is now our "co-pilot." We've done it again. We have managed to take something really big and a bit mysterious and put it in our pockets so that we can "use" it whenever needed.

Nope...It just isn't so. The old story clearly says that the real God will have none of this "idolatry." Yea, that's what it's called. Whenever we reduce that which is supposed to be in part beyond our reach and put it in a place where we can reach it "conveniently" we participate in an age old ritual called the "golden calf" party.

It seems that when we creatures of the light get inpatient with any darkness we light a fire and create a pocket god. It works for a while. It even feels good. But it's not real and it's not God.

God is the one whose light takes 100,000 years to go from one end of the Milky Way galaxy to the other end. (By the way "Milky Way" is our term. Just because we can name it like a candy bar does not mean that it is "ours.") Our galaxy with is 100 billion or so stars circles around what is known as the virgo cluster. The virgo cluster contains around 2,000 galaxies.

It seems that the closest galaxy to us is the Andromeda galaxy, again named by us because it sounds really neat. It is a mere 2.5 million light years away. You can see it as a small point of light in the night sky. It looks like "just another star" but careful, you can't put in in your pocket and make a wish.

The truth is that this tiny speck of light is rushing toward us at about 500,00o miles per hour and will one day ram into our Milky Way causing quite a candy crunch. In case you are thinking of turning off your computer and "rushing" to the store to get milk and break, take a deep breath and continue reading. You've got some time...about 2 billion years or so before it slams into our party.

" O God, when I look at the heavens, the moon and the stars, the work of your fingers, what are human beings that you are mindful of us?" That is what some psalm writer(Psalm 8) composed one night before pocket watches and handheld computers messed up the wonder of it all.

We can make us a pocket god but as nice as it feels it will not be real. The real one always has a touch of wonder and mystery that will not allow us to capture the essence of the divine. The reason that fundamentalism is so dangerous in any religion is that it makes religion into creeds and dogmas and reduces the Holy to some pocket set of beliefs. This makes the "owner" of the pocket god the one who can say to the rest of us that we do not possess "the truth." Since we do not know the way or we do not practice a certain custom we are either lost or we are infidels.

It takes 250 million years for our candy bar to orbit around its "core" that is believed to be a black hole whose energy is equivalent to around 4 million of our suns. Is this non-pocket God "mindful" of us? Faith is not a "10 steps" to something card that you can put in your pocket. Faith is the amazing assertion that the answer is a very humble, quiet "yes."
Bless you,
jody

Lucky or Blessed

2010-02-03T04:18:00.000-08:00

Somehow this misty morning the words of Mary Chapin Carperter's song "I Feel Lucky" came to mind. She "stumbles out her rack" one morning and takes a look at the horoscope in the paper and discovers that "the stars are stacked against you girl, get back in bed." Have you ever felt that with without even looking at the print on the page?

John Denver in his sage-like way said that, "some days are diamonds and some days are stones." But alas our "pilgrim" in the prior song throws the paper in the garbage and professes, "I feel lucky...no Professor Doom gonna stand in my way...mmm I feel lucky today...no tropical depression gonna steal my sun away"

It seems that I hear a lot of talk about God's "plan." People often ask me if God has it all "planned." There is the classic debate about predestination and free will. If God has it all planned out where is our part in the plan and how much choice do we have? And where does "luck" come in?

To say God has a plan is fine if the stars don't end up being "stacked against you." The "gospel of success" that is professed so much by smiling TV faces is great for people who are "lucky." But the old story does not mention luck. There is a good deal in that old narrative about "blessing," but it seems that the blessings end up being showered upon the good and the bad just as the rain falls on the just and unjust.

So are we left with taking a chance on our daily horoscope? Is life really about luck, or is there a mysterious plan that God has encoded into the stars or our genes? It makes more sense to me to talk about God's "purpose" for our life rather than God's "plan." A plan is defined and set. A purpose is something longed for and offered.

I could not stay in this work of mine if I did not believe that God has a purpose for each human being, but I also could not stay in this "calling" if I believed that God has a set plan that is unalterable. If that is so, God is not doing so well...in fact God comes off either not caring much about us or as one who seems to be against us. There is just too much unfair stuff going on. Some talk of God's plan as if it is much like the paragraphs in the daily paper that warn us or urge us on.

God longs to bless us and does. Life, on the other hand, is full of mystery and freedom. In the midst of the amazing sunsets and hummingbird hoverings there comes earthquakes and cancer. So where is the "plan?"

I like what old John Wesley came up with as a compromise. He called it prevenient grace. Give up on trying to make spell-check approve "preveninet," it won't. Prevenient grace, Wesley believed, is God's grace that "lures" us toward God's purpose for us but does not compel us in that direction. Like a divine lover God longs for us to be whole, to walk the right way, to help God heal that which is broken. But we can go our own way. We have that choice. The stars are not locking us into a direction and neither is God.

Life also has its own free will. I am told that cancer is our body over-reaching itself in the rapid growth of cells...too much freedom. It seems that earthquakes are the result of plates that also have freedom. So is God simply "wishing us good luck" in the midst of it all? No...God is "in" the midst of it all offering us prevenient grace that is always out there just ahead of us, pulling for us, working as a "woman in labor" for us...wanting birth...and new birth for us.

Yes, the bad stuff happens and sometimes the stars seem stacked against us. But God is "always" for us. Life, which has it share of freedom, and we who are free may chose otherwise but God will not chose otherwise. Life may beat us down or we may be "lucky" but God is steadfast in offering blessing.

Good things happen in the midst of evil and resurrection occurs just like the flower that appears in the crack in the sidewalk. And yes, the reason for eternal life being a reality is that God is going to have to complete some of God's purpose in the next phase. Don't tell me when I do a child's funeral that it is part of God's "plan." God's purpose is for goodness and wholeness. I am weary of religious types who have to make everything "fit" by saying it is part of God's plan.

Mystery is part of God's plan. Blessing is part of God's plan. God has a purpose for us and the whole universe but it is not as apparent and simple as some smiling TV faces paint it to be. That is why it is called "faith." Alan Jones says it best when he says that the opposite of faith is not doubt, it is certainty.

So, "get out of bed" and step out into the place beneath the stars. Those stars do not hold your destiny, the God of the stars does. We do not know that destiny except to trust the old assertion: "our purpose in life is to glorify God and enjoy God forever." You are blessed to be a blessing. If you feel lucky, that's great. If you feel blessed, that's better.
So as I often close...."blessings"
jody

Lite Brite

2010-01-27T15:01:00.000-08:00

I suppose the toy called, "Lite Brite" is rather mundane now compared to video games and Transformers that turn from trucks to tree top giants in a few twists but in our children's day a Lite Brite was something to be desired. In case you have been living in a cave for lo these many years or you've never had or been around children, a "Lite Brite" is a plastic "screen" with holes in it. You then place multi-colored pegs in the holes in order to create a design or picture. Once the pegs are arranged you flip the switch and "tah-dah" your creation lights up.

In Jewish wisdom teaching there is the story of Ein Sof. Ein Sof is the God-like power of the infinite that decided to create "something" so that it would have something with which to relate. The problem is that when this "creation" happened the energy was so powerful that the "containers" in which the "light" was placed could not contain the light. The vessels broke into pieces. This event is called the "Shevirat ha-kelim" and the "sparks" that became a part of the broken pieces are called "netzutzot."

This means that parts of the divine light are all over the place but they are in "pieces." Life becomes both a recognition that all of creation contains elements of the divine light and the growing awareness that the true task of life is to help "God" put Creation back together again.

I know this is not the story that is told in the Bible about Creation but I still like what the story has to teach those of us who will listen even if from a distance. One of our Creation stories (and yes there are two if you pay close attention: Adam and Eve/ and/ the Seven Day account) ends with "broken people" being cast out of the garden. Before you know it Cain kills Abel, there is a terrible flood because people won't listen, and the remaining folks decide to "be like gods" and build a tower tall enough to "see it all.".....sounds like broken vessels to me.

So the idea of life being about helping God get the light back in the bottle sounds pretty good. Life then becomes about partnering with God in the healing of the world. Our Jewish heritage has an expression for that too: Tikkun Olam....to repair the world.

There are those in our faith tradition who still think that God is working with some time-table to destroy the world. Then there are those who pay no attention to any tradition who think our role is to "consume" the world as a commodity.

I like the tradition that says we are to recognize that all of life is sacred because it all contains pieces of divine light...even though the light is contained in broken vessels. It takes vision not just sight to "see" that divine in some people...and I'm at times that "some people" because sometimes I act like a really broken vessel. I hope someone has the vision to see the light in me when I forget it.

Let's be about helping God heal the world. Some people think God is not present because there is so much that is broken in our world. This old tradition may just help us see that in the brokenness God is there...and we are supposed to be there too...helping God heal the world. So I come full circle. Creation may be God's "Lite-Brite" and we are to start putting in the pegs to help God make a bright future.
jody

Let the Fish be Your Teachers

2010-01-20T02:31:00.000-08:00

Every couple of years Betsy and I take a snorkeling trip. In the next few days that is where I will be. There is something very mystical and refreshing about spending some time with God's fish. I woke up this morning wondering just what made it so and then a verse from the book of Job popped into my mind. (No it didn't I had to look it up and then it popped into my mind...don't want you to think I'm dreaming in scriptural technicolor or something.)

In one of Job's rantings (that's right when you hear about the "patience of Job" it is a stretch...with "friends" like Job had, his patience included debating, defending, and generally ranting at them and God for eight or nine chapters...so see, you might be more patient than you think in terms of "biblical patience.") Job wonders how he can perceive the ways of a very mysterious God. A clue comes in Job 12: 8...When Job again ponders just how he can ever comprehend the hidden ways of God he is told, "Speak to the earth and it will teach you; and the fish will explain to you."

Ah so you see my trip is really a kind of "fishing expedition" to ascertain the ways of God! Why this could even end up being tax-deductible if I frame it right.

Forget the tax benefit, the real value of putting your head underwater and looking at these beautiful creatures is that for a moment you share a silent world with multi-colored wonder. Sometimes while floating limp and steady I find myself staring at a fish who is staring back at me. Of course I'm just visiting its world and I cannot tell if it is simply being "patient" with me or studying me.

I imagine what the fish might be thinking: "Who is this strange un-colorful being that floats on the surface with a pipe in its mouth in order to breathe? Poor thing has to have help to even stick its head in my world. It must be of low intelligence not to be able to figure out how to breathe in my wonderful space without having to reach above for life. Is this poor creature with appendages bobbing about its body like so much seaweed not aware of the life giving surrounding that gives it life and support? Why does it not simply take in its surroundings and live? It has to artificially connect itself in order to even look at me. I suppose it is looking at me. Those eyes are hidden behind some screen so it can't even feel the glory of my world. Poor thing. I've seen its kind before. They appear to be so trapped in their world and somehow it seems that those who come this way look at me with longing as if they desire to really be in my world. Why don't you take off your mask and breathe with me? Enough for now O strange one. Go back to your limited life. Come visit when you can. You seem to need it."

"Speak to the earth and it will teach you; and the fish will explain to you..." It may take a bit of imagination but if we listen carefully, Creation can "teach and explain" that which we seem to not understand in other ways. So now I shall go forth in order to learn some lessons on how to be...from some of Gods' special fish.
Blessings
jody
jseymour@davidsonumc.org

Though the Moutains Quake

2010-01-14T08:12:00.000-08:00

One translation of Psalm 46:2 says, "Though the earthquakes come and the mountains fall into the sea we will not be afraid." Watching the pictures that come from the destruction in Haiti makes me wonder about the value of those words. I see the fear in the people's eyes and the shock on their faces.

So what does the writer mean that they should not be afraid? God isn't stupid. God knows that there are some really good reasons to be afraid. I believe God is in the middle of all that destruction and rubble with God's children so I know God understands their fears.

The ancients who wrote the words of the Psalms believed that the earth stood on "pillars" and those foundations could be "shaken." What is affirmed is that in the midst of the pillars being shaken and the mountains falling into the sea God is present.

What I see and hear a lot is how faith is shaken when the pillars of the earth come tumbling down. A terrible earthquake is an extreme example of how our world can collapse. People's world's collapse when the doctor says those words that the "results of the test are not good." Pillars shake when someone says, "I don't love you anymore." Foundations crumble when dreams disappear.

The reason I'm able to stay in this crazy, wonderful work of ministry is that I've come to see that though the mountains shake and fall into the sea both literally and figuratively there is an unseen presence that is underneath the pillars. That presence does not keep the foundations from shaking.

Some people have no use for a God who would "let that happen." The God of the Psalms never says that the pillars will not crumble. They will. God is beneath the pillars and beyond the fear. To fear does not mean that our faith is too weak. To fear means that we need faith when things come crumbling down and life makes no sense.

Jesus knelt down in a garden one night and basically said, "Hey dad can you maybe keep the pillars from crumbling, I have some other things I want to do?" The pillars crumbled anyway because this God decided to enter life in the midst of all the ruins...not fix all the ruins or keep the destruction from happening.

So we will again need to join in the healing of the nations as we seek to help our brothers and sisters in Haiti but think not that God was sleeping when the pillars shook. God has heard them shake before. There's no stopping the shaking because God is not a wizard pulling leavers or a magician who makes rabbits or earthquakes disappear.

Our God is one who promises that there will be a new heaven and a new earth where the pillars will not shake, but for now we have to reach deep and access faith. After Jesus did not get his request for the pillars to remain firm he walked out into the night and stepped into the destruction for us...and for those dear people of Haiti.

jody

Beginning in a Cemetery

2010-01-07T10:41:00.000-08:00

My first job was digging graves and cutting grass for the city cemetery department. All four years of my High School I spent those hot summer days either behind a lawn mower weaving my way through tomb-stones or at the end of a shovel whose blade had to toss dirt from the bottom of a newly dug grave where we had to "square it out." It was not glorious work but it paid good, $1.25 an hour...and I got a great tan.

I meet some interesting folks in the cemetery; no not the dead ones, the other ones. There was Junior who drove the truck that would dump us young ones at the cemetery. Junior's front two teeth were left in a grave somewhere. He liked to sing while he worked...you know whistling through the cemetery and all that.

Then there was Dillon who operated the back-hoe that did most of the heavy work when it came to digging the graves. The "summer help" had to jump down in the grave after Dillon did his digging in order to tidy things up so that the vault would be level. After all you don't want the new tenet to "sleep away their days" in an uneven manner.

And there was Joe, who was our "supervisor." Joe never did much expect boss us around and try to convince us all of how smart he was. I used to think, "If you are so smart what the heck are you doing in a cemetery...all the time?" Anyway, Joe loved to tell us of his exploits with women. If half of them were true he should have always been a very tired man.

Joe knew how naive I was. He liked to use that. "Want to taste this," he once asked as he offered me a jar of crystal clear liquid. I knew he ran moonshine on the side and I did not want Junior and Dillon to think I was a wimp so I leaned my head back and took a swallow. I discovered why it is appropriately named "White Lightning" because I still have a streak of that stuff running around in my system somewhere. I've tasted other "alcohol products" I must admit but never anything like that.

So as you can see I had my beginnings in a cemetery where some of my "real" education took place. It can be awfully peaceful in a cemetery when you are left there all alone with a lawnmower and told that you would be picked up at 4:30. This was before the days of I-Pods and headphones so I had to make my own music. There was a lot of time to ponder while I soaked up the rays that would end up giving me that golden tan that drove the girls wild. (See Joe did have an affect on me.)

Seems that later I ended up getting some other education and in fact found myself doing something professionally because of something that happened in a cemetery. No, I'm not a gravedigger but I do offer news about something whose origins begin with an empty grave. The story I get to share has its own cast of characters who are as "colorful" as Dillon, Junior, and Joe. It seems that as one child so aptly put it when told just who Jesus chose for his disciples, "He sure was not a very good judge of character."

So the story may seem to end in a cemetery but in fact begins there...and...yes the story is full of characters. I smile now as I think about the truth that I may have "started" by filling up graves and I'm going to end by proclaiming the unbelievable news that those same graves will end up "empty" of what really matters. It all began in a cemetery.

Bless you,
jody jseymour@davidsonumc.org

How to See God

2010-01-06T04:45:00.000-08:00

He stood there waiting to talk to me. He was silent until one of the big people who was talking to me after one of our Christmas Eve services finished. His father indicated that he wanted to ask me a question.

I knelt down to his eye level and said, "Well, what is your question?" "If Jesus sits on the right hand of God, who sits on the other side," he said? Come to think of it I have not really thought about that. I wondered where he got the "sitting on the right hand" stuff anyway. Then I remembered that we did use the Apostle's Creed a few Sundays ago. How is it that children pay attention when "big people" read "right on" by? (For you "big people" who are reading this and who might have gone right on by it says, "He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.")

But hey, I was the "answer man" with the robe on. I was the supposed to be the theological, biblical "expert," right? I accessed my mental flash drive. I was not sure that what I was about to say was right but that's never stopped me before so I spouted out, "Well, if Jesus is on the right side and God is in the middle then I suppose the Holy Spirit is on the other side."

He looked at me with wonder. Then I said, "The Holy Spirit is different from God and Jesus. It's mysterious...It's like our breath. It is the way God 'gets' to us so to speak." I then waited. I at least have learned to wait when it comes to answering a child's question. You don't want to jumble things up too much with a lot of words.

He hesitated not one moment and then said, "Then on a cold morning when you breathe you can see God." My goodness. I laughed...not a laugh of disrespect, a laugh of wonder. I sure never thought of that, but hey he's right. On a cold morning you "can" see God when you breathe.

"Why you could say that," I responded. Then I looked up at the child's father and said, "You know that was really good." His ,I think proud Dad, simply said, "He's a curious child."

Well I tell you it was one of my favorite Christmas gifts. I often use a certain phrase when I do the Benediction at the end of worship. I say something like: "May the God who created you in moments you did not know, bless you. May the son who came to live for you and die with and for you, bless you. And may the Holy Spirit who can enable you to do far more than you can do by yourself and who is AS CLOSE AS YOUR NEXT BREATH, bless you."

And now, thanks to this dear child I could say, "And if you want to see who sits on the left side of God go out on a cold morning and breathe." Jesus comes through again: "To understand the Kingdom of God you must come as a child." Thank you dear one for leading me closer to the Kingdom....So to all the "children of God" out there, go out on a cold morning and breathe. The One who made us "is" as close as our next breathe...and now you and I know we can see it.

Blessings
jody jseymour@davidsonumc.org

Does the Dog Have the Right Idea?

2010-01-01T10:21:00.000-08:00

As I write this my dog is snoring beneath my feet. Her favorite place is in the dark space under the desk next to my feet. As I create, she dreams of younger days when she used to not sleep 18 hours a day. Her sleeping visions may take her to those paths she used to run. Now arthritis and too many dog biscuits (our fault) leave her with a tired frame which can barely get itself up from underneath the cave she visits beneath the desk.

But then maybe she has the right idea. After all we barely get the Christmas tree to the curb, the wadded up wrapping paper to the garbage, and the nativity scene back to its resting place in the attic before another terrorist tries to blow up a plane. Maybe I ought to join the dog in the comfortable dark place.

But alas it is Epiphany. The Grinch might respond, "Epiph-a-what?" Yes, the new calendar on the frig might offer us the chance to make some resolutions that will last as long as the flavor of chewing gum and the news may be so bad and dark that we want to claim our own hiding place but the Christian year once again proclaims, "the light in the darkness." Old Isaiah says in the text used for Epiphany, "Arise shine your light has come," but as soon as the old boy spouts out the supposed good news he follows it with, "a deep darkness shall cover the earth and a deep darkness the people." That's like finding that the prize in the Cracker Jax box is a ticket to an amusement park that closed last year.

But the truth is often paradoxical. The light does come at the darkest time, but it comes. Epiphany means, "to manifest the light." So let's have an epiphany for Christ's sake. I still remember my uncle using that expression when I was a little boy. "Get the kid some candy for Christ's sake," he would shout.

In case some of my relatives are reading this, the uncle was the one Dad's side of the family. He was the one that everyone thought was a bit crazy, but I always liked him. As I child I remember he smelled funny. I later found out that the smell came from the hours he spent at the local "watering hole."

Anyway, let's have some Epiphany for Christ's sake. Sure there are people who want to blow us up and yea we're still fighting two wars...sort of...but it will do no good to join my dog in the shadows. Heck, let's remember that Christmas happened even if the tree is headed for the landfill and the manger scene is tucked away. While my dog snores let's sing (for Christ's sake), "I want to walk as a child of the light, I want to follow Jesus/God set the stars to give light to the world/the star of my life is Jesus/In him there is no darkness at all/the day and the night are both alike/the lamb is the light of the city of God/Shine in my heart Lord Jesus."

Ok..I know there are dog days...but hey, it's Epiphany...for Christ's sake

Bless you
jody
jseymour@davidsonumc.org

The Rest of Christmas

2009-12-25T07:13:00.000-08:00

Well after four Christmas Eve services I think I'll take some rest. So I may be blogging or not, we'll see. I came home last night after the 11:00 service and could not go to sleep. The momentum of Christmas surprised my tired self. So, I watched the movie, "Christmas Story." They play it over and over again for 24 hours so you can always just jump right into the story. Yea, he about shot his eye out...again.

And last night Jesus was born, again. It is the same story told over and over again every year. You can just "jump right into the story." Last night in the worship services I offered those who would listen the chance to "register" along with Joseph and Mary. I mentioned that the language I grew up on did not say that they went to Bethlehem to "register." They made the rough trip because, "A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be TAXED." It was a taxing experience for this homeless couple. They were not "registering" for a course but then the truth is they were registering for taxes or they would have ended up on the government's naughty list.

I then asked those crowded into the sanctuary...(it's always crowded on Christmas Eve you know)...if they were there to "register" or "audit" the evening. I offered all of us the chance to register and put our name not on the world's list where there is so much "no" but on God's list where we could become "the people we have been waiting for."

The Christmas story goes on and on and you can jump in anytime but it is meant not to be watched from a distance or audited. It is invitational and we need to "register." So I could not go to sleep. I stayed awake for a while...after "Christmas Story." I stayed awake with Joseph and Mary for a while. It was just me alone. The crowds were all back in their homes "with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads" or something like that.

It was a kind of nice moment. I asked myself if I wanted to register....again this year...to jump into the story...to help the baby do what he came to do...make a difference...change the world...offer God's yes in the face of all the "no." Joseph and Mary finally decided to get some rest. Even they had to have some Christmas rest....so...may you have some Christmas rest. And when the tree is down and the manger scene is once again in that box...remember....the story goes on and on....you and I can jump right in anytime...
Bless you
jody

We Need a Little Christmas

2009-12-19T03:33:00.000-08:00

I love listening to Christmas music and it's a good thing I do. The radio stations start playing Christmas music the month before Christmas and do not stop. How many times have you heard, "O We Need a little Christmas, right this very minute?" So how do we get what we need?

Each year we pull out manger scenes, decorate trees, buy presents, surf the channels looking for those Christmas specials, and long to "feel" something that we felt before. We need the sweetness of Tiny Tim blessing us with those innocent words, "God bless us everyone." We want the Grinch's small heart to grow three sizes. We long for the scene when Jimmy Stewart discovers that bump on his head and finds out each year how an angel gets his wings. And we count the number of years we've heard the news of a dreaded decree that "went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled."

We still "need a little Christmas." This week I found out why "again." I spent the night at our church's Room in the Inn ministry with 12 guys who were "on the street." They all had stories and most of them were looking for jobs that they could not find. One fella asked me if he could take some extra bananas that were on the table for breakfast the next morning. "These could come in handy," he said. He told me the night before that he used to "be in real estate."

Yesterday I visited the jail to see someone who was locked up for doing some really bad stuff. A few days before I listened to the hopes of a young mother struggling with cancer and watched a 7 year old child struggling with that same disease sing with the children's choir. And...I made the mistake of watching the evening news.

We need a little Christmas. Why do we love and need that decree for Caesar Augustus each year? It is because the "good news" came in the midst of the bad news. There was a big time "recession" going on in the land when the government announced yet another taxation. A young teenager named Mary barely escaped being stoned to death for adultery only because of the kindness and hope of a man named Joseph who was willing to step out in faith and give Mary's baby a last name.

And yes, "there was no room in the inn" for a homeless couple who probably wondered what in the world God was doing if they could not even find a descent place for the child to be born. We need a little Christmas because the original story tells us of a God who comes in the midst of all the darkness and the questions. This is not a dramatic presentation with stage lights and a church choir in the background. This is the light shinning in the darkness reminding us of the darkness and the hope that the darkness cannot overcome the light.

O yes, we need a little Christmas right this very minute. As a Christmas card I received years ago stated, "Unto you this day is born a savior....but it was night." May the star of Bethlehem shine into your darkness this year. May you have what is there to receive: a little Christmas.
jody

Christmas Identity Crisis

2009-12-17T03:49:00.000-08:00

Each year on the Sunday before Christmas I have an "identity crisis." Being one who is supposed to proclaim the good news I have a bit of a problem at Christmas time. What can be said about the Christmas story that has not already been said? Having a desire to do something that needs to be special and unique I come to a kind of crisis. What shall I do?

So, I decided years ago to simply tell the story. I do this by taking on the identity of someone "in" the story. I call it my Christmas monologue. The problem is that after I've been at a church for a few years all the characters are "used up." I've been the innkeeper, a shepherd, a wise man, Herod, Joseph, and even a stranger who finds himself as a guest in the inn on that fateful night. So, what was I to do this year?

I pondered the story. Was anyone else there? Then it hit me, those famous words that we have all heard from the days of childhood and bathrobed shepherds accompanied by wise men carrying gifts that look strangely like they were taken from somebody's jewelry cabinet: "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered." Alas, someone had to register them. So this year I will be a "census taker in Bethlehem," which of course is simply another version of a dreaded "tax collector."

I just finished creating him. He is a lonely man who like all "characters" whom we think to be "bad" has a story. This census taker happens upon that scene in the stable and gets caught up in the "story." He gets to "see" Christmas and his life is changed forever.

That is the way the story goes you know. It is not a story that is to be observed from a distance but one that invites the hearer to come close and step into the story. It is meant to be our story. God comes close in the form of Emmanuel...God with us.

The best way I can convey this truth to all of you who are reading this is to share what happened the very first time I did one of these characters. It was years ago and I was the innkeeper. When I got to the part of the story when the innkeeper went to the door he simply said this: "I went to the door to let some of the cool night air in. I had long sense quit answering the many knocks at my door because I had no more room. I had listened to every story and lie you could imagine from people trying to get me to find some room. I was tired of hearing them so I'm not sure why I opened the door late that night except to get some fresh air...There they were...shabby looking couple. The woman was leaning over the neck of what looked like a very tired burro. Then the man said what was unbelievable, 'Sir, do you have some room? My wife is about to have a baby?' Well I thought I had heard it all. Did this man think I was supposed to believe that he would take his wife out on a night like this if she was about to have a baby? Was I supposed to believe a story like that?"

...Then before the innkeeper could say the next words something happened. 4 year old Teddy Gellar was on the back row of the crowded sanctuary. His mother later told me he was standing on the pew bending forward, spell bound by the innkeeper's tale. When he heard the innkeeper say, "Do you expect me to believe a story like that?" Teddy shouted out across the room, "Yes!"

For a moment there was silence. The innkeeper froze. Then there was a solitary laugh. Then the innkeeper simply shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "What do I do now?" Then the magic happened. The laughter took over the room like a tide that had come in and swallowed us all.

Teddy Gellar told the story with one word: "Yes." O, the innkeeper regained his composure and finished the monologue but he and everyone else knew that it was a child who understood that in the face of all the world's "no" God had said "yes."

I've been offering my identity crisis monologues ever since that Christmas long ago. I've been many characters and I've re-written all of them several times, but none will be able to compare with the day that an innkeeper heard a child's voice from out of the dark....Yes, Teddy I believe it.

May you hear the story afresh this year. Stop, look, and listen and you too will hear in the midst of wars, recessions, and a world framed in terror the one word that matters...the "yes" that comes from a stable.

Merry Christmas
jody
jseymour@davidsonumc.org

Is This It?

2009-12-11T03:55:00.000-08:00

Anybody out there old enough to remember when it was a big deal to ride around and look at Christmas lights? Why was it a big deal? Well, there were not as many Christmas specials on TV for one thing. Why...because TV had not been around long enough to make the specials.

So instead of sitting with our heads in a box we had to go out and make something "special." I suppose more people had time on their hands so they would decorate their porches and trees and roofs with all sorts of lights. Not as many people do that, do they? Or do I simply not pay enough attention. Or if I am paying attention am I so overstimulated with the light shows of culture that it simply does not impress me anymore?

Why ride around when you can see it all from the comfort of your home on HD? Well first of all we did it as a family. We actually talked about the lights instead of simply watching them. I remember if all went well we ended up at Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone. That was special.

I remember at the small rural church that I served years ago the tradition was to stuff brown paper bags on a certain Saturday afternoon with nuts, an orange, an apple, and an assortment of small candies. These were called "pokes." The kids would grab them the next Sunday afternoon and were underwhelmed to say the least. These pokes were no longer special to children who did not much like the fruit and were used to having all the candy their stomachs could handle most any time they wanted it.

But the adults wanted to do it because they could remember the days when pokes were special. They still had stories lining their memory chest of their parents who reminded them that a poke was all they got for Christmas. It was special. So I joined in this tradition of remembering the ghosts of Christmas past. In a day when video games would soon relegate coloring books to the attic these adults at least felt the need to nod to the simple days of the past.

Which brings me to what the dear woman said the other evening at the Live Nativity scene. The shepherds were taking their places, the wise men were making their way toward the stable, and Mary and Joseph were now looking down at the manger. I was getting ready to walk over to the microphone and read the Christmas story for the first time that evening when the woman asked me, "Is this it?" "What do you mean, " I responded? "Well is this it or is there something else?"

I felt the need to tell her that I was getting ready to read the story and that yes there would be some dramatic presentations later and some music. For this passing observer, however, something needed to "happen." Simply witnessing the scene and the characters was not enough.

The children that night, however, seemed captivated by simply seeing the scene. Some of them would come up and stare at a "real" Mary and Joseph and then they would stand over the manger looking at baby Jesus. None of the children asked if "anything was going to happen." It already had...

So tonight I think I'll drive around and look at some Christmas lights. I might even go find a Dairy Queen. And as I taste that soft serve I will remember how special small things can be and that the reason for the lights is that something indeed "did happen."

Christmas: God's Bandwidth

2009-12-09T09:41:00.000-08:00

Well I got all excited when I was pondering what the word, "Emmanuel" means because I thought of a technology expression that seemed to go with this biblical title. "Emmanuel" means, "God with us." It is the stuff of Christmas carols and angel announcements. "His name shall be called Emmanuel."

So I thought I had this wonderful word that I overheard that has to do with computer stuff called, "band-with." This is great. Is that not what God does in that manger. God "bands with" us....Emmanuel...get it? Then I found out that the word is not "band-with" it's "bandwidth." Shucks, my image comes unwraped...un-band-withed...so to speak.

But alas the meaning of the word "bandwidth" has to do with the amount of data that can be handled in a certain amount of time. It is kind of like pipes and water. The bigger the pipe the more water can go through and the faster the water can get to its intended destination.

So, I'm back with the image. Emmanuel, God's bandwidth. God decided that we did not have enough bandwidth so the message was simply "not getting through." God tried laws, prophets, and all sorts of signs like floods and rainbows but we thick headed children simply did not get it...so God expanded the bandwidth. The way God did it, however, really surprised most folks. How could so much information come in such a small package? How could the heart of God be contained in a manger?

Just goes to show you that when it comes to God bandwidth gets turned upside down. God becomes flesh, the transfer of information is instant, but the method is quite small.

Emmanuel, God with us...God is still trying to get through to us. The information highway is filled with all sorts of data but in the midst of all the "bits" and gigabytes...whatever they are... there comes again this year the "good news of great joy to all people...unto you is born a savior...Emmanuel"...God gets through to us. In the midst of all the bad news and the horror that seems not to go away God gets through. We may run out of bandwidth and things can slow down or get clogged up but God will not be denied. It seems that God has all the bandwidth in the world. And you thought the Internet was big.

Advent blessings
jody
jseymour@davidsonumc.org

Wounded Tigers, Party Crashers, and a Manger

2009-12-04T02:58:00.000-08:00

"On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a Tiger who hit a tree. On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me a pair of White House party crash-ers." So would go the new version of that familiar song if you believed what was really "the news" for our day. Why are we an obsessed, celebrity driven culture? What is the need behind us wanting to have heroes who remain unblemished while possessing the power to capture our imaginations? Why do we care that some flashy couple duped the not so secret service?

I'm not really sure why? It is almost like we need to "go back to go" and start over. No, life is not a Monopoly game but we sure could use a new deck of cards and a transformed set of "pieces" to move about our pilgrimage toward wherever it is we seem to be going so fast.

For those who want to not take the express route to Christmas there is that "road less traveled." At the fork in the road is a crusty old fella with locusts in his teeth and the smell of honey on his breath. The centuries call him John the Baptist. He sounds like the alter-ego of Santa Claus as he seems to be making a list and checking it more than twice while he screams out every year in his wilderness to "repent."

The word "repent" has a bad rap. It's been screamed out by too many "modern" would be prophets as a means to "scare the hell" out of people so that they would straighten up and fly right before it is "everlastingly too late"...or something like that. The word actually means to "stop, look, and listen...and then go in a different direction." See there...that sounds more like a "stop sign" on the road rather than a hammer with which to hit people up side of the head.

My stop sign happened last night at our church's live Nativity. Our youngest daughter signed up to be Mary. I kidded her (and I probably should not have...see I've been jaundiced by our culture too) about her role asking if it was a way of doing penance for those wild and crazy days of her youth. She just smiled at me. In that smile I saw a bit of Mary and not just Amanda.

What really got my attention were the children who stood around the manger. They were truly fascinated. They wanted to touch the baby. No, it was not a "real" baby but somehow that did not matter. To them the scene was real. Perhaps they knew just enough of the story to want to see for themselves. Something real sure was happening at that manger.

So, I think I need to repent. I'm tired of news about wounded Tigers and party crashers. I need the "good news" that comes in the wilderness. I want what those children seemed to want. What if we can hear the old story and let it come alive for us? What if we can still help that baby transform this crazy world and this upside-down culture?

That was "really" my daughter up there. Those children "really" were captivated by the story. The news on the talking box is not the reality we need. I walked away from the manger and thought to myself, "Come into my heart Lord Jesus...Come in today...come in to stay...come into my heart Lord Jesus."

Blessed Advent to you,
jody jseymour@davidsonumc.org

Blue Lights and Open Arms

2009-12-01T14:27:00.000-08:00

What is it about the Christmas season that offers us the invitation to walk through the back door of life and remember the past? Is it the longing that we have as we get older to not completely lose the part of childhood that still lives in us?

Why do people watch,"It's a Wonderful Life" over and over again? Why does Boris Karloff's voice echoing over the years telling us that the "the Grinch hated the whole Christmas season" make us smile...over and over again?

My hair disappearing, my jogging time getting slower and slower, and my inability to really touch my toes makes getting lost on "memory lane" at Christmas even more appealing. So I remember traveling by train up to the strange land of North Carolina when I was six. We moved three times that year as my father changed jobs only to "land" one up in the far country...at least it seemed like the far country to a child in Biloxi Mississippi.

Dad came up early to "set up house." Mom and I arrived late one foggy night. As I looked out the window all I could see was a solitary figure standing under a dim lamp near the door of the train station. I let go of my mother's hand and ran toward the figure. My mom screamed for me to stop. Who knew if this silhouette was indeed my father? All I knew was that I needed him to be.

As I ran I hesitated for a moment. Maybe this dark figure was not the one who had gone ahead to prepare a way for us. Maybe I was running toward Jack the Ripper. Then the figure slowly lifted both of his hands in a sculpture like pose. I broke from my frozen stance and ran into the enveloping arms of my father.

He drove us to some little brick house with the fog still holding us. We were refugees and the fog seemed to protect us from all that would seem strange. As I walked toward the new "home" I opened the door to see a decorated Christmas tree filled with large blue lights. I shall never forget the sight of that tree. I had never seen a tree with only blue lights. It was so beautiful. In today's standards it would seem rather dull and unimpressive, but to a child who had no idea what the future held in this strange land, it was a sign that someone had prepared Christmas. Christmas would happen in the new place.

I wish for you some special memories this season. You may have to reach back and push away some of the sad recollections that get in the way. So do. Find a place of blue lights for you. For you see, Christmas is about another "father" who prepared the way on a still night. It all happened because of a world that was in need of some good news. It seems this world of ours, shrouded in the deep mist of a wonder, was asking questions that sounded like, "Is someone really waiting for us out there?"

Yes, someone was waiting. Yes, someone is waiting. If it takes reaching back to childhood days when we all needed the reassurance that someone would make a place ready for us, then do it. And if you know of someone out there who is still making memories that need someone like you to help make those memories precious, then give the present of making sure they have something to hold to....like you and your caring.

We have a God who understands blue lights and open arms....
Bless you
jody
jseymour@davidsonumc.org

Beginning Again with Thank You

2009-11-24T03:48:00.000-08:00

It's time to start over...again. I use a small blue book for my morning time. The readings in it are based on the Christian Year. So I got to the final page again last week. I like it that the Christian year is different from the calendar-on-the-wall-year. I need that difference.

Anyway, my "morning book" ran out again so it was time to turn to the beginning for the first week of Advent, which is the inaugural season of the Christian year. I've been using this book for twenty years now, so the readings have become like old friends that I reintroduce myself to after a year's absence. As I read them I wonder how I was feeling when I read them last year. As the old wisdom saying goes, "You never put your foot in the same stream twice." Life is always moving even if you do not want it to move.

Advent always comes around Thanksgiving time. So I ponder those pages of my life that I have turned in years past at Thanksgiving. There was that Thanksgiving when our second child interrupted the family gathering by having the audacity to be born at 11:17. She was 10lbs 2oz. I let her know over the years that she was my 10lb turkey.

There was another Thanksgiving a few years later when we left my parent's house after having a wonderful evening. Our oldest daughter Abigail had written a tribute to my mom for an assignment in her High School English class. She wanted me to read it to see how it sounded. I cried as I "listened" to her recount days of childhood when she sat on my mother's lap as mom sang "Fly Little Blue Bird Through My Garden." Abigail also remembered those special "granny breakfasts" that were prepared just for her.

After reading it I said to Betsy, "Wow, mom needs to read this before something happens to her." My mom was not that ill but she did battle various ailments most all the time. Mom read it that Thanksgiving evening and cried. She said through her tears to that first born of ours, "I thought you had forgotten."

Later that night my mother leaned her head over while reading a book in her favorite chair and died. I was broken hearted but....the first thing I said was, "Well, we had a sort of going away party without knowing it." I was thankful for that evening.

Now it is time to start over again...again. I'll pick up my little blue book full of old friends and start the journey. I'm not sure how I'll feel each day as I read familiar words. I'm not even sure that I will make it to the next end, which will proceed the next beginning. These readings and this new year remind me that all we have is "daily." I forget that so often. I worry about tomorrow too much. It is as if I'm skipping the readings for today.

Anyway, I'm thankful for memories. I'll try again this year to be thankful...daily.
Bless you,
jody

Do You Wanna Dance?

2009-11-20T04:25:00.000-08:00

I'm not much of a dancer so it intrigued me when I found myself bouncing around with speakers in my ears just after one of my morning runs. You know, you've witnessed this have you not? You see some crazed individual with his or her ears stopped up with music and they are bobbing around in their own private world. They are listening in to a beat that stirs their souls and their bodies but you are not privy to the words or the music. They are "lost in wonder, love, and praise" as old Charles Wesley once wrote.

It's a sight to behold to see someone possessed with an unseen spirit. Reminds me of something straight out of the pages of the bible when the words say, "the demon caused him to flail around and dance about." Actually the word "demon" in the bible has a history. Demons in the real old days did not connote "bad." To be possessed by a demon could be good. A demon was simply a spirit beyond self that was powerful enough to possess you.

Well...back to my demon that overwhelmed me just after my run. At first I did not know why old shy-not liking to dance-me found myself jiving around near my driveway not seeming to care who might be watching and wondering. Was it the words, the beat, the music? After an initial pause to see if anyone might be driving by...or driving by and having stopped to look...I listened to the words. Ah...not only was it the beat of the bouncing spirit. I realized that I liked the words. They reminded me of another song...a hymn...but not one of those dreary, dirge-like hymns. This hymn makes you want to dance. In fact this hymn is dance:

I danced in the morning when the world was begun
And I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun
And I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth
At Bethlehem I had my birth

Dance then wherever you may be
I am the Lord of the dance said he
And I'll lead you all wherever you may be
I'll lead you all in the dance said he...

So what was this other not so religious song that captured my early morning spirit? Alas it was the Avett Brothers singing, "Dancing Daze." At first it was the upbeat music that made me dance around, but then I realized that the words reminded me of that one who "danced one morning when the sky turned black," even though its hard to dance "with the devil on your back." And then the dancing Lord goes on to say, "They buried my body and they thought I'd gone, but I am the dance and I still go on..."...and then the words I love, "They cut me down and leapt up high, I am the dance that will never never die...I'll live in you if you live in me...I am the Lord of the dance said he."

Okay so I was possessed that morning but here are the words from that mystical demon who is way good before demons turn way bad... The words were probably written about a girl who looked at life in a wonderful way...written by a guy who admired her "possessed" style of dealing with whatever came her "way" by dancing her "way" through good and bad times....Here goes...put on your ear plugs and have at it...

"I've seen the way you look at things
The troubles that this life will bring
If it gets to you then I can tell by the way you sing
You act like it just doesn't mean a thing

I see you dancin all your, dancin all your, dancin all your daze
Maybe you can tell me how it is you got that way
Dancin all your dancin all your dancin all your daze
Come on, come on, there's got to be a way

There's all these things that get me down
The dirty world is full of clowns
They build you up just so they can knock you down
Laugh at you while you're there on the ground
....but you...I see you dancin all your days

...I really like the way it feels
I look at you and it's real...

come on...come on that's got to be the way"

As I finished my possessed dance I thought of all those dear people to whom I try to minister who are really struggling with the bad demons of cancer, or loss of jobs, or mates who disappear, or children who go to far countries. I often wonder how some people get by...and then...I hear the words...."there's all these things that get me down"..."it's hard to dance with the devil on your back"....but then come those other words..."I've seen the way you deal with things...I see you dancing all your daze...come on, come on, show me the WAY"

He once said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life"....ah now I see.....one of those ways is to dance no matter what because there is one who is the Lord of the dance who even danced one Friday when the sky turned black....and who in spite of it all said, "I am the dance that will never never die...I'll live in you if you live in me...I am the Lord of the dance said he"

The way, the truth and the life.....dancing, all your, dancing all your, dancing all your days...come on come on that's got to be the way...

Bless you,
jody
jseymour@davidsonumc.org

God, Gabriel, and Google

2009-11-14T04:41:00.000-08:00

I wonder....if...

"Hey Gabe, google Jody Seymour and see what you get."

"But you're God for heaven's sake. Why do you need to google him?"

"Well, I've been sort of busy lately and I want to catch up. After all I've got other stuff I do besides keep up with those people of mine. Did you see that new galaxy that I started forming from that exploding star? What a show. And I've got it down to a couple of million years...the whole process. Why I might even start me a whole new set of creatures one of these days...but for now do what I said. Google that Seymour guy."

"Let's see. There's not really much here. He's written some stuff...and he's still doing that ministry thing you got him into. That's about it."

"I forgot. You're using that old slow thing of yours. Come over here and let me show you something. This is my personal computer. It's a lot faster than yours and the search engine on it...well...lets just say that when I use the term "google" it is an expression of sorts. The search engine I use makes Google look like an old black and white photo compared to a full length movie in 3-D."

"How come you've never let me use your computer?"

"I'm God and you're not."

"O, I forgot."

"Yea, I'm used to that"

"Well, what can you 'look up' on yours that I can't on mine?"

"I can search the heart. I can examine motives. I can research the 'why' of it all. Ah, Gabe there's far more to those people of mine than meets the eye. Why just come over here and look at my screen and what is reveals when 'I' google Seymour."

"Wow...."

Bless you....(and with that Capital One credit card commercial as a reminder..."What's on your screen?"
jody jseymour@davidsonumc.org

The Front Porch

2009-11-12T03:42:00.000-08:00

A famous person once said, "In my father's house there are many rooms." He was not talking about square footage. The actual word he used for "rooms" is better translated, "dwelling places."

A dwelling place is of course a place where you would enjoy "dwelling." For me that was my grandmother's front porch. On that porch filled with two rows of rocking chairs you could find everybody rocking back and forth, from the town drunk to the governor of the state. Everyone was welcome.

There was always a pot of coffee brewing to satisfy the thirst. That thirst could be for the bitter taste of the dark brew or it just might be for the deep need of the soul. Remember this was a dwelling place. It was no ordinary front porch. What made it special was not its location next to a busy highway. What made it a dwelling place was my grandmother who welcomed anyone who wanted to sit a while and talk. Somehow she left judging people behind in her own journey. Somewhere she decided that everyone deserved a cup of coffee, a rocking chair, and a listening ear.

Word got out that everybody was welcomed at "Hattie's house." The Mississippi delta heat was persistent and the old brown Sears's oscillating fan could only do so much to cool off the tired, weary pilgrims who rocked and drank hot coffee on that front porch. So why would they end up there?

I think it was the reality that everybody's story was valuable on that front porch. Status and even the penalties of the past seemed to be left at the gate that you opened when you walked up the sidewalk to the discover the ever present smell of coffee.

"Come sit a while and tell me your story." That is what people knew they would hear from Hattie. That...and a cup of coffee was all most anybody ever really needs.

Hattie is gone now. She told me when she was 93 that she was worn out and "needed to go home." I squeezed her hand and said, "I know grandma but I hate to lose you." She responded with another tighter squeeze and said, "Boy, I don't want to out-live myself."

When I conduct funerals I most always use those words, "in my father's house are many dwelling places." I use them because they are given to be used, but I mostly use them because of that front porch. I am confident that the dwelling place that I offer to those who sit before me who are grieving surely has a front porch. There are rocking chairs and I bet there's some coffee. There you can find Jesus and grandma rocking back and forth...and well...You can also fiind the types of people telling their stories who will probably surprise most of us since we have a bad habit of not leaving the judgement stuff at the front gate.

Bless you
jody jseymour@davidsonumc.org

The Common Good

2009-11-09T03:43:00.000-08:00

The recent debate about health care reform and some words I heard recently about how there needs to be a movement toward the "common good" made me ask, "Just what is the common good?" It seems according to various sociologist that our culture has turned into one of "expressive individualism." The focus for what is valuable and what needs to be done in society is centered around "me and mine."

My right to have a gun, my right to decide about my health insurance, my right to worship where I please, my right to talk on my cell phone while I'm driving, and my right to drive what I damn well please no matter what the gas mileage seems to be part of the air we breathe. I too breathe this air. I like "my rights."

But there is another question: Just what is "community?" Is there something "real" like community? Is community as real as the individual or is community simply what you get when you add up all of our individual "rights?"

I'm beginning to think that the "common good" is something like an old IBM electric typewriter trying to get its message out in a world full of I-Pods and Blackberries. We see the words but we do no pay much attention. It is an old message from a by-gone era.

But with the typewriter sound in the background we experience the highest murder rate by handguns of any developed nation in the world, we keep up our addiction to oil that is in the hands of those who make us have a foreign policy that keeps us fighting all the time, we continue to warm up our air and oceans and claim its our right to do so, and we talk, talk, talk, while we drive, drive, drive...and don't tell us we can't.

Is the common good a museum piece? Why are we so afraid of loosing our individual rights? Is there any room anymore for giving up at least a small amount of something for me so that "you" might have something? Are we standing in fear-filled lines for swine flu vaccine in part because we are "infected" with a far more serious virus known as the "expressive individualism" disease? What would be a vaccine for such a pandemic?

There are some very old words that were given even before the IBM dinosaur. They are words from the ages which speak of community being more important than any one individual in the community. The words do not come from Karl Marx. They come from crusty old prophets who proclaimed that God cared for those who were struggling in the community and the individuals in that community better start caring for them or there would be judgement.

In this community there was a responsibility to care for the orphan, the widow, and especially the stranger. Later on a faith descendant of those prophets showed up on the scene and declared that the way to "salvation" and balance in life and society was to "clothe the naked, feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, and give grace to the stranger."

After the society of the day got rid of this trouble maker who was messing up individual rights those who decided to follow his way... anyway... formed a "community" where it is written in that old document called the Bible that "when anyone was in need the members of the community brought what they had and laid it at the feet of the apostles so that no one would be 'without.'"

Those who wish to follow this "old way" have a source for understanding the common good...but there are too many people like me who are too busy talking and driving to pay much attention to that "old stuff." I have a sneaking suspicion that the common good would be well served if some individuals paid attention to some of that old stuff.

Bless you,
jody

The Rest is Light

2009-11-04T15:30:00.000-08:00

Below is a poem I wrote for All Saints Day. I was inspired by the recent discovery of the latest Gama Ray Blast that occurred 13.5 billion years ago but the light from that "star explosion" traveling at the speed of light just arrived on the scene. I thought of this in the context of the phrase that comes from the Commendation that I use at the end of a Memorial service. I offer these words as I commend a person's soul to God: "Let perpetual light shine upon them...and may they be granted everlasting rest." The poem is entitled, "The Rest is Light"

The Rest is Light

Some distant star
its source so
far removed
Yet it is here
the now is
present in our
dark sky

Its radiance created
in the womb of
a distant birthing
But its light is in
the eyes of
our beholding
the moment

For the One who knows
the light also
holds the darkness
Our need is deep for
the shinning hope
that in the dark
there is presence

And so when we let go
of our breath
that is life
We are promised rest
that is deeper
than the darkest
night sky

"Let perpetual light
shine upon them"
echoes in the dark
And the wound-born
words from the
tomb now empty
says
the rest is light

Where Are You Little Star?

2009-10-31T08:09:00.000-07:00

Dion sang the haunting words in 1961. They were the lament of a young lover who desperately needed a star upon which to wish. "Where are you little star?" This yearning for love needed the twinkling of a star to ignite the flame of romance.

Well, they've found your star. It may be a little too late for the particular star-gazer of the song but none the less the light has come. It is known as GRB 090423. Let's see how can we work that into the lyrics of a new song?

The letters stand for Gamma Ray Blast. The numbers are I suppose what you would push on the juke box if you want to hear the sound of it all....well...not exactly.

This Gamma Ray Blast is the oldest and farthest away point of light that we have discovered thus far. The "blast" happened about 13.5 billion years ago not too long after the "Big Bang." The light just now got to us after traveling at the speed of light for a little over 13 billion years. And you and I get impatient if our high speed Internet does not flash what we need on the screen quick enough.

Gamma Ray Blasts happen when stars die and explode. The next thing that happens is maybe a black hole of some kind. These blasts are the brightest things that happen in our rapidly expanding universe. Our universe is supposedly made up of 70% dark energy and 25% dark matter. All this dark stuff is supposedly what keeps together the 5% of "regular matter" that reflects light...or visible matter. The dark stuff is the "glue" for the "light stuff."

Another way of putting it, if you are getting lost in the letters and numbers, is this: And God was "brooding over the dark." This expression comes from a literal translation of the first few verses of Genesis when the "earth was formless" and the "wind of God" swept over the deep, dark waters of chaos and formed "something." The "something" that we now call Creation happened when God said, "Let there be light."

The "wind" comes from the Hebrew word for the flutter of a mother bird's wings over her nest. In other words this seems to refer to a kind of cosmic "egg" that the mother bird is protecting as it gets ready to "hatch."

Are you ready for the really exciting part? Astronomers and cosmologists tell us that the whole cosmos got its start from the explosion of a small....uhhh....egg-like something. This all happened about 14 billion years ago and is now called "the big bang."

"Where are you little star?" Finally the star arrives "fresh" from 13.5 billion years of travel. The star proclaims a message overheard from the first "days" of Creation. "Let there be light." God's "brooding" reflects the love of the one who creates all light and even all dark. It seems it takes the dark to keep the light together. And you wondered why there was so much darkness in this life of ours.

"Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are." GRB 090423. Astronomers call the hum that can be heard in radio telescopes "background radiation" left over from the original big bang explosion. I think it is the music of the stars....or...maybe it is God laughing at us with love because after 13.5 billion years we are finally catching up.

And God said let there be light. Thank you, O divine Creator, for "hatching" up such a wonder-filled place from which we can "wish upon a star."
Bless you,
jody jseymour@davidsonumc.org

Messing with Time

2009-10-27T02:30:00.000-07:00

Here we go again. We are going to exercise our power by changing the time. Someone is going to sneak into some cave somewhere and push a button. "They" say it happens around 2:00 in the morning. Of course that is if you live on the east coast of this particular continent. On the coast of some other piece of terra firma it might just be 2:00 in the afternoon. But it is the same cave....they say.

Did anybody get to vote on this? When did we fall down the rabbit hole and discover that some mad hatter gets to mess with time? The original Mad Hatter told Alice, "No wonder you were late. Why this watch is two days slow."

We human "beings" like to really be human "doings." We have to feel like we are in control. We convince ourselves of this by doing life. One of the best ways to "do" life is to think that we have a handle on time. When we start loosing control of time we take it back by adding an hour on to the day or taking an hour away. Like some "Alice in Wonderland" character we do our time math and then stand back and say, "There now...We changed time...How about that."

The "one" who is beyond time must smile at our efforts. This God of "all time" knows that we are not really in control of our time. I wonder if we checked our cosmic e mail "in box" we would discover a short message that read, "Quit your attempts to change time and figure out that it is really time for change."

Once upon a "time," except this really happened, a certain time traveler spoke some words that echo over the ages into our modern attempt to mess with and change time. He said, "Repent, the time is at hand." In his native tongue that ancient word he used means not so much to feel shame about who we are but rather the word "repent" means to "turn around and make a change."

So, soon we will do our "day-light savings" time change thing. Down in Alice's rabbit hole the King said, "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop."

We'll soon "receive" an extra hour. I suppose it will be a gift. Then again where did all those other hours come from? Were they gifts?

The time is at hand...so teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Bless you,
jody

But Can I Keep the Boat?

2009-10-22T08:58:00.000-07:00

His name was Foster. He was my uncle...the crazy one...they said. As a child all I knew was that he often smelled funny. I later learned that the aroma was from left over trips to the local watering hole. Foster liked to come in early from his shrimp boat and spend quality time with his friends at the bar that was adjacent to the dock.

His other brothers, who also owned shrimp boats, took the bait that was offered by the new shipyard that came to the area. They quickly realized that the money was better, the hours shorter, and the income a sure thing. Shrimping was kind of like farming. One never knew what the result would be from the long hours of investment.

But...they had to sell their boats. To maintain shrimp boats takes time and money. Foster, however, hesitated. He too liked the lure of the money and the sure thing, but he also liked the life style that allowed him to come in early from his boat and load up at the dock. He liked the idea of more money but he knew that he too would have to give up the boat and the "perks" that came with what happened on those times when he simply wanted to stop work and start drinking.

This reminds me of another group of fishermen who once said to the one who offered them a different life style, "If we repent can we still keep the boats?" Jesus basically said, "no."

As the story goes they hung up their fishing nets one afternoon and went off to follow a man that promised them that they would be fishing for people....but they could not keep the boats. The new life meant leaving the old behind.

Me...I want my cake and eat it too. I want to follow Jesus but still keep my boat. No wonder I don't catch more people or something like that. To follow this fisher of people means giving up some old stuff. Like Foster I've established some "ways" that I kind of like. So...what does your boat look like??
Bless you
jody jseymour@davidsonumc.org

I Woke Up in the Dark

2009-10-19T04:20:00.000-07:00

I don't think I have "seasonal affective disorder" but then again I might. What's the deal with all this dark? I know, the time has not changed yet to at least give us a break in the morning. That is the way it works, isn't it? I also have day light savings time disorder. I always get mixed up with "fall forward" and "spring backward." I spring when I should fall or something like that.

Anyway I sure know why all those people in the past came up with rituals in the month of December. I mean by the time December gets here it is really dark. No messing with our watches can change it. So, long ago people lit fires and danced around them. Sometimes, depending on their religious or non-religious persuasion, they asked, pleaded, or enticed the "sun" or "sun god" to please come back from his or her hiding place. This makes me feel a little better. I don't feel so alone in the dark. They did not like it either.

Speaking of December, there is some debate about the dating of Jesus' birth. It seems that Matthew and Luke did not bother to pay attention to the calendar. They were so excited to tell the story that they forgot to tell us what day it was. You say, "What do you mean...it was December 25 of course." Well that's when we celebrate it because we sure need to. We need the light in the dark. We need a good story with a happy ending. We need to not always wake up in the dark.

Since those early gospel writers failed to mark the calendar it seems that one of the Popes long ago got penned up against the wall and felt he had to offer an encyclical authorizing the exact date so that shepherds and Wise Men would no longer be "in the dark." It did not take him long to know exactly when God would have done such a thing. It had to be in the darkest time of the year. Maybe the Pope had that seasonal affective thing.

He did not need a calendar because he knew that the light needed to shine in the darkness. Maybe the exact date of that exceptionally bright star is a mystery, but it is not a mystery to me. We need light...now... and it's not even December yet.

One of the earliest Christian expressions ever recording was one word, "maranatha." It simply means, "come Lord Jesus." Some folks these days get all worked up about the word because they assume that the it refers to the literal second coming with all the end of the world fire-works and all. I simply like what it really means. Day-light savings time or not....maranatha...come into our dark mornings...and too early dark evenings...come into the dark that cannot be measured in people's lives who are without the light of love or hope or care...come into all the dark with the kind of light that penetrates the darkness like only you can...maranatha...

May you experience his light today.
jody jseymour@davidsonumc.org

This Time it's 2012

2009-10-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

Well, I've just seen the trailer for the movie. It's even been suggested on none other than the "History Channel" that the world as we know it will come to an end in the year 2012. Shucks I'm still getting over the millennium bug and now we have the 2012 virus and the upcoming movie with the number as the title.

The doomsday proponents dusted off predictions that had been stored in the attics and basements and brought them out to the light when 2000 loomed and computers were going to crash and stars would fall. Toilet paper disappeared from grocery store shelves?...well...so did canned food and other staples that could be stored wherever it was that people were going to hide.

I've done a little research on the 2012 phenomenon...very little...but I'm as much of an expert as some who are writing books and making movies. Yes, there seems to be a galactic alignment coming, and yes the Mayan calendar seems to "run out" about December of 2012 (of course some scholars think that it kind of starts over...but don't confuse end of timers with such dangling conflicting facts)...and yes there is always the possibility of a big chunk of space stuff colliding with our spinning ball of cosmic dust...but

If you check out the "history" of end of the world close encounters of every imaginable kind you will find one common element: they've all been wrong. Another common devise is to use the Bible to make the time-line-charts...and again is wrong. Every biblical "mathematician" and prognosticator have gone down the black hole of evidence that is manipulated to meet the criteria of a certain prejudiced ideology.

Why do we need "anti-Christs" and Armageddons and apocalyptic predictions? Last time I checked there was enough fear to go around without thinking about all this. Do we really think that God has some calendar type kind of plan? If there is one, are we supposed to figure it out?..and if so...why? Is it in order to "get ready..or..be prepared?"

Jesus seems to have never visited a Hallmark store in order to purchase a calendar. He did once say that, "Before THIS GENERATION passes away you will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds." As soon as Jesus went back to where he came from, folks rushed to the store and bought calendars and rulers so that they could make time charts.

Jesus did not show up at the "end of time"...at least not at the "end" that they plotted. What did he mean by "this generation?" He obviously did not mean the way we measure "this generation." God's time-clock is way beyond our meager charts...so let's quit playing this silly game and getting people all worked up with anxiety.

Jesus got cornered one day about all this by some of his disciples who wanted to know when the "end would come." Jesus gave them a definitive answer; "I don't have any idea," he said..."Next question."

Basically the "way" that Jesus offered to those who would listen was time sensitive for sure. "Live now and be present to the present...the end is always near." That's about it.

How about we if "spend" our time making life full and better for all God's children. Let's "consider" those lilies Jesus seemed to have us ponder. Let's fill our remaining hours looking for the "least of these." According to my calendar the time is now...that is all any of us have. Whenever the "end" does come, the God who gave us the beginning will be there. That is about the only "chart" we need.
bless you,
jody jseymour@davidsonumc.org

Defending God?

2009-10-12T14:08:00.000-07:00

I wonder if atheism goes in cycles like, you know, wide ties? Lately it seems that books on atheism are on the best seller list. "God is Not Great," and "The God Delusion" are two that come to mind. Laced with this are thoughts like those of John Shelby Spong who wants to debunk "theism" by stating that there is no God "up in the sky." I'm not just being defensive because I think we can learn from the "loyal opposition."...but...

The problem with some of this "God is outdated" kind of stuff is that the choices given are 1)to be simple minded believers or 2) with-it realistic atheists. Somebody needs to tell these God knockers that there are a whole lot of choices between being a rigid fundamentalist and a "no thanks to God" advocate.

For one thing, God and science do not have to be such opposites if one has an expansive view of God and an educated understanding of what the Bible is and what it is not. Don't lump me with the foolish believers who have to spend all their time criticizing evolution and the big bang theory. The God of the universe has enough imagination to do whatever God wants when it comes to creation.

And I'm tired of TV talking heads who seem to "represent" Christianity. Most of them do not represent my understanding of Christianity so quit doing the "one size fits all" kind of defense of atheism. The God that some of the atheists don't believe in sounds a lot like the God I don't believe in either.

I like what Karl Barth, the eminent German biblical scholar and theologian said when asked, "Dr Barth, it sounds like you do not take the Bible literally?" His response was, "I take the Bible far too seriously to take it literally."

Well that goes not only for the Bible, it also goes for one's understanding of God. There are many ways to understand God besides the simple "man upstairs" or "cosmic policeman" or "divine puppet master." Another theologian named Paul Tillich called God, "the ground of all being."

So you can save your wide ties and know full well that atheism comes and goes along with all kinds of "views" of God. The deal is that if there is a God, and what do you think...I think there is...then the real God has to be much more complex than our mere views of that God.

So yes functional atheism can kick in when God let's us down or does not show up or is accused of allowing some "god-awful" (interesting expression) event to happen like a tsunami or something. The God who is way beyond any sky and a whole like deeper than our human thoughts can handle our disbelief and disappointment. Some religion can't handle complexity, ambiguity, and doubt; but the God of the universe is way bigger than religion.

I'm not big on the "Faith for Dummies" brand of faith that the latest atheists suggest that we believers espouse. There is no fact about the Bible or finding from the world of science that "true believers" need fear. Bring it on. The really big God, who by the way cannot fully be understood literally, can handle the questions.
Bless you
jody jseymour@davidsonumc.org

It's Time to Fly

2009-10-08T04:07:00.000-07:00

Well they're here. Those caterpillars I told you about a few weeks ago who ate to the ground Betsy's parsley plants are now flying around our backyard equipped with the colorful wings of Monarch butterflies. They seem to be having a good time bouncing from flower to flower. I mean they've been in a cave for a few weeks, remember.

Wonder what a "to be" Monarch thinks while he or she is in that cocoon? "I'm done. I'm never getting out of this hole. The darkness is too overwhelming. I don't care what those others said it's lonely in here. Maybe what they said is a lie. Maybe there is nothing on 'the other side' of this darkness. What if I just wither up and die in here...heck this feels like death already. Is this feeling I have a real spinning of something else or am I wasting my time?"

The only way that a once upon a time caterpillar will know that the waiting in the dark was worth it is when the day the seal is broken and the light surrounds those strange new stained glass windows of flight. No wonder butterflies are loved all over the world. Could it be that we look at them and have those subliminal thoughts about us and our doubts about what will happen one day when we end up in the dark...that day when life calls it "a wrap" and life says "lights out." Somebody will take what's left of us and well...put us in a box...somehow...and then....

Well all I know is that the Monarch butterfly goes through four stages...It is only the fourth generation of Monarch that lives longer than two weeks. The fourth generation somehow lives four to six months and they will soon migrate 2,5000 miles to Mexico and end up in the same trees that their great grandparents went to. Now how do they know to do that?

The mystery wraps us all in a cocoon of wonder. So have a good trip my winged friends. You remind us all of a Creator who must be really be enjoying all of this. We sure are...

Bless you,
jody jseymour@davidsonumc.org

Colored Water

2009-10-03T14:36:00.000-07:00

I just finished the book, "The Color of Water" in which Ruth, the main character, tells one of her 12 children who asks, "What color is God?"..she replies, "God is the color of water." This white woman married an African American man. The story of her life, her struggles, her faith pilgrimage from Jewish to Christian, and her views of God are fascinating stuff.

I am reminded of the poem I wrote years ago when I reflected on that day in Biloxi Mississippi when as a child I mistakenly drank from the "colored" water fountain. It was around the corner from the "white only" fountain. Here are my "old" words:
Colored Water

"Colored" read the sign above the fountain
whose water I had drunk
Would I be sick from drinking "colored" water?
For I was "white only
though but a child

I asked a big person
but my mistaken drink was washed away with
words
So I waited to see if I would turn ill
or perhaps "colored"
for no one would say

There was only laughter at my childish question
and the strange word, "nigger" tossed about like
a toy
some strange enjoyment I did not understand

Now I am a "big person" with no signs to read above
fountains
And my children laugh when I tell them the
colored water story
For they do not understand how water could
make people sick

Ah but we "big people" do know that colored water did make people sick. Ruth learned it. We who have age on us remember the fountain of racism, the "colored" balcony at the movies, the back of the bus world, and that other part of town that was called "colored."

We had to learn that God "is" the color of water. It is we who are God's creation that attach labels and make water and even people "colored."

Have we learned? My children disbelieve me when I tell them that there were really fountains that read, "colored." They think I'm making it up. They can't believe anyone would really do that. There's hope. They can't believe it. I hope they believe along with Ruth that God is the color of water.
Bless you,
jody jseymour@davidsonumc.org

Why ARE There So Many Songs About Rainbows?

2009-09-29T06:36:00.000-07:00

Well all I can say is she took my breath away...again. The wedding was over, the sacred words were said...she was surprised when "Grow Old Along With Me" was sung...and she and her new man turned to walk down an isle toward the rest of their lives...

And then...she and her man walked through the door for the party. He danced with her to the words, "You swept me away." I watched. It was nice...and then...

It was my time to dance that father/daughter dance. I wondered what song she would pick. Then the banjo started strumming...and there was dear Kermit singing, "Why Are There So Many Songs About Rainbows." I'm tingling right now as I write this. I used to sing it to her when she was a "girl." She knew that..and she remembered.

She looked up into my moist eyes and she said, "I had all kinds of trouble finding this song. I had to have Kermit sing it, not somebody else. I had to buy the whole CD just to get it..but I wanted it to be our song."

I held her and made my own rainbow with sunshine and the water of memories. That girl could make me cry in many ways but this was special.

Why are there so many songs about rainbows? It is because we need those illusions and visions. We need them to be painted over our sour headlines. We need them to touch the "lovers and dreamers " in all of us. We need them because life is sometime just to "real."

O my goodness what a moment it was. In the colors of that moment there were years of memories. As I swayed to that simple, child-like melody I was somewhere over the rainbow. There are not many moments like that one. There's not supposed to be.

I looked into those eyes as the music ended and I realized how much she really is "my child." O I know, she's somebody else's now...but you know how that goes. There will always be rainbows.
Bless you,
jody jseymour@davidsonumc.org

A Wedding Toast

2009-09-26T05:31:00.000-07:00

I thought I would share the toast that I composed to offer tonight to Abigail and Brent. Abigail is our first born who will wed Brent later today. I share this with you as a way to remember for those of us who said vows long ago:

May your joy be found in the discovery of what makes the other happy.

May your happiness be found in the reality that happiness is not something that is found in the pursuit of it but is discovered as you share from your heart.

May your love be something that you never take for granted and if you do may your foolishness be discovered early.

May your togetherness have enough spaces to honor each other but enough closeness to realize that what you make in your relationship is a living, breathing thing.

May your marriage be one of constant learning and growing for that which is not growing is in the process of decay.

And may you always remember that God loves you more than you will ever love each other and that same God will not do the work of love for you but stands always near to give you the grace to learn the kind of love that God has for you.
God bless you.
Dad

jody jsyemour@davidsonumc.org

Little Girls and Wedding Dresses

2009-09-24T05:13:00.000-07:00

With the echo of "carry me" still hanging in the air she will walk down the isle in a few days in a wedding dress. Abigail liked to be "carried" as a child. There were those days when the carrying consisted of being lofted onto daddy's shoulders so she could see the world from on high.

Soon I will carry her down the isle, let go of her arm, take a small revolving step and change roles from dad to the one offering she and her "knight" the opportunity to join as one. What happened to the long dance recitals, the days of sneaking out her bedroom window, and the struggle to pass math (3 times) so she could finally get out of college?

All that will be part of her. The new "man in her life" will find that out if he does not already know. Those of us who have spoken sacred words in front of some guy holding a book know what the two whom I will stand before soon do not really know: no one knows what they are doing when they get married.

As Scott Peck once wrote, "if we call it falling in love....what happens when we get up?" Well...in this case it's called "marriage." It's lab work. It's hard. It's supposed to be. Everybody is hard to live with and there are not violins in the background to smooth things over because as the song says, "life is more than two hours long."

So, I'll walk her down the isle and remember how I used to carry her. She does not know what she is really doing but neither did I. Heck, I did not know how to be a parent either when that came along even though the old gentlemen who saw me staring through the hospital nursery window at the new creation that first day said to me, "Don't worry son they come with directions." Did you ever find any directions? I didn't.

Like with marriage, I learned as I went and usually learned the hard way and sometimes the painful, slow way. I've told her and she seemed to listen that there would be speed bumps and that when what I call "saddle sores" develop from the wear of marriage that it is wisdom that seeks some help outside the marriage. She seemed to "take it in."

So for now I'll "carry her" one last time down a path where we will make some new beginnings. She will be on my arm and not on my shoulders this time. It seems like such a short time ago that those small reaching arms asked me to be her support to see the world from on high.

I'll whisper a prayer to one who does see it all from "on high." Help her pay attention, Father. Give her courage to learn when the time comes. Show her what you do best: teach her how to forgive. Grant them a good measure of the best thing you ever give any of us: a love that continues to grow and expands by giving.

Bless you
jody jseymour@davidsonumc.org