Smile

Some people came to Calcutta, and before leaving, they begged me: ‘Tell us something that will help us to live our lives better.’ And I said: ‘Smile at each other; smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other—it doesn’t matter who it is—and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other.’

—Mother Teresa of Calcutta

The Power to Transform

In tomorrow's Gospel reading Jesus tells his disciples,

I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

The Rev. Suzanne E. Watson has preached on this passage saying,

In First Corinthians we are assured that anyone united with the Lord becomes one with him in Spirit. Examples of the ethical content of the Spirit can also be found in today’s gospel reading. For example, Jesus tells us that the Spirit will “prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment.”

Because we live in a world that is known by being seen, touched, and measured, the idea that the power of the Holy Spirit is at work within us at all times is a difficult concept for many Christians. But just because we cannot see, touch, or measure the Spirit, does not mean that its power is not at work. Gerard Fuller in his book Stories for All Seasons tells of a beached tanker:

All day efforts had been made to return the huge vessel to the water, but with no success. Finally, the captain told all crews and companies to stop; he went to his cabin and waited. When the tide came in that night the waters lifted the thousand-ton tanker off the beach and carried it, light as a feather, back to the deep.

The power of the Holy Spirit is like the rising tide – imperceptible, yet with the power to do far more than we can ever imagine. Even when we can’t see it, we can know that the Spirit is at work.

So the question for today is, “How can we, who live in a world that is wary of the mysterious, better connect and trust in the unseen power of the Spirit?”

First, we can remember that the Spirit acts in God’s time, not necessarily ours.

There’s a story about two young priests, both parents of school-aged children, both of whom had lost their spouses due to untimely deaths. One had lost his wife several years before, the other, only recently. One day they met over coffee, and the recently widowed priest asked his friend how he had endured such pain and loss.

The more seasoned priest used a metaphor to answer his friend’s question. He asked him to visualize walking through a beautiful, thick forest of ancient redwoods. Suddenly, there is a terrible sound, and one of the largest redwoods violently crashes to the ground. It is lying out of place, unnaturally on its side, roots exposed. An enormous hole in the forest floor is all that remains of its former life.

The priest then asked his friend to imagine returning to the site of the fallen tree years later. While the hole is still there, and always would be, the edges had softened. Where freshly exposed, barren dirt once was, ferns and wildflowers now grow. Water was now collecting in the hole, and wildlife would drink from the spot. And the fallen tree was slowly becoming part of the landscape. Over time, the scene had been transformed from a brutal, lifeless, unnatural one to one that, while still was out of place – after all, thriving redwoods should not fall in their prime – was at least now producing new life and beauty.

The Power of the Spirit is at work to transform even the most painful of circumstances, but we must remember that God’s time can sometimes take longer than we would wish.

She goes on top teach more about the work of the Spirit. The full text of her sermon is online here: Pentecost Year B

Likeness to Christ

It is time that Christians were judged
more by their likeness to Christ
than their notions of Christ.

-Lucretia Mott (1793-1880)

I love the idea above, even if I am solid on my notions of Christ and fall short in the likeness to Christ area. But it is a better goal.

peace,
Frank+

Continual conversation

There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God.

-Brother Lawrence

Dealing with the "Child Witch" Problem

A CNN ticker item caught my attention and I found the video above and the report below which explain the problem of children being branded as witches in Nigeria and the abuses of them surrounding this.

"Children accused of witchcraft are often incarcerated in churches for weeks on end and beaten, starved and tortured in order to extract a confession," said Gary Foxcroft, program director of Stepping Stones Nigeria, a nonprofit that helps alleged witch children in the region. Many of those targeted have traits that make them stand out, including learning disabilities, stubbornness and ailments such as epilepsy, he added. The issue of "child witches" is soaring in Nigeria and other parts of the world, Foxcroft said.

The states of Akwa Ibom and Cross River have about 15,000 children branded as witches, and most of them end up abandoned and abused on the streets, he said.
...
Foxcroft, whose documentary, "Saving Africa's Witch Children," was broadcast last year, spoke to a U.N. panel on the issue in April.
...
"The role of the international Christian community in this cannot be underestimated," Foxcroft said. "Unfortunately, the fact remains that this belief system is being spread by so-called Christians."

One group working to provide relief and support for children victimized by their families and communities is Stepping Stones Nigeria.

You can take it with you

Once there was an old rich man who was afraid of dying and leaving all his wealth behind on earth. So, he took up the matter with God. He pleaded day and night to be able to take all his earthly possessions with him.

Finally, God conceded. He said the man could take as much as he could fit in one suitcase. The old man immediately went out, bought a huge suitcase, sold all he owned and filled the suitcase with gold bars.

Shortly after that, the old man died. Awkwardly dragging the big, heavy suitcase, he approached St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter stopped him, asked him to open his luggage, and then told him he couldn't bring his gold bars into Heaven. The man was irate. "You don't understand," he said. "I got permission directly from God himself for this. He told me whatever I could fit into one suitcase, I could bring with me."

St. Peter, shrugged his shoulders and simply said, "Fine with me. But we've already got plenty of pavement here."

This Is Your Brain on God

NPR reports on the work of folks doing Neurotheology, the work of studying neural pathways used in religious experience. Researchers talk about the predictable ways in which the neural pathways are different for people experienced in prayer. The article says,

It was the same when he imaged the brains of Franciscan nuns praying and Sikhs chanting. They all felt the same oneness with the universe. When it comes to the brain, Newberg says, spiritual experience is spiritual experience.

"There is no Christian, there is no Jewish, there is no Muslim, it's just all one," Newberg says.

A little theological dynamite there — but, remember, the research is just beginning.

Preliminary studies reveal that routine prayer and meditation is good for both brain and immune system. The article also notes,

"Just two months' practice among rank amateurs led to a systematic change in both the brain as well as the immune system in more positive directions," he said.

For example, they developed more antibodies to a flu virus than did their colleagues who did not meditate.

The full text of this article within a larger report is online here: Prayer May Reshape Your Brain … And Your Reality. The work does not give a scientific way of verifying God so much as verifying that prayer and meditation do work wonders for the one praying and meditating. Yet, for those of us who pray, it's an unecessary affirmation, but a welcome one nonetheless. That's my take. What's your thoughts on this?

peace,

Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

The Bible Idea of Prayer

Our ordinary views of prayer
are not found in the New Testament.
We look upon prayer as a means
for getting something for ourselves;
the Bible idea of prayer is
that we may get to know God Himself.

-Oswald Chambers

That We May Be One

In tomorrow's Gospel reading Jesus prays for his disciples,

Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

The Rev. Debbie Royals is a Native American missioner in the Diocese of Los Angeles. She has written about this passage saying,

Jesus prayed that the community be protected from evil. Some Native people would say this is to walk the Red Road, or in a Christian sense, to walk the path of righteousness.

In many Native cultures, decisions are made by consensus. As you can imagine, this process takes some time, and the overall affect is a bonding of the community, drawing it together in a closely woven, interdependent life.

Fulfilling Jesus’ joy might be best understood as modeling our lives after Jesus’ life and living the gospel imperative to love our neighbors as ourselves. That is why God gave his only begotten son to be fully human, so that he might bring the world back onto the path.

For the life of the church to be set apart or distinct from the rest of the world, Christians must first see themselves as sanctified, holy, and sacred beings. Knowing that God made us whole and holy from the very beginning, uniquely blessed with all the gifts we need to be God’s reflection in the world, sets us apart. Living in this way also makes it possible for others to see our gifts and to see God in us.

And as Christians, for what will we be known? Will we be known for damaging our mother earth out of greed to the point where we end life as we know it? Will we use our voice for justice and peace rather than to further violence and conflict? Will we invite prayerful contemplation in every decision, knowing that the answer is there, we only need to be still so we might hear God’s call?

Jesus’ simple but profound prayer in today’s gospel has the potential to be life-changing and life-giving. Imagine putting his prayer at the center of your own discernment process. Seeking to be on the right path, coming to understand this path after considering every angle, seeking to understand it through the lens of resurrection and God’s love will most certainly set us apart.

As we approach Pentecost, let us be open to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Let us move from the joy of Easter as a re-creation of new life with the hope that guides us all to be God’s love in the world.

The full text of her sermon is online here: Easter 7B.

Controversial Common Law Saints

To be named a saint officially is a lengthy church process. To become a "Common Law Saint" is much simpler, people just have to think of the person as saintly. Examples from recent history are the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Theresa.

St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco has just completed a decade long mural project with 89 saints dancing in the rotunda over their altar. This impressive project is pictured above from a page in Tikkun Magazine. The saints pictured are listed and described briefly at the church's website - Dancing Saints.

The controversy comes from the fact that not all of the common law saints are Christians. The Rev. Donald Schell, one of the co-Rectors at the time the project was undertaken, writes of this in an essay for Episcopal Cafe telling how he would describe the group to visitors,

Yes, I’d say, pointing up to her icon, that’s Elizabeth I dancing with Malcolm X to her right and Iqbal Masih to her left. We commemorate Elizabeth for her peace-making principle that people praying together would be the ground of our unity, not doctrinal uniformity. I usually began by talking about Elizabeth, because her vision helped shape the whole icon.

We remember Malcolm X, because on his trip to Mecca, God changed his heart and he renounced teaching hate of white people and became an orthodox Muslim, proclaiming and worshipping one God who embraced all humanity. Teaching God’s embrace of all humanity was what got him killed when he came back home.

And Iqbal Masih? He was a Pakistani Christian child sold into indentured servitude at age four. At ten he escaped from crippling work as a rug-knotter, and fearlessly told his story to the world, offering his voice and experience to support the Bonded Labor Liberation Front that was freeing thousands of child-slaves like him and teaching rug buyers around the world to ask who was making their hand-tied rugs, how the workers were being treated and whether they were being paid fairly. In 1995, when Iqbal Masih was twelve, he testified before the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. That Easter he went home to his village to go to church, and that afternoon was shot dead, martyred in the street for helping other children find freedom.

As for myself, I absolutely that God touches the lives of those who are not Christian, reaching out to them and drawing them to himself. This is a very Christian idea. I also agree with Schell's contention that God makes saints, we do not and God makes many more than we acknowledge,

Actually, we believe God made them saints, and that God made and is making innumerably more saints, people named and unnamed, so many there’s no wall in the world big enough to hold their icon.

But I would not have even thought of adding "saints" from other faiths to the mural. It just would not have occurred to me. It would call on me to name an action of God's in a way in which I could have no confidence. Yes, I feel I can say I know Saint Francis to have been a saint. Can I name that with the same conviction about Malcolm X whose late in life conversion to a truer form of Islam that caused him to see even white men as his brothers? I value his witness, but I wouldn't be adding his likeness to the walls of King of Peace.

Interested in more on this idea of how God is present to those of other faiths? I have preached before on my own beliefs in this regard God Shows No Partiality.

What do you think?

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

PS I have past blogs on The Path to Sainthood I, The Path to Sainthood II, and The Path to Sainthood III.

The Olive Branch

The latest issue of our newsletter The Olive Branch is online now and headed into the mail. View it here in PDF format: Volume 10, Number 3.

A New Dream

You are never too old to set another goal
or to dream a new dream.
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

Updates - The Revs Linda McCloud and Jay Weldon

The link above is to a local news story in Billings, Montana on Holy Cross Church, Episcopal. It's the church the Rev. Linda McCloud left Camden County to start.

News also comes from the Rev. Jay Weldon that he and Alison have bought a house in Albany, Georgia where he has accepted a call to be the new Rector of St. Patrick's Episcopal Church (pictured below).

10 Things to Toss & the Wall of Pastors

Over at A Church for Starving Artists there is a thought-provoking post on what things church's should toss out any and all institutions that:

• Have outlasted their effectiveness (or their original purpose has been achieved)
• Don't work anymore
• Prevent real growth

The potential things to cut listed are:

• Sunday School
• Coffee Hour
• The Women's Groups
• Vacation Bible School

The idea at the blog is not that these things should be cut, but that in churches where they are no longer working in the ways listed above, that they should be dropped and new and more effective ways of being the Body of Christ should be adopted.

The Wall of Pastors
Another one listed is the Wall of Former Pastors (pictured at right from the above linked post). I agree with this one wholeheartedly because they are never complemented by pictures of lay people who gave lots of time and energy toward being the Body of Christ in that place and so enshrine professional clergy in a way foreign to the Gospel.

I am glad that my name isn't on the sign at King of Peace and I hope my picture will never hang in any buildings there as what I have done at King of Peace has only been effective to the degree that lots of other folks did lots of other work. Why should I get credit for the grounds with all the clean ups by June, RJ and AJ or the hard work done by Mike and Al. Why should I get credit for King of Peace being welcoming when Gil and others are the one who really do this in a way that matters, and Kenn keeps the building functioning. Why should our worship style be credited to me when it has been the work of Linda, Freddie, Enree, Bill, Debbie, and Carol too. Why should I get credit for money given to the community when its been raised by Sandy, Karen, Diane, Georgia, June, Sande, Rhonda and more? Why should I get credit for our fellowship when Kelly, Joe, Celeste, Mary Kay and others have done so much? Why should I get credit for what King of Peace offers for kids when it is built on what Suzanne got started Austin and Kristen kept going and Tammy added to wonderfully with leading the kids singing and Amber and Geoff and Melissa continue in many ways? None of this would keep functioning without all the vestry members who spent time on the temporal stuff and Neil kept the finances straight with financial work also done by Colby, Bob, Martha and Chuck. What about our community reputation made possible by Gillian and The Preschool staff kept running by JoAnn and others or the Scouting work done by Robin and Gina and Elaine? Nothing could capture the amount of time and energy and money that Victoria and Griffin have personally put into King of Peace in so many ways they defy listing. And even in listing these names I have not scratched the surface of those who are King of Peace or covered the ways in which those listed above could have been double, triple and quadruple listed.

I hate listing anyone, because to be fair the list of names could go on and on (could their be a list that doesn't include families long gone like the Wests, Grosses, Helbergs and so many others who moved or other staff like John, Jay, Grace and Sarena?). I know that I have left out people who have done as much or more as those listed. This is the point. Even a long list doesn't capture the people who are the Body of Christ in this place.

The wall of pastors hides more than it reveals about the leadership of a congregation and how that church serves its community. For while I am willing to take credit for my part in getting King of Peace going, it was never done alone and the effectiveness of the things we do (the measure offered above of what to toss and what to keep) has more to do with teamwork than with anything I did by myself. Capturing this time in the life of King of Peace with a single photo of a single person might well be sin for it is surely falling short of the mark set by God.

Wrap Up and Questions
So this post has two topics: 1) Toss out the things a church is doing that are no longer effective and look for other ways to accomplish those goals, or find new goals, and 2) Lifting up clergy hides the vital work done by the rest of the ministers of a congregation, all the great lay people who serve their churches and communities with no pay and little recognition.

For further provocation (in a good sense) look at the post that got me thinking and the good comments below ot: A Church for Starving Artists: 10 Things to Toss.

What do you think? What would you toss out and how can we better lift up the many people who make the congregation effective and vital instead of just lifting up priests and pastors?

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

Makes us love

There is nothing that makes us love a man
so much as praying for him.

-William Law

Patience

SOMETIMES I wish that I might do
Just one grand deed and die,
And by that one grand deed reach up
To meet God in the sky.
But such is not Thy way, O God,
Not such is Thy decree,
But deed by deed, and tear by tear,
Our souls must climb to Thee,
As climbed the only Son of God
From manger unto Cross,
Who learned, through tears and bloody sweat,
To count this world but loss;
Who left the Virgin Mother's Arms
To seek those arms of shame,
Outstretched upon the lonely hill
To which the darkness came.
As deed by deed, and tear by tear,
He climbed up to the height,
Each deed a splendid deed, each tear
A jewel shining bright,
So grant us, Lord, the patient heart,
To climb the upward way,
Until we stand upon the height,
And see the perfect day.

-Geoffrey "Woodbine Willie" Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929)

I have called you friends

In tomorrow's Gospel reading, Jesus tells his disciples,

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

John Kavanaugh, S. J. of Saint Louis University writes of this passage:

God’s love for us revealed in the offering of the Son for the forgiveness of our sins. It is the same love that Paul celebrates in the thirteenth chapter of Corinthians, the love from which, he writes in Romans, we can never be possibly separated.

Jesus, in the fourth Gospel, calls us to live in that love. How are we to do that? By keeping his command-ments. Ah, finally the law, finally right and wrong. And what is his command-ment? “Love one another as I have loved you.” There is no escape. Our faith in Jesus is haunted by the mystery of love.

Perhaps this mystery itself is what causes us disquiet. Love, after all, is not easily won, rarely found, and never really earned. It also leads to improbable situations like that of the prodigal son and the lost sheep and to forgiveness for dreadful sinners.

This is, of course, not the narcissistic and self-indulgent state of mind that passes for “love” in contemporary life. Nor is it the great tidal wave of emotion associated with “falling in love.” Rather it is, Paul reminds us, patience and kindness. It lets go of jealousy, conceit, and resentment. It delights in the truth. It trusts. It hopes. It endures. All of these qualities of love are attributes of God’s love for us. What is more, love’s greatest expression—to lay down one’s life for one’s friends—is what the Passion means.

None of this is new. And none of it is easy.

To have or not have rules can be easy. To keep or break commandments can be easy. We can set up our lives in such a manner that we allow no restraint or limit on our egos and desires. We can also legislate our lives so relentlessly that we delude ourselves into thinking that we have actually earned, produced, and now control the love that our scriptures speak of.

But the love revealed in Jesus, simple as it sounds, is terribly arduous. That is why the history of our faith so often reads like a history of our resistance to love.

Give us rules. Give us magic. Give us threats. Give us mighty victories in war or splendid successes in the marketplace to insure our worthiness. Give us Communion counts, converts, and the approval of the nations to guarantee our righteousness. But the mystery of love?

One of Dorothy Day’s favorite passages from world literature occurs in Dostoevski’s The Brothers Karamazov, where the old Father Zossima points out to Madame Hohlokov that her supposed crisis of faith is really a crisis of love: “For love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. . . . But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps a complete science.”

No, love is not as easy as we may think. And its challenge to us is certainly nothing new.

Tomorrow we will consider that love through which Jesus called his disciples and those of us who follow him his friends. In the meantime, here's a joke that won't be in that sermon...

A mother was preparing pancakes for her two sons, the older was five and the younger three. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson here. "If Jesus were sitting here," she said, "he would say, 'Let my brother have the first pancake. I can wait.'" Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, "Ryan, you be Jesus!"

Kids in the Kingdom Week June 1-5

Our annual Kids in the Kingdom Week is June 1-5 from 9 a.m. to 12 noon. This year kids from 5-11 years of age will experience the Courageous Christians who were with St. Paul in the Underground Church in Rome in the earliest days of our faith. It's going to be a fun way to learn about God's love for us.

Register by filling out this form and dropping it off by the church with a check made payable to "King of Peace" Registration Form. Registration is limited to the first 30 children, so please get your forms in as soon as possible.

Please pass along this information to anyone you know with children in this age range who want to take part in the week of fun. A meeting for volunteers will be held this Sunday following the 10 a.m. worship service.

To get a feel for the type of high-energy fun, see photos of our Kids in the Kingdom Week 2008

Manteo & Virginia Dare

Little certainty surrounds the fate of the English settlers who inhabited Roanoke Island's lost colony, but it is known that in August 1587, Native American Manteo and English baby Virginia Dare were baptized. Manteo's baptism was the first recorded baptism of the Church of England in North America, while Dare was the first child born to English settlers on the North American continent. These first two baptized Christians within our Anglican tradition show amazing breadth, a grown Native American and an infant immigrant from England.

The icon pictured here was given to me by Bishop Clifton Daniel of the Diocese of East Carolina who said, "The baptisms of the Lost Colony mark a peaceful beginning to multi-cultural relations in North America. A commemoration of this event allows us as a people to reflect on this beginning and the changes that have shaped our nation and shed light on the challenges we face today."

Bishop Daniel's sermon on the first commemoration of a feast celebrating their baptisms (held last year) is online here: Commemoration of the Baptisms of Manteo & Virginia Dare. His diocese hopes to have The Episcopal Church mark the date of their baptisms in the calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts.

This is one of many proposals which will face the once every three years The General Convention of The Episcopal Church this July. I will be there as a clergy deputy of The Diocese of Georgia along with King of Peace member Bill Bruce, who will be on hand as a lay alternate deputy of the diocese, serving some of the time to "spell out" deputies or take their place if someone must leave.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

Where God Is

The guarantee of one’s prayer is not in saying a lot of words. The guarantee of one’s petition is very easy to know: How do I treat the poor? Because that is where God is. The degree to which you approach them, or the scorn with which you approach them—that is how you approach your God. What you do to them, you do to God. The way you look at them is the way you look at God.

-Archbishop Oscar Romero (1917-1980)

Things Science Is too Young to Understand

Dan Brown made a huge stir with his book and the subsequent movie, The DaVinci Code. A previous book surfaces in theaters this week to bring up the contention between science and religion. Angels & Demons opens in theaters around the country Friay trying to generate drama from the conflict of science and religion. It is true that there have been times when religious leaders suppressed science. It is also true that Christianity has been a supporter of scientific research. But the movie and the book on which it is based makes much of the myth which goes something like this: Science is about facts. Science tells us of things that are proven, that we can know with certainty. Religion is about beliefs and faith. Religion concerns things that we cannot prove, but that one must simply believe. Science is progressive while religion seeks to oppress science.

The new movie notwithstanding, there is a problem when this myth is pushed to the extreme, science is seen as being rational, enlightened, and standing on the side of knowledge. Christianity and other religions are viewed as backwards, superstitious, and authoritarian. It can come across as if one must decide whether to live a life according to science or Christianity.

We should get neither too excited when science seems to confirm our faith nor too bothered when science seems to contradict our faith. Science and religion are separate lines of inquiry into the same reality and as one character will say in the film, "There are simply some things science is too young to understand." The truth is that faith has not always shown the maturity that comes with age. Both our science and our faith are on a journey to a goal not yet reached, and we should let each run its course with the occasional check and balance from each other.

Albert Einstein is oft quoted weighing in on this issue saying, ”Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.” Discoveries from science can help illumine our faith. Likewise, a breakthrough in spirituality can help a scientist find new meaning in her or his work. These checks and balances become even more important as we move ahead as genetic research pushes ahead to new frontiers in what is possible. Some on the faith side currently choose to ignore any scientific discovery that seems to contradict their current understanding. I suggest that we neither ignore science nor place our faith in it.

I personally would not choose to give up all the advancements in medicine to return to a pre-enlightenment health care system. However, I would also hate to see science pushed ahead toward doing whatever is possible, with regard only to what can be done and never to what should be done. Therefore, while I suggest that the worlds of science and religion are largely separate, they need each other.

After all, humans seem hard-wired to ask the big questions like, “Why am I here?” and, “How did everything we see get here?” Science has shown that the more we understand, the muddier the water gets for the bigger questions. Scientific method alone can never answer these questions adequately.

That's my take. What do you think?

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

Nearer than our own soul

So when we sing, 'Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,' we are not thinking of the nearness of place, but of the nearness of relationship. It is for increasing degrees of awareness that we pray, for a more perfect consciousness of the divine Presence. We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.

-A.W. Tozer

An Amazing Toast

Off topic for this blog (except that it deals with love). This irenic (meaning peaceful) thought is an offering from friends to a couple getting married. It starts slow, but hang in as it changes at 1:48 into the video.

Subtraction

It's not addition that makes one holy but subtraction: stripping the illusions, letting go of pretense, exposing the false self, breaking open the heart and the understanding, not taking my private self too seriously.

-Richard Rohr (1943- )

To pray is to listen

Why is it so important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It's important because it's the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved.

To pray is to listen to the One who calls you "my beloved daughter," "my beloved son," "my beloved child." To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being.

-Henri Nouwen (1932-1996)

A Light Left On

Brandon's latest YouTube film created out of the life of King of Peace.

Abide in Me

In tomorrow's Gospel reading Jesus says,

I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

The Rev. Machrina Blasdell has preached on this text saying,

This passage from John’s gospel utilizes the image of vinedresser and vineyard to describe the relationship between God and Christian believers. What is the purpose of such care and tending? That we will bear fruit. That we may perhaps have a clearer understanding of our relationship to the vine.

Today is Mother’s Day. Many of us are mothers. Many of us have mothers. Any understanding of motherhood includes cajoling, guiding, and giving – as well as taking away, in the form of grounding, being put on “time out,” or being sent to our room. Isn’t this a bit like God’s role as the Vinedresser? God tends, mother guides. God counsels, mother teaches. God prunes, mother takes away, or puts on “time out,” or in some way lets us know that we will behave!

In both cases, the aim is to grow good fruit. For Mother, we are to become strong and wise and educated and courageous and ethical and use very good table manners. For God, well, for God we are to abide in God. Abide. Find our home in. Stake our claim in.

That sounds so easy, doesn’t it? We have only to glance again at the epistle reading from 1 John to realize how hard this is. We must love our brothers and sisters.

Imagine this in the family scenario: What does Mother do when we don’t love our brothers and sisters? Remember the old expression “gettin’ smacked upside the head”? John’s gospel uses the more elegant language of pruning to describe the vineyard scene, but it amounts to the same thing. We are to grow, to develop, to learn well from our teachers and to live the life to which we are called. And it’s hard work.

All of this conviction that we are called and expected to answer our Lord’s love with action, with fruit bearing, is rooted in our baptism with the promise “I will, with God’s help.” There’s that give-and-take construction again. In this Easter season it is good to remember that for the earliest Christians, baptism was the claiming of faith and being claimed by God. It was the nurturing and tending of the seedling until the tender shoot grew strong. The preparation for baptism took months and even years to accomplish because of all there was to learn and do in order to take on an active role in the community of faith. We stand on the shoulders of these saints in our present-day faith, charged to remember that the activity of faith is not easy or optional.

“Abide in me as I abide in you.” Jesus said. This doesn’t mean settle down, it means get busy.

The full text of her sermon is online here: Abide in Me.

Spring Planting

The Turtles class at King of PeaceEpiscopal Day School planted flowers in front of the church this morning.

Twittering in Church

Twitter.com is the website that allows you to keep up with folks who send out brief updates of no more than 140 characters. Hollywood stars Twitter, politicians Twitter, and now congregations are encouraged to Twitter in some churches according to a Time article, Twittering in Church, with the Pastor's Permission.

The Time article focuses on an experiment at Westwinds Community Church in Jackson, Michigan in which the congregation was taught how to use Twitter and then given space in worship to use the online service to interject their own thoughts into worship. They created a system that would project Tweets sent to be posted during the service and up on the screen started popping messages like

"I have a hard time recognizing God in the middle of everything."

"The more I press in to Him, the more He presses me out to be useful"

"sometimes healing is painful"

But Westwinds is not the only church making the interactive connection. The article went on to say

In Seattle, Mars Hill churchgoers regularly tweet throughout the service. In New York City, Trinity Church marked Good Friday by tweeting the Passion play, detailing the stages of Jesus' crucifixion in short bursts. At Next Level Church, outside Charlotte, it's not only okay to fuse social networking technology with prayer; it's desirable.

On Easter Sunday, pastor Todd Hahn prefaced his sermon by saying, "I hope many of you are tweeting this morning about your experience with God."

"It's a huge responsibility of a church to leverage whatever's going on in the broader culture, to connect people to God and to each other," says Hahn.

If worship is about creating community, Twitter is an undeniably useful tool. The trick is to not let the chatter overshadow the need for quiet reflection that spirituality requires.

I tend to see this as a passing fad and one that could detract as much as it could add. But, as in most things, I am prepared to be wrong. The full text of the article is online here: Twittering in Church, with the Pastor's Permission. What do you think?

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

Leviathan

Let those curse it who curse the day, Who are prepared to rouse Leviathan.—Job 3:8

Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook? Or press down his tongue with a cord?—Job 41:1

You crushed the heads of Leviathan; You gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.—Psalms 74:14

There the ships move along, And Leviathan, which You have formed to sport in it.—Psalms 104:26

In that day the LORD will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, With His fierce and great and mighty sword, Even Leviathan the twisted serpent; And He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea.—Isaiah 27:1

Twin Baptisms & Daughters of the King

Two Vessels

We finished up the clergy conference of the Diocese of Georgia yesterday at lunch. I wanted to share one more image given to us by our speaker, Bishop Clifton Daniel of East Carolina. While you can't get the sweep of the talks from my reports, I will say his larger topic dealt with leading the church in times of conflict.

He spoke of a ship and a boat yesterday, comparing these two real vessels to the Church and congregations. The first is the Queen Mary. Today it is a major tourist attraction in Long Beach, California. Tourists pay to visit the ship, to be pampered in its spas and to spend the night on board. It is a beautiful ship with wonderful amenities. The only problem is that it is no longer going out to sea and so does not do what it was made to do. It is gorgeous, very comfortable, but the bottom is rusting out.

The second vessel is many miles to the north where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. Boats sometimes get to close to the violent crash of waters at the out of the river and are pulled about in currents and cross currents. A Coast Guard Station nearby responds with a rescue boat, which is self-righting and self-bailing in case it capsizes while working to rescue others. This second vessel is constantly ready and often out in danger doing what it was meant to do, rescuing those in trouble. It need not fear the waters as when capsized or knocked under, it comes to right again.

The comparison is obvious to churches that are beautiful, but going no where and to those out in the rough currents, doing the work of the church trusting that if things go wrong, God will cause it to turn out right again. He went on to share the problems that occur in groups using the facilities and created issues, in welcoming in people who create issues and so on. There are problems out there when we do the work of the church. But out in those issues that arise from ministry is where we are built to be and we have to trust God to make it all work out rather than running for the safe shore and remaining out of conflict by remaining inactive.

The Coming Kingdom of God

As I mentioned yesterday, I am at Honey Creek getting in some continuing education at the Diocese of Georgi's clergy conference. Our speaker, Bishop Clifton Daniel of the East Carolina told a compelling story yesterday of what the Kingdom of God looks and feels like. I know I can't capture the emotion, but I want to share the story.

He told of being a young priest and going alone to Jerusalem to study at St. George's College, which offers short study trips. He arrived at dusk and found the gates locked. No one responded when he rang the bell. He walked around the walled complex in this foreign city where he didn't know how unsafe the neighborhood was and he had already experienced an inability to communicate with others in getting to the grounds. Frustrated and alone, he circled the large compound four times. He was exhausted, alone, hungry and fearful. He sat down and cried. A woman saw him in his clericals and spoke to him in English asking if he was an Anglican priest. He said he was. She said, "It doesn't look good for the church for you to be crying outside it like this." She went on, leaving him even more isolated than before. He had no idea what to do.

Then as if a door opened where there was only solid wall before, light streamed out of the side of the wall. He called out and someone he did not recognize came and called him by name, took his bag and said with relief that they had been looking for him. Once inside he found a place set, ready to be filled with food waiting for him and a large group of people joyful that he was safe and sound. There were no familiar faces, but all had been anxious for his arrival and all were glad to welcome him in from the dark and cold.

He said this is his major image of the end of life or the end of time and how we will be welcomed into the coming Kingdom of God.

Something Holy and Sacred

When we deal with each other, we should do so with the sense of awe that arises in the presence of something holy and sacred. For that is what human beings are: we are created in the image of God.

–National Conference of Catholic Bishops,
Economic Justice for All

The Mercy Test

I am at Honey Creek getting in some continuing education at the Diocese of Georgia clergy conference. Our speaker is Bishop Clifton Daniel of the Diocese of East Carolina. He has given us much to think about, but I wanted to pass along "The Mercy Test."

Bishop Daniel notes the importance of mercy in scripture and he offers the self test for any situation. In any given place you find yourself, the mercy you are showing and are willing to show is revealed in how many people in that place you would not be with if you had a choice to avoid them. How many people are getting on your nerves, driving you crazy etc. do you have to extend some mercy to in the given situation. For in many places we find ourselves, we are called to extend mercy and understanding to others and in turn receive it ourselves.

The Vegetable Sermon & Human Cloning

Thomas Fairchild (1667-1729) was an English nurseryman and pioneer gardener. The author of The City Gardener led a movement for gardening within the city of London at a time when the rapid rise of smoke pollution presented a serious problem. Fairchild was the first to experiment with hybridization of plants. Before 1717 he placed the pollen of Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus) on the style of a gillyflower (Dianthus caryophyllus). The next year, the new hybrid flower (a type of carnation) came into bloom looking like neither of its parents alone, proving the sexual reproduction of plants. But Fairchild worried about backlash at such an attempt to take God's power over creation into his own hands. Once announced, the flower became known as "Fairchild's Mule."

Fairchild seemed to feel bad about the hybrid as well, establishing an endowment at St. Leonard's Church, Shoreditch, in the Hackney section of London for the preaching of an annual sermon on either "The wonderful works of God in Creation" or "On the certainty of the resurrection of the dead, proved by certain changes of the animal and vegetable parts of creation". Known in Shoreditch as "The Vegetable Sermon", Fairchild's bequest was observed until the 1990s.

It might seem like overkill to fund an annual sermon to make ammends for creating a hybrid flower, but there is something to Fairchild's act that makes me wish for some similar humility on the part of those working on human cloning. But it seems at times as if once a thing becomes possible, it becomes inevitable as while an individual might be able to control a given urge, as humanity it seems that all things possible are done sooner rather than later. As a species, we place no limits on our own actions, even if as a man or woman we may.

What do you think? Should we show a bit more humility in how we pursue the possible? Or am I seeing this all wrong?

peace,
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

The Church I Know

If this is not a place where tears are understood,
Where do I go to cry?

If this is not a place where my questions can be asked,
Where do I seek?

If this is not a place where my spirit can take wing,
Where do I go to fly?

If this is not a place where my feelings can be heard,
Where do I go to speak?

If this is not a place where you'll accept me as I am,
Where do I go to be?

If this is not a place where I can learn and grow,
Where can I be just me?

That's the church I know.

-anonymous

Listening to I Am

In tomorrow's Gospel reading, Jesus says,

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away--and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.

The Rev. Kirk Alan Kubicek opens this passage up for us writing,

Lord, you have spread a table before us in the presence of those who trouble us. Lord, we know that you want us to listen to you. Lord, if you are listening for just one minute, just for one second of one minute, can you please shut out all the competing voices, interests, merchants, politicians and commentators for just a few minutes of silence? Lord, can you please still the waters, can you please make us lie down in green pastures, can your rod and your staff please, Lord, comfort us, touch us, protect us and heal us? Lord, please give us the time, the place, and the space to listen to you!

When we look and listen to the shrill voices that surround us on all sides every day, we begin to know the plight of the one who gave us the Twenty-Third Psalm. And if we are paying attention at all, we will stop and listen for the Good Shepherd – the Beautiful One. We will stop and listen for Jesus. And what we will hear if we are listening closely is just two words: “I am.”

For people of faith, for people of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus, those are the only two words we need to hear: “I am.”

Jesus says, “I am.” The people of God have heard these words before. Standing barefoot, in front of a bush that burns and is not consumed, we hear a voice and we ask, like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, “Who are you?”

The answer comes back, “I am who I am. … I am what I will be. … just tell them I AM sent you.”

The one who says “I am,” also says, “I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for my sheep.”

Let’s pause for just a moment and understand what is being said here. We are known. We all want nothing more than to be known. We spend a lifetime looking for relationships, reflecting on experiences, searching for someone who knows us, or even more fundamentally, we search to know ourselves. There is no doubt about it, the most fundamental human condition is a desire to be known.

All these other voices competing for our attention do not really want to know us. They can’t possibly know us. But there is one who does. The one who says, “I am,” wants to know us. In fact the one who says, “I am,” already knows us just as the Father knows him.

God knows us. And in that knowledge, we know God. If we really let ourselves hear what Jesus is saying, we can come to know God. Not a lot of propositions about God, not things about God, but we can experience the reality that is God.

This naturally frightens us. But such fear is not mere sentiment, but rather manifests itself in a way of life, as the First Letter of John speaks about it – a way of life that shows we respect the majesty and power of the God who says, “I am.” A life that ought to lay down its life for another.

As verse 16 says: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuse help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”

For those who listen to Jesus, the shepherd becomes the Paschal lamb slain on the feast of the Passover to save us from our sins, and we are the sheep of his pasture. We are poor sheep like those he tends and leads beside still waters. We become his people, his body and blood for the world.

There are many competing voices. But only one voice calls us each by name. Only one voice knows us by name. Only one voice speaks the great, “I am.” That voice is Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever.

The eyes of the poor

On Wednesday, I had lunch in a lovely wood-paneled private room in the Chatham Club on the 14th floor of the DeSoto Hilton in Savannah. It was a great meal with a fun group to be with, all with a commanding view of Savannah.

Another group was at the Chatham Club for a regular Bible study. I applaud the businessmen gathering there to read and reflect on the scripture. Yet, it did make me wonder, "What does it mean to study the Bible in a place of priviledge, far out of reach of the real needs of a city? How might the reflections be different if the same verses were read and reflected on in a soup kitchen? Or in a prison cafeteria? Or in any one of a thousand places in the same town where the needs are visible, tangible, real?

Reading the Bible with the eyes of the poor is a different thing from reading it with a full belly. If it is read in the light of the experience and hopes of the oppressed, the Bible’s revolutionary themes—promise, exodus, resurrection, and sprit—come alive.

–Jurgen Moltmann (1926- )