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lenten journal: hanging by a thread

2

Over the past couple of weeks, Ginger and I have had a couple of movie dates over breakfast. Both our schedules have pulled us out of the house in the evening, so we have fed our film habit in the mornings. This morning we watched an amazing piece of art and prophecy: Children of Men.

The story is set in 2027 and presents a frighteningly plausible vision of the future. There are no flying cars or laser toys, nobody dodging bullets like The Matrix, just a world that appears to be the result of things we have set in motion now: global warming, terrorism and the politics of fear, the flu pandemic. The human race has become infertile and the world is made more tenuous when the youngest person on the planet, “Baby Diego,” dies – he is eighteen. Theo, the main character played by Clive Owen, begins the movie as one who copes with all the pain and horror by disengaging from life. Part of the story is his waking up to the pain, as well as to the possibility of hope.

The movie echoes one of the crucial themes of Holy Week: our enduring hope often comes down to holding on by a thread. When John wrote, “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot extinguish it,” I imagine he was thinking of a small single oil lamp that continued to burn rather than a giant bonfire. If the light were going to remain, it was up to that one small flame. Today is the anniversary of a day when hope took a severe hit as Martin Luther King, Jr. fell to an assasin’s bullet on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel and the thread was not broken. My friend Billy and I wrote a song about it called “Down with the Ship.”

martin was ahead of his time
time was so far behind

he had no eye for an eye
in his point of view
what he could see

it was a beautiful dream

the trouble with dreaming things

is seeing them come true


when you’re sailing on the high sea

when you set out on a hope trip

sometimes you get to your bright tomorrow

sometimes you’ve got to go down with the ship


martin had the fight of his life

stared right into the enemies’ eyes

tried to wake them from their comfortable lies

that’s how ships go down

he wasn’t praying for a long white robe

prayed for strong hearts and hands to hold

for people right here to sing and know

that we shall overcome


when you’re sailing on the high sea
when you set out on a hope trip
sometimes you get to your bright tomorrow

sometimes you’ve got to keep sailing on the high sea

believing love has got a firm grip

and you’ll get to your bright tomorrow

sometimes you’ve got to go down with the ship


the truth won’t die just because your hero falls

someday all flesh will stand to see it all

and we’ll go sailing on the high sea

and we’ll set out on a hope trip

put our eyes on a new horizon

and don’t look back

we’ll go sailing on a high sea

believing love has got a firm grip

set our eyes on a new tomorrow

set our hearts to go down with the ship


sometimes you’ve got to go down with the ship

When you read King’s sermons, you can sense he knew he wasn’t going to be around to see his dreamcome true. The night before he died he even said, “I may not get there with you . . .” And he finished his sermon, checked into the motel, and got up the next morning. As we relive this week, it seems obvious that Jesus knew those whom he had counted on to stand with him were falling away. He told Peter he would deny him. He told Judas to go and do what he needed to do. The disciples didn’t come through. When Jesus prayed, “If there’s any other way,” part of his anguish must have come from a profound sense of loneliness and desertion. If the light were not going to go out, it would be because Jesus moved beyond death and anger and indignation and betrayal to forgiveness.

If there is no forgiveness, there are no stories, there is no life. The light goes out.

This afternoon, I found this poem in my email from Ken, my spiritual director. It was written by John Shea (I think this is him here).

Prayer for the Lady Who Forgave Us

There is a long-suffering lady with thin hands

who stand on the corner of Delphia and Lawrence

and forgives you.

“You are forgiven,” she smiles.

The neighborhood is embarrassed.

It is sure it has done nothing wrong

yet, every day, in a small voice

it is forgiven.

On the way to the Jewel Food Store

housewives pass her with hard looks

then whisper in the cereal section.

Stan Dumke asked her right out

what she was up to

and she forgave him.

A group who care about the neighborhood

agree that if she was old it would be harmless

or if she were religious it would be understandable

but as it is…they asked her to move on.

Like all things with eternal purposes

she stayed.

And she was informed upon.

On a most unforgiving day of snow and slush

while she was reconciling a reluctant passerby

the State people

whose business is sanity,

persuaded her into a car.

She is gone.

We are reduced to forgetting.

Hope is not sane or safe, and is often scarce when compared to fear or cynicism or despair, or even sin. On any given night, the darkness is larger than the flickering flame. When the nay sayers confronted Jesus about forgiving a man’s sins, Jesus asked, “Which is easier: to forgive his sins or to heal him?” Jesus did both. Forgiveness doesn’t come easy, whether we are the forgiver or the forgivee, but it is the fuel that keeps the light burning.

I was reminded again today it will not go out.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal — to know and to be known

2

I talked to a friend today who had just returned from a workshop on using “emotional intelligence” in dealing with conflict. The term was new to me, but is a rather well formed theory and/or practice it seems. I’m struck more by where the idea of emotional intelligence took me than learning what the whole deal is about. If I’m emotionally intelligent, do my “smart” tears, like smart bombs, know where to fall?

I was teaching high school when the idea of “multiple intelligences” first began to come into prominence. I found there really is something to working to give kids – or anyone else – a chance to show how they understand and express things, whether they feel word-smart, music-smart, people-smart, or nature-smart. It challenged my educational intelligence: could I look up from my lesson plans long enough to notice who was not getting the opportunity to show their smarts?

Ed Hirsch’s book Cultural Literacy came out during that time as well, causing quite a discussion about what we should all know in order to be able to converse with one another and maintain some sense of American community. As an English teacher, I was often a part of discussions about what books the students should read. Was there a “canon” of essential (to some, sacred) texts? Was the point to be multicultural? Was it about reading specific books or teaching kids how to read meaningfully? I wrote my Masters thesis on “Teaching The Scarlet Letter in a Multiethnic Setting” because seventy percent of my students were nonnative English speakers and first generation immigrants. To them, reading about the Puritans was multicultural literature.

One of the terms that showed up in the little reading I did online about emotional intelligence was “emotional literacy,” which connected in my mind with Stephen Prothero’s new book Religious Literacy, in which he seeks to contend with the lack of religious knowledge in this country, particularly among those who say they believe in God. Here are some of the things he found:

  • half of all Americans cannot name one of the four gospels
  • a majority cannot name the first book of the Bible
  • sixty percent of evangelical Christians think Jesus was born in Jerusalem
  • fifty one percent of Jews think Jesus was born in Jerusalem
  • ten percent of Americans think Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife
  • many high school students think Sodom and Gomorrah were married
  • a third of Americans don’t think Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount
  • seventy five percent of American adults think “God helps those who help themselves” is in the Bible

And that’s just the Judeo-Christian stuff. Dig in on Hinduism, Buddhism, or Islam and we know even less. I have yet to read the book, but I found this quote in one of the reviews of the book:

“Some friends tell me that they don’t bring their sons and daughters to worship services or talk with them about their faith because they want their children to be free to choose a religion for themselves. This is foolhardy…. [I]f you offer them nothing, you are telling them that religion counts for nothing.”

Religion is a problematic word for me. I don’t think of it as a synonym for faith necessarily. Religion represents the bureaucratic, self-perpetuating institution rather than the relational, spiritual, mission-minded church. As far as words go, I’m all for losing my religion. I am, however, interested in what it might mean to be spiritually intelligent: to be God-smart. “Have this mind in you,” Paul wrote, “which was also in Christ Jesus.” Evidently, this idea has been around for a while. As we make the journey through Holy Week, both Paul and Prothero make me wonder if most of us know where we are going. And it also reminds me of an old joke about the small town pastor that visited regularly with the village drunk, trying to convert him. One day the drunk said, “You think I don’t know the story. I do.” He began to give a fairly accurate telling of the events of this week, right up to the stone being rolled away from the opening of the tomb; then he said, “And when Jesus comes out, if he sees his shadow, we’ll have six more weeks of winter.”

In one of the more interesting twists in the English language, for a long time the word know was used to mean sexual intercourse as well as mental perception or understanding. In the KJV, Adam “knew” Eve. (For one of my seminary friends, that turned the inscription on the oracle at Delphi, “Know thyself,” into a stealthy way to curse at someone.) The connection, I think, is that knowing is an intimate act. To know someone is to be invested deeply in their lives and they in yours. To know God – to be God-smart – is being vulnerable and intimate with the Very One who knew us, as the psalmist says, before we were even born.

One of the things we share in common with the disciples who walked with Jesus is how often we prove that we act like we know what’s going on while we show that we’ve missed the point. The gospel accounts of Jesus’ last days before his death show again and again that those who had been with him for three years and had heard most of his parables and seen most of his miracles still didn’t really know him or understand what he was doing. When Jesus was arrested and killed they denied him and scattered into the night as though they were taken completely by surprise. To be a part of a lineage of faith that connects back through two thousand Easters, we share an amazing resemblance to those we so easily see as less than spiritually intelligent.

Thank God the focus of our faith is not on who is smart enough to connect with God. “We see now through a glass, darkly,” Paul said, “but one day we will see face to face.” When that clarity comes, I don’t expect a quiz, but I look forward to knowing and being known.

Peace,
Milton

PS — there’s a new recipe.

lenten journal: diamond days

11

I wrote before I went to bed last night and I’m back at it this morning because I’ve got a deadline. According to the counter on my desktop, the Red Sox take the field in Kansas City to open the 2007 baseball season in less than six hours.

LESS THAN SIX HOURS!


In the steroid-ridden-unconscionable-salary-giving-over-the-top-
loss-of-perspective world of professional sports, I’m an unabashed Red Sox fan. I have been as long as I can remember. It’s something about both the team and the game. “Baseball, it is said, is only a game.” writes George Will. “True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.”

As far as games being unequal, here is one of my favorite George Carlin routines in which he compares baseball and football.

Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.
Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park!
Football is played on a GRIDIRON, in a STADIUM, sometimes called SOLDIER FIELD or WAR MEMORIAL STADIUM.

Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything is dying.

In football you wear a helmet.
In baseball you wear a cap.

Football is concerned with downs. “What down is it?
Baseball is concerned with ups. “Who’s up? Are you up? I’m not up! He’s up!”

In football you receive a penalty.
In baseball you make an error.

In football the specialist comes in to kick.
In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.

Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting, and unnecessary roughness.
Baseball has the sacrifice.

Football is played in any kind of weather: Rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog…can’t see the game, don’t know if there is a game going on; mud on the field…can’t read the uniforms, can’t read the yard markers, the struggle will continue!
In baseball if it rains, we don’t go out to play. “I can’t go out! It’s raining out!”

Baseball has the seventh-inning stretch.
Football has the two-minute warning
.

Baseball has no time limit: “We don’t know when it’s gonna end!”
Football is rigidly timed, and it will end “even if we have to go to sudden death.”

In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there’s kind of a picnic feeling. Emotions may run high or low, but there’s not that much unpleasantness.
In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you were perfectly capable of taking the life of a fellow human being
.

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

In football, the object is for the quarterback, otherwise known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy’s defensive line.
In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! “I hope I’ll be safe at home!”

I write a lot about trying to get home, or at least to find it. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I love this game: home is that well defined base with a rooftop between the dugouts, surrounded by the grandstands. Home is the smell of the popcorn and peanuts, the incessant murmur of the crowd that bursts into cheer when the Hometown Team makes them proud. Home is the place you go to sit and watch and talk and eat and, for awhile, keep time by innings rather than hours and minutes. Home is the place where the kid in the top row of the upper deck brings her glove because she just might catch a fly ball. Home is the kind of place that calls up the kind of feelings Milton Bracker describes in “Tomorrow!” (after all, it is National Poetry Month):

Hoorah, hooray!
Be glad, be gay-

The best of reasons

Is Opening Day.

And cheering the players
And counting the gate

And running the bases

And touching the plate.

And tossing the ball out
And yelling Play Ball!

(Who cares about fall-out-

At least, until fall?)

Let nothing sour

This sweetest hour;

The baseball season’s

Back in flower!

I would love to see the Sox take the Series this year as much as any Boston fan and, cheering for a team that has won two championships in the last ninety years, I’ve learned winning is not the only reason to go to the ballpark or turn on the radio at night to see how the boys are doing. In August of 2004 I got to perform a wedding at Fenway Park, thanks to a friend who recommended me to the couple getting married. That Sunday was the first day the Sox allowed weddings up on the right field porch and ours was the second wedding of the day. The attendees received a program and a box of Cracker Jacks when they sat down. I stood with my back to the park, so the couple looked out over the ball field as they exchanged vows. Afterwards, we went down on the field and had our pictures taken in front of the Green Monster, just steps away from where Manny Ramirez stands during a game. When the Sox went on to win the Series that year, we all took partial credit for helping to break the Curse. We couldn’t help but make ourselves a part of Red Sox history.

“Time, like an ever rolling stream, bears all its sons away,” wrote Isaac Watts. “They fly forgotten as a dream dies at the opening day.” (I had no idea he was a baseball fan.)

Find your cap and dust off your glove. Watch The Sandlot or The Rookie or Field of Dreams. Swing for the fences. Make yourself a hot dog. The parks are open and the season has begun.

Put me in, coach; I’m ready to play. Today.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: I am . . .

4

Since today marks the beginning of National Poetry Month, I have a statement to make: Jesus was a poet.

Why not? Vaclav Havel was a poet who became president of his country; why can’t a poet be Messiah? Jesus thrived on metaphor. His “I am” statements, as we’ve come to call them, are among his best: I am

  • the bread of life
  • the light of the world
  • the door
  • the good shepherd
  • the resurrection and the life
  • the way, truth, and life
  • the true vine

The seven statements use everything from cooking to animal husbandry to describe who he was and why he stepped into our skins. Like a good poet, he did more provoking than explaining, offering metaphors that refused to be easily pinned down. Some have even expanded. Light, for instance, we know now is one of the few things than can be perceived as both a wave and a particle, but not at the same time. We draw light from an abundance of sources not available to Jesus’ hearers the first time around, leaving us to unpack the poetry in ways Jesus, perhaps, didn’t even think of during his time on earth.

I love the way he began each statement: I am . . .

In the extensive Bible study I did while driving from church to work this afternoon (which means I tried to remember every statement of Jesus I could), I couldn’t come up with a single instance where Jesus, when trying to communicate his person and mission, began a statement with “I am not . . .” He never described himself by reflecting – or deflecting – off of those he considered rivals or enemies. He had poetry to speak and to do, so negative, competitive, and judgmental words had no place in the equation. And he was standing in a lineage of poets.

When Moses asked God whom he should say sent him to Pharaoh, God answered, “Tell him, I AM sent you.” The verb TO BE. Isaiah talked about trees clapping their hands and the rivers singing because they grew tired of waiting for the human poets to catch on. The writer of Ecclesiastes had to be sitting in a coffee shop somewhere writing those words, with a small jazz combo (can you play jazz on lyre and timbrel?) sitting in the corner.

This weekend, the presidential candidates had to report how much money they’ve raised so far. They’ll spend a good deal of the money telling us why they aren’t like the other guys. But does that really tell us anything? The Democrats keep saying they’re not the Republicans, and the Republicans tell us they aren’t Democrats, but do those statements reveal any thing significant about who they are? The candidates who stand up and say, “This is who I am and here’s what I’m trying to do live mostly in TV dramas and rarely cross over (Fred Thompson notwithstanding).

I was in a Baptist seminary when the hostile takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention began. Those who masterminded the coup were clear about who they were. Those of us who were against them lost ground first because we could articulate little more than, “We’re not them.” How can you build any momentum and passion by yelling, “We’re not them! We’re not them!”? Many of us on the more moderate side of the Baptist continuum at the time could have articulated who we were as Baptists and who we hoped we were becoming. Instead, we got hooked into the power struggle and have the scars to prove it.

“I am,” said God.
“I am,” said Jesus.
“I am, I said,” sang Neil Diamond.
“I am what I am,” said Popeye.

Poetry might get you elected president, but it’s more likely to get you killed. Jesus was crucified because of who he said he was. Had he been willing to speak the prose of competition and power, or if he’d been willing to allow those around him to tell him who to be, he might have lived longer. But for Jesus to say, “I am the way and the truth” was about as comfortable for the power brokers of his day as running their hands down the business side of cheese grater, because his poetic self-awareness told them who they were not. They squash you like a bug for stuff like that.

One quarter into my fifty-first year and I still feel like an apprentice poet trying to learn how to say, “I am . . .” authentically and intentionally. I’m far more to used to the language of subversive comparison, the barbed phrases of ambush: I’m not you; take that. When I talk about who I am, there is no violence in my words. There is hope. There is love. There is truth.

There is poetry.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: timing

3

One of the crucial elements of the function kitchen is timing. Most everything is done in stages and needs to be finished just before it is served, so the food is fresh and attractive – both of which can be difficult when you’re trying to get the meals to two hundred people at the same time. The salads are made, put on racks that resemble a medieval torture device, and then the rack is wrapped in plastic and stored in the walk in refrigerator until five or ten minutes before they are served, when we cut open the plastic and descend on the salads with our squeeze bottles full of dressing. If the dressing goes on too soon, the salads are limp; if it goes on too late, the salads are, well, late.

We have a general idea of the schedule for serving, but every event is a little different, both in the way it is planned and the way it plays out. How we timed the meal at tonight’s wedding was not quite the same as the night before, or the one tomorrow. We expend a lot of energy trying to get the perfect the timing; the truth is, I think, it matters and it doesn’t matter. The folks in the room came to celebrate a wedding, not to stand in awe of my culinary prowess.

Palm Sunday marks the turn towards home, as far as Lent is concerned: Easter is in sight and, for most churches, we gear up one way or another to move intentionally through Holy Week. Palm Sunday is also Passion Sunday for some, which I suppose came about, in part, because of the reality that many people won’t participate in services other than Sunday, so the gradual reliving and retelling of the story is lost on them. If they are going to be a part of our journey through the Cross to the Resurrection, then they need to hear it tomorrow. So many churches divide their worship services starting with palms and ending with the Crucifixion, which I think is a good thing, since there is no need for a spoiler alert: we all know where the story is going.

At our church, we begin by gathering before church in the garden to bless the palms and then we process, singing, into the church to begin worship. The idea is wonderful and has been logistically challenging to coordinate the singing on the outside of the building with the music and singing on the inside. We’ve tried several things – opening windows (too cold), strategically placing choir members along the path – and some have worked better than others. Over the years, we’ve gotten better at it and we’ve learned that part of the deal is those of us processing into the church are never going to be exactly in sync with those inside until we all get inside together. That was never the point. We process because we, like the people in Jerusalem that day, are trying to understand who Jesus is and what he has done for us.

The first time around, I’m sure there was a much smaller gathering of the faithful at Golgotha than on what we have come to call Palm Sunday. Even the first Easter was not so well attended. I wonder how many years on it was before churches began putting out extra seating for the “Easter crowd.” I don’t know of any minister who doesn’t wonder what could be done to get more of those who come primarily on Christmas and Easter to participate more regularly and meaningfully in the congregation. The reasons for why people don’t find a more significant connection are as varied as the number of them who come: grief, pain, indifference, priorities, hurt feelings, time, to name a few. But on Easter, and maybe even Palm Sunday, they’re in the room.

Let’s start there. Don’t worry about the timing. Feed them.

I have mixed feelings as we gather in the garden with our palms each year. We wave our fronds and sing hosanna, emulating the people who welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem, yet, as I read the story, we are emulating people who sort of missed the point. The king they were cheering for was not the one coming to town. Jesus rode into town on a donkey, not a valiant steed. Did they not notice that as they cheered? Whether fair-weather or faithful, few if any knew where the path they lined with their coats was heading. My feelings get mixed because I have a hard time coming to terms with identifying with them, which I need to do if I’m going to get to Easter. I miss the point too, even though I’ve always waved my palms knowing where the story goes. I still miss the point, sometimes.

The timing of the week is significant from Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday. We’ve worked hard to outline the courses and to move with intentionality. We know where the story is going and there is still room for surprise. Though we have done this many times before, just as I know the way an evening rolls out in the kitchen, there is still room for surprise, thank God. Some people will sit down for all the courses, some will show up only for the appetizers or the entrees, and there are seats for all, if we’ve done our job well.

“I love to tell the story,” the old hymn says, “for those who know it best seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.”

In my kitchen, I get the food ready and work to serve it well, but I don’t get to sit down and eat. At church, we are those we prepare the table and who gather around it. We are the ones who both issue and receive the invitations, the ones who tell the story and who need to hear it. May we serve whoever shows up and sit down and eat whenever we can. It’s not the timing; it’s the meal.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: work in progress

3

Today held a small and important victory for me.

One of the challenges in cooking for large functions is figuring out how much to make. We have a “banquet and event order” or BEO that delineates how many people are eating each entrée offered, but how many pounds of mashed potatoes we make is up to me. As far as appetizers go, I’m told to make a cheese platter or an antipasto tray and then what different passed hors d’oeuvres were requested, but nothing is quantified other than the number of folks coming to the event. All of a sudden my job becomes a word problem:

If one hundred and fifty people are coming for dinner and you are supposed to make sausage stuffed mushrooms, chicken satay, goat cheese and eggplant crostini, and coconut shrimp, how many of each hors d’oeuvres do you make?

Chef says there are formulas to help answer the question, but my guess is they play it safe. Catering concerns are supposed to create the illusion of excess. We’re supposed to make too much food so the people at the party think they’re getting their money’s worth because there’s so much left over. Making too much is easy to do and is too easy an answer. The first couple of weeks I was doing functions, I made as many pieces of each appetizer as there were people at the event: one hundred people, one hundred bacon-wrapped scallops. If there were one hundred people and four hors d’oeuvres, I made four hundred pieces and had most of them left over.

Today, I took a different approach. The BEO said a hundred and twenty were coming to the wedding. I made a hundred chicken satay, a hundred stuffed mushrooms, a hundred coconut shrimp, and I put the eggplant mixture in a pastry bag and piped it on to the crostini each time I made a tray so I could save the bread to use for croutons. When cocktail hour was over, all the shrimp was gone and I had ten mushrooms and eight satay for the servers’ snack.

Like I said, it was a small and important victory.

I kept thinking about the Truth Shop as I cooked today: do I want the whole truth or a partial version? The unquestioned belief in the food industry is more is better: always make too much, always hedge your bets, never tell the customer you’ve run out of something.

Why? Why? and Why not?

I’ll keep working on both my questions and my answers.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: every last one of us

4

Of my two days off during the week, Thursday is usually the run-the-errands-and-hang-out-at-Panera-with-Ginger day. Not his week. I met with my spiritual advisor this morning because he’s going to be gone for the next couple of weeks, then I went to work because there was a function this evening (I was off yesterday), and then I came home to hang out with Ginger and watch Grey’s Anatomy, which was a rerun but one we’d not seen.

I jumped the gun a little bit in spiritual direction. When Ken asked me how Lent has been for me I ended up talking about resurrection, even though we’ve still got a week to go. Actually, I think he brought it up. I talked about my realization this week that I had made it through the winter without a major depression. What I see looking back is I started seeing Ken in October 2005, when he challenged me to figure out what I most wanted to do with my life, determine what it would cost to do it, and then figure out how to pay the bill. In December 2005, I committed to writing regularly – five days a week. In October 2006 I chose to step out of professional ministry and be the spouse of the pastor rather than the pastor. I also became a full-time chef. Though I can see only through a glass, darkly when it comes to where this road is going, I like and trust the direction in which I’m headed.

“It sounds like resurrection to me,” he said.

The conversation that ensued will show up again in my writing, I’m sure, because it was rich. What comes to mind now is a comment he made a few moments later:

“I think most people are afraid of resurrection.”

His words were like a finger on the “Play” button and my mind was the CD player. Resurrection is about more than death. Jesus pushed beyond the known boundaries to show what was on the other side. When we talk about what is happening in Darfur and feel overwhelmed or helpless or even indifferent, resurrection calls us to push on through to find what is on the other side of those feelings, just as Jesus pushed beyond the tomb or walked through the walls to get to where the disciples were. Resurrection means we are not confined by the boundaries to which we have become accustomed, or which make us comfortable. Ken responded by quoting the story, “The Truth Shop” by Anthony de Mello by heart:

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the name of the shop:

THE TRUTH SHOP.

The saleswoman was very polite: What type of truth did I wish to purchase, partial or whole?

The whole truth of course. No deceptions for me, no defenses, no rationalizations. I wanted my truth plain and unadulterated.

She waved me on to another side of the store.

The salesman there pointed to the price tag. “The price is very high, sir,” he said.

“What is it?” I asked, determined to get the whole truth, no matter what it cost.

“Your security, sir,” he answered.

I came away with a heavy heart.
I still need the safety of my unquestioned beliefs.

When I came home tonight, I found this comment on an earlier blog entry:

Milton, would you think about, and comment on, the story that aired tonight on All Things Considered about the UCC congregation and the man who is a registered sex offender?

I always appreciate your insight,
Charlotte

Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Carlsbad, California is struggling with how to respond to a twice-convicted sex offender who asked to join the church. The man visited the church for a few weeks and then came to the pastor and told him who he was, what he had done, and that he wanted to join the church because it was a community where he felt safe. The pastor introduced him to the congregation at the end of worship one Sunday, explained the situation, and then asked the man not to come back until the church had figured out how to respond.

I’m writing about this as a fellow struggler and a fellow traveler in the UCC, not as a critic, judge, or any kind of expert. Ginger and I have no children of our own. I was not abused by any adults as a child, though we have a number of people close to us who were. I’m aware of the damage that lingers in their lives alongside of the healing.

When I asked Ginger about it, she said, “I’ve thought about this a lot. That’s why I went to the police station to find out who is on the sex offender registry in Marshfield. If someone came to us, I would want us to welcome them and I would want us to be very clear about what the boundaries were: they could never sit near children or sit near where the kids come for the children’s message; they could never teach Sunday School or be in the Sunday School area; they could never talk to a child one on one; I would assign a deacon each week to stay with them during Coffee Hour and to help them keep the boundaries.” She continued, “We are called to welcome everyone and we also know the high rate of recidivism for sex offenders. The issue is how do we make everyone feel safe, the offender included.”

She was talking about resurrection: beyond death, beyond violence, beyond abuse, beyond despair, beyond comfort. No wonder it scares us. The watchword of the UCC these days is “Whoever you are and wherever you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here.” Situations such as this provide the opportunity for us to step into the heart of those words. Whoever and wherever are expansive and exhaustive. The whole truth of Jesus’ resurrection is God’s grace is unlimited and unearned for all of us.

Every last one.

I will pray that Pilgrim Church will be able to incarnate that grace as resurrection people in wonderful, frightening, and uncomfortable ways. And with that prayer, I send them a song I remember from my days leading youth camps. It was recorded by the Lost Dogs ten or fifteen years ago and is a wonderful expression of the wideness of God’s mercy.

“Breathe Deep (the Breath of God)”
music and lyrics by Terry Taylor

Politicians, morticians, Philistines, homophobes
Skinheads, Dead heads, tax evaders, street kids
Alcoholics, workaholics, wise guys, dim wits
Blue collars, white collars, warmongers, peaceniks

Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God
Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God

Suicidals, rock idols, shut-ins, dropouts
Friendless, homeless, penniless and depressed
Presidents, residents, foreigners and aliens
Dissidents, feminists, xenophobes and chauvinists

Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God
Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God

Evolutionists, creationists, perverts, slumlords
Deadbeats, athletes, Protestants and Catholics
Housewives, neophytes, pro-choice, pro-life
Misogynists, monogamists, philanthropists, blacks and whites

Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God
Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God

Police, obese, lawyers, and government
Sex offenders, tax collectors, war vets, rejects
Atheists, Scientists, racists, sadists
Photographers, biographers, artists, pornographers

Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God
Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God

Gays and lesbians, demagogues and thespians
The disabled, preachers, doctors and teachers
Meat eaters, wife beaters, judges and juries
Long hair, no hair, everybody everywhere!

Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God
Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God

Yes. Every last one of us.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: it is well

10

A short story came bubbling out of me tonight. It’s raw and maybe even unfinished, but it’s what I wrote, so I will share it.

Peace,
Milton

__________________________________

Cal realized he’d forgotten his reading glasses when he sat down in his second row pew and opened the worship guide. He could read the bold print, but couldn’t decipher some of the smaller instructions. He wasn’t worried though; he’d been in church all of his life and things just weren’t that different from week to week. The best news for him was he didn’t have to worry about hymns because he knew most of the favorites by heart. When he came to words he didn’t know, he just sang the word “watermelon” over and over so people still thought he knew them all by heart.

When the organist began to play the introduction to “It Is Well With My Soul” he was transported: this was one of his favorites. Since the song was reflective, the congregation remained seated. When the intro finished, he began to sing,

When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot thou has taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul

He lost himself in the lyric and was only slightly aware at how quiet the people were in the pews around him. He could hear one (maybe two?) voices from the choir loft. “It’s a grey morning,” he thought, “maybe everyone is just feeling solemn.” When the chorus came, he could hear everyone:

It is well (it is well)
With my soul (with my soul)
It is well, it is well
With my soul.

When the song was over, Dave leaned up from the pew behind Cal and said, “Nice job, buddy. That first verse was supposed to be a solo from the choir.” Cal tried to laugh it off – and did as far as Dave knew, but he felt like an idiot. When the service was over, he skipped Coffee Hour and went on home.

Brenda took her solos seriously. She didn’t feel she could do a lot of things well, but she knew she could sing. And she loved to sing. When Roscoe, the choir director, asked her to sing the first verse of “It is Well” as a solo to lead the congregation into prayer time, she jumped at the chance. She loved the hymn and even knew the story behind it, which she promptly told to the rest of the choir: “Horatio Spafford lost all of his possessions in the Chicago Fire and then lost all four of his daughters when their ship crashed into another as it crossed the Atlantic. Only his wife survived. A few weeks later, while he was on a ship going to meet her, he said he passed near the place where his daughters died and the Holy Spirit gave the words to him. “

For full effect, Roscoe chose to play the hymn on the piano. When she heard the first few notes, she quietly cleared her throat and then began to sing precisely on cue. But she was not singing a solo. There was another voice, another voice not in the choir loft. The voice was singing well, but the problem was the voice was singing at all. She looked around until she spotted him on the second row, singing with his eyes closed. She couldn’t get his attention to wave him off. She couldn’t set the mood she wanted for worship with someone else singing along because he hadn’t paid attention to the instructions in the bulletin. For all of her hard work, what people would remember was the guy in the front sang when he wasn’t supposed to. All her hard work, her prayers, her attempt to make worship more meaningful had been sunk by the phantom singer. The song had been ruined, she thought as she sat down when the hymn was over. She felt a little hurt, a little slighted, a little disregarded, but mostly like a failure. She had failed and it wasn’t her fault. She had one gift to bring to worship and someone sat on it. How could she offer a broken gift?

Charley always got to church on time and he always sat in the balcony, which, in this little church, was a single row of chairs. He mostly came to church because he had nowhere else to go and the folks here didn’t seem to mind him being around. In fact, they were pretty good at including him in things, even though faith was new to him and he’d only been coming for six or eight months. He liked to come early to hear the choir practice. When he sat down, he could hear someone telling a story about one of the songs and how it had been written because the man lost all his children.

Charley knew that feeling, too. Since his ex-wife had moved, he didn’t even know where his children were. She made it clear he didn’t deserve to see them because of all he had done. He didn’t know what else to do but agree with her.

When it came time for the song, the lady who had told the story stood up to sing. Charley had heard her before. She had a beautiful voice that was strong and soft at the same time. But when she started singing, it wasn’t just her. There was a male voice coming from the front of the church. Even though he never turned around, the two singers were right together and sounded beautiful. Charley was sure they had practiced a lot to be able to sing so well without being able to see what each other was doing. He read the words as they sang and tried to join in with the rest of the congregation, but never mastered more than the chorus: it is well, it is well with my soul.

He wondered if the writer really felt well in his soul as he stared into the sea that had swallowed up his daughters, or if he was trying to convince himself he could feel that way. All Charley knew was the words felt true when he heard them and he needed something to feel true, even if only for a moment.

Charley was coming down from the balcony just as Brenda was moving to hang up her choir robe in the closet next to the stairs. “I liked the way you and that guy did the hymn this morning,” he said. “It touched me.”

“It was supposed to be like that,” she said before she could catch herself.

He smiled and shook her hand as he moved to the front door.

“Thank you,” she said.

lenten journal: sing for peace

11

I don’t remember when I decided I was going to end my correspondence with “Peace, Milton.” I know I’ve done it long enough that I don’t remember when I didn’t.

I do remember the day in 1989 when I came upon David Wilcox’s first record, How Did You Find Me Here?. The now defunct Sound Warehouse in Fort Worth had a special rack where they drew attention to up and coming artists – usually singer/songwriters – who were a little under the radar. That day I bought Wilcox’s record and Shawn Colvin’s first CD, Steady On. I think part of the reason I bought David’s was I thought it was a clever title for a debut album. I called my friend Billy, who was living in Austin at the time, only to find out he had bought the same records on the same day. Over the years, I collected quite a few of his records and several of his songs have become permanent fixtures in the soundtrack of my life. I firmly believe his song “Show the Way” should be our national anthem.

Billy called this week to say Wilcox had a new song on his website he thought I should hear. You can hear it too, by following this link. The song is called “Three Brothers” and yearns for peace in the Middle East through the metaphor of family.

All three brothers loved their father,
but he’s brought them here today

To see these papers and these lawyers,
and divide the old estate

All three feel that they’re the favorite,
he loves each of them the best

But these documents he gave them,
will now put them to the test

So they open all the writings
that will prove the rightful heir

To this home that they remember,
and the right to settle there

Their own sister is a prisoner,
they don’t see her face to face

They’ve not heard her song of beauty,
or felt the movement of her grace

She lives live behind those bars of steel
and waits for her release

Will she die or will we see
Jerusalem In Peace

Each one looks at what he’s given,
and he studies what he’s shown

They hold their maps that show possession,
of this place they’ve called their home

At first they sigh with satisfaction,
when they see what’s on their maps

Each one’s given all he wanted,
but the boundaries overlap

So do you wish us to be brothers?
Father help us understand

Or will we each kill off the others
to claim this same piece of land?

Do you mean there to be hatred
in this place you built to last?

And will faith just die a prisoner
in the dungeon of the past?

She lives behind those bars of steel
and waits for her release

Will she die or will we see
Jerusalem In Peace

She lives behind those bars of steel
and waits for her release

Will she die or will we see
Jerusalem In Peace

Jerusalem is sending her voice
from inside the prison of disbelief

Stand up you people of the one God
to bring about her release

I looked up peace at dictionary.com and two of the definitions were” the normal, nonwarring condition of a nation, group of nations, or the world” and “the normal freedom from civil commotion and violence of a community,” which struck me as strange because I’m not sure there are very many people in this world who see peace as normal from their experience. War is more normal than peace in our world, especially, it seems, war in the name of God. How can we think of peace as normal when so much of our world is fueled by violence?

I’m not sure the way to peace begins with everyone coming to the table to voice their demands. Somewhere pretty early in the conversation, someone has to say to the others, “I see your point.” Peace has to matter more than power for the violence to stop. Peace has to matter more than pride, more than security, more than history, more than land. More than anything.

A number of years ago, Ginger and I went to Israel and Palestine. We visited friends who were living in Bethlehem at the time and saw how the Palestinians were prevented from getting to work and were turned back at the Israeli checkpoints for no apparent reason. We saw how the people collected all the rainwater they could because the Israeli government cut off the water supply indiscriminately for days at a time. We were in our hotel in Jerusalem getting ready to go on a day trip to Masada when word came that a Palestinian suicide bomber had blown himself up on a bus in the middle of the Israeli side of the city. Now – a decade later – the news still sounds the same.

Our hotel sat at the top of the Mount of Olives. From the front veranda we looked across the Kidron Valley, past the olive trees that had been there since Jesus’ time, past the cemetery that filled up most of the valley, over the path that led to ancient steps that went up to a gate through which Jesus was taken the night before he was crucified, to see the Old City. That hotel is no longer available to tourists because the violence has only gotten worse.

When I write about stuff like this, I have to fight back two thoughts in order to write. One is that very few people will comment or engage because the problem feels overwhelming, as I have seen happen when I’ve written about Darfur. (I don’t mean that to sound like I’m trying to guilt you into commenting; I just crave a real conversation about this stuff). The second is I can’t make a difference as one person, one writer, one alleged peacemaker. For Wilcox to post a song about peace he has yet to release to see what he can stir up moves me. All the diplomats from Henry Kissinger to Condoleezza Rice haven’t been able to do much with their summits and strategies, why not try singing?

Perhaps what started as a solo will blossom into a mighty choir.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: forgiving judas

12

I’m still turning part of John 12:1-8, the gospel passage from Sunday, over in my head:

Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, the village of Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. They gave a supper for him there, and Martha waited on the party while Lazarus took his place at table with Jesus. Then Mary took a whole pound of very expensive perfume and anointed Jesus’ feet and then wiped them with her hair. The entire house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot (the man who was going to betray Jesus), burst out, “Why on earth wasn’t this perfume sold? It’s worth thirty pounds, which could have been given to the poor!” He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was dishonest, and when he was in charge of the purse used to help himself to the contents.

As Ginger repeated John’s words about Judas being a thief and using the group’s money as his own personal discretionary fund, I jotted down on my order of service, “Why did Judas get to stay?”

The first thing I need to do here is issue a disclaimer. I’m not willing to entertain the notion that God somehow placed Judas amongst the disciples because God needed him there for things to play out according to plan. I won’t entertain the idea (well, I guess I could tell it a couple of jokes – but then it would have to go) because it’s not consistent with who I trust God to be. If God is love, then God doesn’t assign people to be villains for the sake of the greater good. Whatever God did in Judas’ life it had nothing to do with betrayal. Now on with the countdown . . .

The question haunts me because I don’t think Judas was a bad guy. We don’t know much about him beyond what the gospel writers tell us. There’s no back story, no explanation of his mood or motivation. Since the gospels were written after the fact rather than as journals in real time, Judas’ betrayal of Jesus colors almost every reference to him along the way. He begins to take on the same role among the disciples that Bill Buckner plays in Red Sox lore. We would not have had to wait until 2004 to win the World Series if he had not let the ball go through his legs. For years, people could hardly say his name without cursing or crying. And so it is with Judas. But what did they know of him at the time? Did they know he was stealing from their bank account? Why didn’t they give the job to someone else? Matthew was good at accounting. Did they feel he was toxic from the beginning? Did they cough the word “bastard” into their fists every time he walked in the room?

The past couple of weeks our schedule has shifted to where Ginger and I watch a movie over breakfast a couple of mornings a week. If we don’t do it then, we never get to see movies together. This morning, we watched Half Nelson, the story of a junior high history teacher who is also a crack addict. Here’s the way the web site describes the story:

Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling) is a young inner-city junior high school teacher whose ideals wither and die in the face of reality. Day after day in his shabby Brooklyn classroom, he somehow finds the energy to inspire his 13 and 14-year-olds to examine everything from civil rights to the Civil War with a new enthusiasm. Rejecting the standard curriculum in favor of an edgier approach, Dan teaches his students how change works ‚ on both a historical and personal scale ‚ and how to think for themselves.

Though Dan is brilliant, dynamic, and in control in the classroom, he spends his time outside school on the edge of consciousness. His disappointments and disillusionment have led to a serious drug habit. He juggles his hangovers and his homework, keeping his lives separated, until one of his troubled students, Drey (Shareeka Epps), catches him getting high after school.

From this awkward beginning, Dan and Drey stumble into an unexpected friendship. Despite the differences in their ages and situations, they are both at an important intersection. Depending on which way they turn ‚ and which choices they make ‚ their lives will change.

Dan keeps talking to his students about dialectics and how opposites bring about change in human history, even as the opposites in his own life pull him apart. He is conflicted, sad, creative, stupid, desperate, sympathetic, and despicable all at once. And so it is with Judas. He doesn’t appear as a single-minded antagonist determined to destroy his nemesis. I don’t think Judas saw Jesus as an enemy or a threat. My hunch is he saw Jesus as naïve and did what he did to force Jesus’ hand into taking more evasive action. Maybe John’s take on Judas’ question about the poor is off the mark. Or, like the crack head teacher, maybe he wanted to follow Jesus and he was a liar and a thief all at the same time. His opposites pulled him to kiss Jesus in the garden and then to commit suicide.

Judas was not the only one who betrayed Jesus that night. Peter denied even knowing Jesus even as he stood almost within earshot of where Jesus was being questioned by the religious leaders. He denied Jesus and he cursed him and then ran away and wept. Peter was his own bundle of contradictions. Yet Peter got to live through his shame and find himself bathed in forgiveness at a beach side breakfast as Jesus asked, “Simon, do you love me?”

He never got to ask Judas that question.

Judas got to stay because Jesus called him to be a disciple just like the other eleven. To say he was called to be the catalyst for Jesus’ death cheapens and distorts what it means to be called of God. Jesus saw something in him that Judas, evidently, couldn’t see. I have no doubt, had Judas lived, that Jesus would have said to him, “Judas, do you love me?”

And I can hear Judas answering much like Peter, “Lord, you know my heart, despite what I have done. Yes. I love you.”

In my mind’s eye, they embrace as Jesus says, “You, too, feed my sheep.”

I trust, somewhere beyond what we know as time, they got to have that conversation.

Peace,
Milton