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schnauzer nap

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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2

One of the best parts of my day is coming home to Lola and Gracie, our two miniature Schnauzers. In the midst of all that is going on, I offer a poem on the lighter side because it’s where I needed to go today.

taking a nap with my schnauzers

tuesday afternoon
my day off
we have finished
our lunch and retired
to the sectional sofa
some people are at work
others are out walking
both people and dogs
but we are not concerned
we’re going to sleep

my dogs rest more
easily than I
they don’t weather
any guilt for the birds
who won’t be chased
the passers-by
who won’t be scolded
the toilet paper
that will go unshredded
while they slumber

Gracie lies with her head
tucked in behind mine
she whispers her secrets
then stretches out
on her back
all four feet
flying in the air
as though the couch
were a magic carpet or
a slow moving raft

Lola climbs on top
of the back cushion
a little night watchman
taking her station
not wanting to miss a thing
when I have settled
she will move down
next to me
spine against thigh
and snore

once I’ve dozed off
they wake each other
and watch to see
if my leg twitches
or my arm jerks
and turn to each
other and say
“people dream,”
then they slowly
close their eyes

Peace,
Milton

for the living of these days

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
7

We are headed into a difficult week.

We got word a few days ago that Ginger’s father has to have a mass removed from his lung. He’s already survived a battle with throat cancer. When a spot showed up a couple of years ago, they tested and said it was scar tissue. Now there’s a mass. Over the past year, we have watched him begin to slip slowly into Alzheimer’s. Now there’s a mass. Ginger goes to Birmingham on Tuesday to be there for the surgery on Thursday.

For obvious reasons, Ginger carried all of these things into the pulpit with her this morning. She was preaching from the lectionary, so she was talking about Jesus telling the disciples, after they had fished unsuccessfully, to cast out their nets again in deeper water. She began her sermon this way:

On February 3, 1937, she was born in the south the third child of four, the baby girl, and was very cute. However, this particular combination could prove to be a hindrance. As a result of my mother’s birth date, birthplace, and birth order, she was well loved and cared for — even spoiled — until her father died when she was fifteen. Then she (without much choice or option) became the primary responsible party of the household. Her little brother was too young and the others were expressing their grief in a myriad of ways. She had to cast her net, if you will, into deeper waters than she had ever known.

Through the years, my mother continued to take care of her mother and siblings and watched them die one by one. Now she is caring for my father who has Alzheimer’s and who will have major lung surgery this week. Again she is casting a net in deep and unknown waters as she learns to take on my father’s role of driving roads beyond their immediate community and as she faces the possibility of living alone for the first time in her life. She can curl and become immobilized or, like the disciples, she can move into uncharted territory casting her net into waters that seem to be without.

It’s true: my mother-in-law turned seventy yesterday. Of our four parents, she is the last to do so and, because we made a big deal for the other three, she has reminded us for several years that her seventieth birthday was coming. Ginger spent several hours (no, days) selecting, collecting, wrapping, and mailing seventy presents as my mother-in-law hoped she would, since we did a similar thing for my father years ago. Ginger spent an hour and a half on the phone yesterday while Rachel opened her presents with glee. Now, in the first week of her seventy-first year, she is taking her husband to the hospital.

Whatever my father-in-law understands or doesn’t understand about what is going on with him, he is being quintessentially himself. There has never been a day in his life when he didn’t feel “fine, outstanding, wonderful,” regardless of the circumstances. When they talk to him about the surgery, he simply says, “Whatever will be, will be.” This is a man who trusts God with the reckless abandon of a child jumping off a porch into the arms of a waiting parent. Though all of us have a strong sense of God’s presence in these days, he is not feeling the burden of the questions that have fallen on the rest of us. The doctors are operating to learn what is going on inside of Reuben as much as they are to remove the mass.

It’s a strange word. The dictionary gives lots of definitions; two stood out to me:

  • A lump or aggregate of coherent material: a cancerous mass.
  • Public celebration of the Eucharist in the Roman Catholic Church and some Protestant churches.

In one of English’s little ironies, the word for cancer and Communion are the same.

Our opening hymn this morning was “God of Grace and God of Glory,” one of my favorites. Some of the words in the second verse stuck out for me today:

From the fears that long have bound us,
Free our hearts to faith and praise.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage
For the living of these days,
For the living of these days.

Whatever happens on Thursday may create as many questions as it does answers. We are living through something that requires faith, wisdom, and courage of us. Though the prospects seem about as hopeful as the disciples’ after a long night of fruitless fishing, Ginger is right: the best we can do is head into deeper water and cast our nets, trusting that God will provide sustenance for the living of these days, whatever they may hold.

Peace,
Milton

Spokane

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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5

A family is gathering for a meal
outside Spokane
the daughter is still
wearing her soccer uniform
the mother is chatting
as she passes the potatoes
the father is nonverbal, tired
trying to engage the dog is
waiting for someone to share

They will finish their dinners
their conversations
their homework
they will turn on the television
the phone will ring several times
it will not be me

No one in that house knows
I live across the continent or
I have tales to tell of my youth
of my life, of what I did yesterday
they don’t know I can cook or play
guitar, or that I’m writing a poem
they don’t know I’ve never
been to Spokane and
they’re not concerned

they are finding their dreams
building their lives
breaking their hearts
living out their days
without knowing me
and they are not the only ones

In all my years
the phone has never rung
and a voice declared
“Come quickly to Spokane
we just realized we can’t
go on without you”
the same could be said
for the table across the room
from me here in the coffee shop

the gossamer tether of humanity
doesn’t appear to reach as far
as the next booth unless the light
is just right and I can see the lines
I’m not sure which view
is easier to live with

a creative act

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
4

As I drove to work this morning my ears perked up when I heard Charlestown mentioned on the news because it’s our old neighborhood in Boston. What they were saying was quite disconcerting: I-93 northbound was closed, as was the Sullivan Square subway station because “a suspicious package” had been found that looked like a bomb of some sort. The city ground to a halt and I got to work without hearing any updates.

About three, one of the servers coming for the evening shift asked if I had heard what had happened in Boston. I said, “You mean the bomb scare?”

“It was all a hoax,” he said. “It was a promotional stunt for a cartoon.” He laughed.

It seems Turner Broadcasting was out to promote “The Aqua Teen Hunger Force” on The Cartoon Network and distributed these things in about ten cities. Boston just found theirs first – a small black box about the size of a laptop with lights running on it. Man, I would like to meet the brain trust in the TBS marketing meeting who thought imitating a terrorist act was a good way to get folks to watch cartoons. (That said, I’m sure the Hunger Force had their biggest audience tonight.)

To say the stunt was insensitive is an understatement. Rush hour in Boston is a little trip to hell on a good day. If someone sneezes or dials a wrong number on their cell phone, everything comes to a screeching halt that takes hours to untangle. I imagine that some folks trapped north of the city this morning just now got to work. Those who dreamed up and then implemented this fiasco obviously didn’t think much about the consequences of what they were setting in motion. What they thought about was getting attention the same way some of those visual and vocal train wrecks on American Idol get up there because it means they are finally on television.

The other story I heard (and I can’t find a link) was on the BBC News and was about a guy in England who has spent his life studying how bumble bees and hummingbirds fly in order to build miniature airplanes that mimic them. He’s close to reaching his goal. The tiny planes must have flexible wings like their models because they have to hover and move quickly. His quest actually has a point beyond getting in the Guinness Book of World Records. The inventor mentioned using them in fire and rescue operations where they could carry a video camera or heat sensors into burning buildings to let firefighters see what was inside. He had other ideas as well, none of them military. He was trying to imagine the consequences of his brainchild.

Both ideas are creative. No, both ideas are imaginative; only one is creative. Though no one has ever promoted a TV show quite the way TBS did today, carrying out the rush hour equivalent of shouting “Fire” in a crowded cinema doesn’t create anything. Being creative means adding to what it means to be human rather than taking away from it, such that, when we’re finished, we can respond much like our Creator responded as the Universe was breathed into existence: “That’s good.”

Peace,
Milton

only connect

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
2

Since our first real cold snap a week or two ago, the door on the driver’s side of my Jeep Cherokee Sport has been locked up. I’ve become quite adept at entering the car from the passenger side and, I’m sure, have provided a good bit of amusement to people in various parking lots around the South Shore. Today, when I took my car to have the oil changed, I got the door fixed as well. The problem was not big, they told me: the locks had dried out.

While they were fixing the car, I was next door in the Dunkin Donuts drinking coffee and reading my Utne Reader (one of my Christmas presents from Ginger). The first article was called “Our Blackberries, Ourselves” by Lisa Else (taken from a longer article in New Scientist magazine), in which she discusses whether all the opportunities we have to be “constantly plugged in” help us to be better at self-reflection and community:

People are connecting one on one – they have their online social networks or their cell phones with 250 people on speed dial – but do they feel a part of a community? Do they feel responsibility to a set of shared political commitments? Do they feel a need to take responsibility for issues that would require them to act in concert rather than just connect? Recently, connectivity and statements of identity on places such as Facebook or MySpace have themselves become values. It is a concern when self-expression becomes more important than social action.

Her words took me back to familiar words from one of my favorite novels, Howard’s End by E. M. Forster, which looks at the changing face of human interaction as the technology changed drastically in the days before World War One:

Mature as [Henry] was, [Margaret] might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the gray, sober against the fire . . .

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.

When my family first went to Africa in 1957, the only way to get to Southern Rhodesia was to sail from New York harbor, across the Atlantic Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, to the port of Beira in Mozambique on the southeast coast of the continent. The voyage took thirty-one days. When we wanted to call our family in the States at Christmas, we had to make a reservation weeks in advance with the international operator and then pass the phone around quickly so everyone could speak in the three minutes we were given to talk. What news we got from family came by mail that arrived two weeks after it was written.

By the time we came back to America for our first leave four years later, we could fly and be back in Texas in just a few days. Tonight I can read any African newspaper I want with the click of a mouse. I love that I get the chance to make contact with those of you who read this blog – and particularly with those who comment – and I’m aware that it is more than “only” connecting because how we connect is also important. Many use pseudonyms for their online identities. Some reply anonymously or without a way to respond other than in the comment box. I love that I can look at the map on Stat Counter and find readers from Singapore to Seattle; I even had one from Azerbaijan. I love reading the blogs of people with whom I share some “cyberintimacy” because I want to see what the next chapter in the story is. My world is wider because of this blog. And Lisa Else has a point: the value of the connection is only as good as the community it creates. We are treading new ground here. No one before us in human history has had the capacity to get so much information so instantly and in such volume. When I log on to AOL to check my email, I’m often presented with a “news” page that juxtaposes things like “Three hundred killed in car bombing” with “Man breaks hot dog eating record,” as though the two stories deserve equal consideration.

It can’t be as easy as “only connect.”

It isn’t. Listen to Forster one more time:

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.

The endless stream of the twenty-four hour news channels tells one story, shows another in a smaller window, and ticks another across the bottom of the screen, fragmenting both our world and us. Margaret’s sermon was to connect head and heart, heart and hands, passion and prose, faith and action, thoughtfulness and intentionality, patience and urgency so that life feels like something other than a centrifuge.

We are paradoxically blessed to live in a time when we can know what is happening around the world. These are days of wonder and days of incredible responsibility. “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded;” Jesus said, “and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:48). I ‘m still floundering trying to figure out what knowing about the situation in Darfur means for my life. What I’m learning is I’m missing an important connection if I think of it in terms of my life or my response alone. It is in the connections that “human love will be seen at its height” – connections I find in family, in church, and here on this blog that help pull the fragments together.

Peace,
Milton

can you hear me now?

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
6

There are days that writing comes easy and days it doesn’t. There are also a lot of days in between where I find something to say once I get myself up the stairs and put my fingers on the keyboard. Every so often comes a day like today where the issue is not whether it’s easy or hard to write as much as it is whether I feel like I have something to say.

When I get to a day like this, the first fear I have to face is the prospect that I’m on the precipice of depression again. I’ve had moments over the past few days — more like a week, I guess — where I can feel the depression lurking around the edges of my life like a stalker in a Lifetime movie. That it can’t find a way to get inside gives me some hope that my new medication is working and for that I’m grateful. This week marks six years since I took my first dive off the deep end, as it were. Sometimes I think the pull of my depression is as much muscle memory as anything else. And then, of course, this particular January has offered its share of crisis and uncertainty, creating the opportunity for a symphony of emotions.

I’m also struggling to write tonight because I don’t feel very good at what I’m trying to do. I’ve been writing about Darfur because I really want to have a conversation about how I (we?) can respond. When I wrote about the war in Iraq a week or so ago, I yelled so loudly through the screen that I hardly gave anyone a chance to respond, so few did. My las two posts about the genocide in Sudan garnered two comments. I realize way more people read this blog than comment, and I also realized how much I hoped to hear from more folks when I felt my disappointment at seeing zero comments on yesterday’s post.

This is starting to sound as though I fishing for comments, which is not my point. Let me make my point clear: I’m writing about the genocide in Darfur because I want to have a conversation about what we can do beyond calling and writing any and everyone in Washington asking them to wake up. I want to talk about what it means to pray for them. I want to talk about what to do with my sense of helplessness and hopelessness as I look at how the world treats Africa. I want to know how to say all of this in a way that is invitational rather than declarative.

Peace,
Milton

requiem for darfur

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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2

Just as I was getting to work on Saturday, Scott Simon introduced a segment about a Carnagie Hall performance of Verdi’s Requiem to benefit the refugees from Darfur. I made a mental note and went to the web site to listen to the program. What I know of classical music I mostly learned from movie soundtracks, so the significance of the chosen piece is a little lost on me. I did find this description at Christopher Lydon’s Open Source, who also has a program on the concert:

As great as any of his 28 operas, Giuseppe Verdi’s one Requiem is beyond category among the masterpieces of human affirmation in the depths of suffering and horror. Verdi wrote it in his 60’s to mourn and remember his artistic heroes, the composer Rossini and the poet-novelist Manzoni. The Requiem lives in the choral and orchestral canon as a monument to Verdi himself: his belief, doubt, compositional craft and melodic genius. The work encompasses confessions of sin and guilt, a tour of hell, affirmations of faith and aspirations to heaven. Verdi’s “Dies Irae,” not normally part of the traditional Catholic requiem Mass, has become a Hollywood favorite soundtrack for unidentifiable terror. Prisoners at Terezin, the Nazi camp in Czecholovakia, learned and played the Requiem in defiance of their helplessness. Musicians play it still, not least to remember Terezin.

George Matthew was the conductor for the concert. He was conducting Verdi’s piece for the first time. It was not his first time to assemble a variety of musicians and singers for a cause. He conducted a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to raise money for Asian earthquake victims. When Scott Simon asked him why he felt compelled to organize this concert, Matthew said, “We as the classical music community had to say something with our craft.”

When Simon asked why Verdi’s Requiem, Matthews said it is “at once the music of mourning, at once it is extremely stern, and it is at once full of fear, of active terror in the face of death and really what happens to the human spirit when it’s confronted with the prospect of becoming nothing.” He went on to talk about its explosiveness and said following those explosions there was “the silent space which is the fertile ground for action.” To him, the music suggested that “In our human environment, the prospect of a individual dying unnoticed is not acceptable, it is not natural, and it is certainly not conscionable. It’s almost by virtue of the fact that someone is dying, the community must gather and Verdi is speaking to our deepest and best instincts.”

Lydon wrote in his commentary of the interview he did with Matthew, “My question to George is how his grasp of Verdi, and Beethoven, can strengthen our limp notions of what is happening in Sudan; how even a rapt contemplation in listening to Verdi can relieve our very contemporary American distance and indifference to what has become the hellish wallpaper of our media and our minds.”

I haven’t listened to Lydon’s show, but I wonder if Matthew’s answer to the question was much like his answer to Scott Simon: “We as the classical music community had to say something with our craft.” In offering their gifts, the musicians and singers are doing what they can to not let human beings die unnoticed and strengthening our sense of connectedness in the best way they know how.

Our call is to listen and then go and do likewise.

Peace,
Milton

lives in the balance

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
2

I’ve spent the better part of my day reading about what is happening in Darfur in preparation for a worship service we are going to devote to what is happening there and in other parts of Africa. Between the news of famine, AIDS, malaria, and all the other things that afflict the continent, Darfur stands out because it is genocide. My research has been colored by this quote from Margaret Mead:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

In his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, President Bush said, ““We will continue to speak out for the cause of freedom in places like Cuba, Belarus, and Burma — and continue to awaken the conscience of the world to save the people of Darfur.” He didn’t give any specifics. I have no need to doubt his sincerity and I don’t think his words or actions are going to be what changes things on the ground in Sudan, if Mead is right. And I think she is. So, with determination to become one of those thoughtful, committed citizens, I share what I found today.


As far as understanding the situation in Darfur, I found the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum description helpful:

Sudan’s Khartoum-based government is fueling ethnic and racial violence by using the Janjaweed militia as proxies against Darfur insurgents who launched a rebellion in early 2003. But it is civilians who are suffering. Government-sponsored actions include:

  • INFLAMING ethnic conflict
  • IMPEDING international humanitarian access, resulting in deadly conditions of life for displaced civilians
  • BOMBING civilian targets with aircraft
  • MURDERING and RAPING civilians

Darfurians who have fled the violence provide chilling testimony. One refugee told New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof that “the Arabs want to get rid of anyone with black skin. . . . There are no blacks left [in the area I fled].”

The death toll exceeds 100,000 and may be more than 400,000. And the crisis continues—the lives of hundreds of thousands more hang in the balance today.

I also loved that the museum is working to apply the lessons we all say we learned from the Holocaust. They also have a disquieting slide show called “Staring Genocide in the Face.” Please take time to watch it.

Save Darfur.org has a post called Unity Statement that’s worth checking out for the specific things that can be done to help change things in the region, some big and some small. They also have resource packets for worship services of different faiths. In the Christian packet, there is this prayer from a Darfurian woman:

I want to join my prayers to many other voices. Every few months we are driven away from one refugee camp to the other, so far in the desert where nothing, nothing at all exists. This is no way for a human being to live. Now way to live in such a shocking place — uncultivated, waterless, treeless, and barren region. Everything is burning, Lord, around me, around us; in me, in us. Everything is barren — hell, hell. Yet, Lord, we believe you are there beside us. We pray for all the Africans living now our same condition. Bring back peace and tranquility to our beloved country. Peace which is desired by everybody, the old and young, rich and poor, women and men. Amen, amen — let it be so. (© Gloria Silvano, Sudan/CAFOD)

They also offer a sample prayer for use in our worship:

Loving God, we know there are tremendous problems facing the world — natural disasters, civil wars, violence, disparities in resources, and sickness. We confess that there are days when we look the other way, change the channel, or pretend the problems don’t exist. We say that the problem is someone else’s concern or displace the blame. We are not confident that we can make an impact and we fear failure for ourselves and on the behalf of others. We might even think that moving to make a difference will change us in ways we will not like or make us uncomfortable. Before we begin, we desire to give up on our opponents and on the victims. Forgive us for our faintheartedness and selfishness, for failing to love others as we should, and for failing to believe that you have empowered us to protect our brothers and sisters. Remind us, Holy One, that some faithful persons refused to give up on us and that You have not given up on any of us. Amen.

Sojourners also has a worship packet and includes this prayer from the United Nations:

Merciful and compassionate Spirit,
Be present to the suffering people of Sudan
Shelter the widows and the children
Comfort all who are weary and afraid
Bring relief to those who hunger and thirst
Center our thoughts with those who suffer in silence
Move us to recall our shared humanity
Unite us in our determination to respond to injustice
May we never forget! May we never forget!
Hear our prayer. Make our action swift.
Amen.

The prayers bring me to another Margaret Mead quote:

Prayer does not use up artificial energy, doesn’t burn up any fossil fuel, doesn’t pollute. Neither does song, neither does love, neither does the dance.

I don’t know what happens when I pray for Darfur. I’m not giving God any new information. I’m not casting some sort of magical spell. I’m challenged, therefore, to articulate what it is I’m praying for. After today, I’m praying to be changed, to be made uncomfortable. One of the things I’ve said about turning fifty was I felt some relief because I was coming to terms with my limitations. When I was thirty, I thought I was running out of time to change the world. At fifty, I didn’t feel that pressure any more.

I’m wrong. The call to be faithful and committed has no age limit.

Peace,
Milton

Photo is from photo essay, “In Darfur, My Camera Was Not Nearly Enough” by Brian Steidle.

reverberation

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
2

Several experiences and conversations this week have set me to thinking about the words I both say and hear. My thoughts turned to poetry. Here is my attempt to describe some of what I am feeling.

reverberation

the air in the room is thick with left
behind words from long ago
words from last week
words we just said that took
on lives of their own as they left
our lips and our control

words we picked up off pages
things we repeat because – who knows?
words that ricochet off our shoulders
that haunt us like ghosts
that taunt us like children
that flaunt like lovers

words that break hearts
that wound friends and others
words sent to make up or make right
even though they cannot replace
those that have already cut deep
and taken residence

some dart in and out like fish
in the aquarium of conversation
some hang like wind chimes whispering
of those who talked in these rooms
before we ever stepped inside
others fly out open windows

some change between lip and ear
we don’t remember what was said
but carry away what we heard
what we thought they meant to say
we are so sure that the words
collect like pebbles in our shoes

some are familiar like home
or the curve of the one who matters most
words we say again and again
because there are no better words
I love you I love you I love you
and they shine in the dark like stars

Peace,
Milton

rag tag army

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
3

My musings on church a couple of days ago led me to look up an old friend. When I was in seminary, someone gave me a copy of The Way of the Wolf by Martin Bell, who was described as an Episcopal priest and a private detective. The book is a series of short pieces built around theological themes. The opening story, for which I think Bell is best known, is called “Barrington Bunny” and is a beautifully sad story about what Jesus meant when he said we must lose our lives to find them. My other favorite is “The Porcupine Whose Name Didn’t Matter.”

Neither of those is the reason I went hunting for the book Sunday night. What I remembered was a small piece on the church called “Rag Tag Army.” Though soldiering has never been a metaphor that has spoken to me very much spiritually, Bell gives it a playful and meaningful turn. I never did find my copy of the book, but I did find the story on line.

Here it is:

I think God must be very old and very tired. Maybe he used to look splendid and fine in his general’s uniform, but no more. He’s been on the march a long time, you know. And look at his rag-tag little army! All he has for soldiers are you and me. Dumb little army. Listen! The drum beat isn’t even regular. Everyone is out of step. And there! You see? God keeps stopping along the way to pick up one of his tinier soldiers who decided to wander off and play with a frog, or run in a field, or whose foot got tangled in the underbrush. He’ll never get anywhere that way. And yet, the march goes on.

Do you see how the marchers have broken up into little groups? Look at that group up near the front. Now, there’s a snappy outfit. They all look pretty much alike-at least they’re in step with each other. That’s something! Only they’re not wearing their shoes. They’re carrying them in their hands. Silly little band. They won’t get far before God will have to stop again.

Or how about that other group over there? They’re all holding hands as they march. The only trouble with this is the people on each end of the line. Pretty soon they realize that one of their hands isn’t holding onto anything-one hand is reaching, empty, alone. And so they hold hands with each other, and everybody marches around in circles. The more people holding hands, the bigger the circle. And, of course, a bigger circle is deceptive because as we march along it looks like we’re going someplace, but we re not. And so God must stop again. You see what I mean? He’ll never get anywhere that way!

If God were more sensible he’d take his little army and shape them up. Why, whoever heard of a soldier stopping to romp in a field? It’s ridiculous. But even more absurd is a general who will stop the march of eternity to go and bring the soldier back. But that’s God for you. His is no endless, empty marching. He is going somewhere. His steps are deliberate and purposive. He may be old, and he may be tired. But he knows where he’s going. And he means to take every last one of his tiny soldiers with him. Only there aren’t going to be any forced marches. And, after all, there are frogs and flowers, and thorns and underbrush along the way. And even though our foreheads have been signed with the sign of the cross, we are only human. And most of us are afraid and lonely and would like to hold hands or cry or run away. And we don’t know where we are going, and we can’t seem to trust God-especially when it’s dark out and we can’t see him! And he won’t go on without us. And that’s why it’s taking so long.

Listen! The drum beat isn’t even regular. Everyone is out of step. And there! You see? God keeps stopping along the way to pick up one of his tinier soldiers who decided to wander off and play with a frog, or run in a field, or whose foot got tangled in the underbrush. He’ll never get anywhere that way!

And yet, the march goes on…

“Make a joyful noise,” said the Psalmist.
“Go and make disciples,” Jesus said.

I can’t find anywhere in scripture where Jesus – or anyone else – says we are to come together as the Body of Christ to make sense any more than we are called to make war. When he knelt in Gethsemane on the night before his death, he prayed, “Make them one.” I remember an old sermon illustration from many years ago that described a conversation between Jesus and a couple of angels after his resurrection. They were congratulating Jesus on all that he had done. One of them asked, “What’s the plan now?”

Jesus answered, “Well, the believers I left behind will tell others and they will come together in groups to worship and take care of one another.”

“Seriously? That’s your plan to save the world?” asked one of the angels.

“That’s the plan,” said Jesus.

“What’s the back up plan?” asked the other.

“There is no back up plan.”

“Uh – good plan.”

Peace,
Milton

Photo is from photo essay, “In Darfur, My Camera Was Not Nearly Enough” by Brian Steidle.

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