1/1/06

Second Reading                                 ~ From Kathleen McTigue in Singing the Living Tradition

 

The first of January is another day dawning, the sun rising as the sun always rises, the earth moving in its rhythms, with or without our calendars to name a certain day as the day of new beginning, separating the old from the new.  So it is: everything is the same, bound into its history as we ourselves are bound.    

            Yet also we stand at a threshold, the new year something truly new, still unformed, leaving a stunning power in our hands: What shall we do with this great gift of Time, this year?    

            Let us begin by remembering that whatever justice, whatever peace and wholeness might bloom in our world this year, we are the hearts and minds, the hands and feet, the embodiment of all the best visions of our people.  The new year can be new ground for the seeds of our dreams.  Let us take the step forward together, onto new ground, planting our dreams well, faithfully, and in joy.

1/8/06

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Third Reading

 

Life never seems to prepare us sufficiently for epiphanies. By definition they come upon us suddenly, dazzling us by their raw power.  They are not magical intrusions from another world, but reality, naked and without shame. Their very ordinariness shimmers with unexpected depth, which is why they take us by such surprise. It does not matter whether they occur in the majesty of Hagia Sophia or in the elegant simplicity of a wooden chapel, the effect is the same. In the Seeker's own case, whatever else one was living with, confusion and fears, this unmistakable realization leaps out: God dwells here among these people.  In the very palpability of our worship, we knew this was so, and suddenly all of the other questions are put into clearer perspective; they are illumined in a cleansing moment of worship that leaves us changed. How so we dare not describe at that moment, other than to know it has occurred.

 

 

1/15/06

Second Reading                                ~ Karen Armstrong in The Spiral Staircase

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... In most traditions, faith was not about belief but about practice. Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. It is a moral aesthetic, an ethical alchemy. If you behave in a certain way, you will be transformed. The myths and laws of religion are not true because they conform to some metaphysical, scientific, or historical reality but because they are life enhancing. They tell you how human nature functions, but you will not discover their truth unless you apply these myths and doctrines to your own life and put them into practice ... Their purpose is to compel us to act in such a way that we bring out our own heroic potential.

1/22/06

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Second Reading                             ~ From Maya Angelou in “The Human Family”

 

I note the obvious differences

in the human family.

Some of us are serious,

some thrive on comedy.

 

Some declare their lives are lived

as true profundity,

and others claim they really live

the real reality.

 

The variety of our skin tones

can confuse, bemuse, delight,

brown and pink and beige and purple,

tan and blue and white.

 

I've sailed upon the seven seas

and stopped in every land,

I've seen the wonders of the world

not yet one common man.

 

I know ten thousand women

called Jane and Mary Jane,

but I've not seen any two

who really were the same.

 

Mirror twins are different

although their features jibe,

and lovers think quite different thoughts

while lying side by side.

 

We love and lose in China ,

we weep on England 's moors,

and laugh and moan in Guinea ,

and thrive on Spanish shores.

 

We seek success in Finland ,

are born and die in Maine .

In minor ways we differ,

in major we're the same.

 

I note the obvious differences

between each sort and type,

but we are more alike, my friends,

than we are unalike.

 

We are more alike, my friends,

than we are unalike.

 

We are more alike, my friends,

than we are unalike .

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Second Reading:                From Marilyn Robertson in “Possibilities” in Sojourners

 

A teacher sits down at the feet of her students.
Singing is heard in an abandoned village.

 

Food is brought to a prisoner on a white plate.
A soldier rests beside a pool of water lilies.

 

An abyss becomes a table.
The loaf and fish re-create their famous miracle.

 

The white-haired hero reads a poem.
The grieving mother prays for her son’s killer.

 

One person does not seek revenge.
The next day, another person does the same.

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Second Reading:                From Marge Piercy in The Homely War My old friend, how we sustain each other, how we bear witness. We are each other’s light luggage of essentials. We are each other’s film archive and museum packed in the crumbling arch of skull. Trust is the slowest strength, growing microscopic ring on ring of living wood. The greater gift is caring, the laying on of hands in the dark, of words in the light. The lesser gift is remembering, the compass in the bush that makes clear the way come, the way to go. We have shaped each other.

 

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Second Reading:         From Adrienne Rich in “Natural Resources”

                         (The Dream of a Common Language: Poems 1974-1977)

 

My heart is moved by all I cannot save:

So much has been destroyed

 

I have to cast my lot with those

who, age after age, perversely,

 

with no extraordinary power,

reconstitute the world.

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Second Reading      ~From Rev. Elder Jim Mituilski

    (transcribed from a recent sermon preached with Rev. Penny Nixon at MCC San Francisco’s 35^th Anniversary)

 

         My first lesson about healing happened right here [at MCC San Francisco], at our first healing service, when a guy came up to me and said, “I wish to be prayed for, for a complete healing of AIDS.” This was 1986. He was visibly ill. There was, by no stretch of the imagination, no way you could say he was in denial about his physical situation. I had never encountered this before. I thought, “I can’t pray for that—you’re physically sick, and you aren’t going to get better. How could I pray with you about that? I should try and orient you to reality.” I mean, I know it’s twisted, right? I’m just telling you the truth.  I’m not the only one who would have gone through that thought process.

         Something hit me in that moment. He wasn’t asking me to heal him. He was asking me to pray with him, the prayer of his heart. I didn’t have to understand it. Maybe it was literal for him, maybe it was not … but how powerful for him to come by choice to stand in the sanctuary and say, “Pray for my healing of AIDS. It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not. Can you enter into it with me?” That was my first lesson that I got here. Because the more that we entered into one another’s prayers for healing, the more healings we saw—physical and spiritual—and also the more all of us were healed.

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Second Reading      ~ From William Wordsworth in “Rainbow”

   

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So it is now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

         Or let me die!

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Second Reading:                             From Ruth Daugherty

 

A Roman leader would have ridden in a chariot pulled by magnificent white stallions...

 

Jesus entered the city on a donkey, and a borrowed one!

 

A political leader would have been surrounded by security guards who would have kept crowds from close physical contact to prevent any personal harm to him...

 

Jesus was surrounded by his disciples representing many walks of life
and rode into the midst of the people, almost at their height.

 

A military leader would have galloped along the road, passing the crowds with perhaps a wave of the hand or a nod of the head if there were any recognition at all...

 

Jesus on a donkey moved slowly with the people, accompanying the people,
as well as accompanied by the people.

 

A religious leader in traditional, appropriate priestly robes would have moved sedately through the crowds surrounded by an orderly contingency of other religious leaders who would've prevented anyone who was unclean from touching him...

 

Jesus, dressed in his usual attire, moved humbly through the crowds, surrounded by his diverse band of disciples, not shrinking from the touch of anyone.

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Second Reading:        

From Carter Heyward in Saving Jesus from Those Who are Right: Rethinking what it means to be Christian

 

      Those who live passionately in the world do not and cannot avoid suffering.  It is not that we “want” to suffer, nor that we think suffering is “good for us.”  It is not that we seek out suffering for its own sake—as confirmation of our “goodness” or even simply of our capacity to feel and, thereby to know that we are alive.  None of these assumptions … conveys adequately the truth of why passionate people invariably do and will suffer.

People who live deeply in the Spirit suffer because there are always some who cannot bear them.  Like Jesus and many before and after him, people suffer who stand up to be counted in the struggles against oppression and indifference, greed and apathy, rigid moralism, and those traditions and customs (both secular and religious) that take precedence over human needs and the well-being of both creation and Creator.  People who live gladly in the Spirit suffer both because, in standing with those in need, they feel with them as sisters and brothers and because those who hold unjust power in place invariably are threatened by them and will hurt them.

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Second Reading:         From the Poem “Beginners” by Denise Levertov

But we have only begun

to love the earth

 

We have only begun

to imagine the fullness of life.

 

How could we tire of hope?

-so much is in bud.

 

How can desire fail?

-we have only begun

 

to imagine justice and mercy,

only begun to envision

 

how it might be

to live as siblings with beast and flowers not as oppressors.

 

Surely our river

cannot already be hastening

into the sea of nonbeing?        

 

Surely it cannot

drag, in the silt,

all that is innocent?

Not yet, not yet-

there is too much broken

that must be mended,

 

too much hurt we have done to each other that cannot yet be forgiven.

 

We have only begun to know

the power that is in us if we would join our solitudes in the communion of struggle.

 

So much is unfolding that must

complete its gesture,

 

so much is in bud.

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 Second Reading:         From the poem “Merger” by Judy Chicago

(based on the Dinner Party)

And then all that has divided us will merge

      And then compassion will be wedded to power And then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind

      And then both men and women will be gentle And then both women and men will be strong

      And then no person will be subject to another’s will And then all will be rich and free and varied

      And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many

      And then all will share equally in the Earth’s abundance And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old

      And then all will nourish the young

And then all will cherish life’s creatures

      And then all will live in harmony with each other and the Earth And then everywhere will be called Eden again

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From William Ellery Channing, as quoted in Singing the Living Tradition The great end in religious instruction is not to stamp our minds upon the young, but to stir up their own; not to make them see with our eyes, but to look inquiringly and steadily with their own; not to give them a definite amount of knowledge, but to inspire a fervent love of truth; not to form an outward regularity, but to touch inward springs; not to bind them by ineradicable prejudices to our particular sect or peculiar notions, but to prepare them for impartial, conscientious judging of whatever subjects may be offered to their direction; not to burden the memory, but to quicken and strengthen the power of thought; not to impose religion upon them in the form of arbitrary rules, but to awaken the conscience, the moral discernment. 

 

In a word, the great end is to awaken the soul, to excite and cherish spiritual life.

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 SECOND READING: From Thomas Merton "I am beginning to realize that 'sanity' is no longer a value or an end in itself. The 'sanity' of the modern person is about as useful to one as the huge bulk and muscles of the dinosaur. If the modern person were a little less sane, a little more doubtful, a little more aware of the contradictions, perhaps there might be the possibility of survival. But if one is sane, too sane, perhaps we must say that in a society like ours the worst insanity is to be totally without anxiety, totally 'sane'." (Thomas Merton)

Second Reading ~ From tAnne Lamott on Salon.com Everything was so sweet at church, the singing, the kindness, the plain old grief, and then the pastor had to go and ruin it all by giving the sermon — on loving our enemies. It was like being in the Twilight Zone. It was a nightmare. It was clear that the pastor … was speaking directly to me. She said that Christians have a very bad reputation in the world, because we have earned it, with our hate and self-righteousness. We speak in reverent terms of grace, justice, equality, mercy, and then we despise people who were also created in God’s image, who are Her children too. She said that if [the person I despise the most right now] had been the only person on earth, Jesus would still have come down and died for him. This drives me crazy. That God seems to have no taste, and no standards. Of course, by the same token, on most days, this is what gives some of us hope. So I sat there in church working this through in my mind, tugging at it, yet hunkered down on the inside to protect myself from having to take it in, and then the pastor said the most stunning thing I’ve ever heard her say: “When someone is acting butt-ugly, God loves them just the same as God loves the innocent. They are still just as loved by God.” I was shocked. I thought, Boy, are you going to get it when Mom finds out. Also, I thought she was talking about the White House, but then she kept on preaching, about Jesus, and Dr. King, and — if you read between the lines — the people in my church. All of us — and there are some exquisitely good people in this church. It was outrageous. She said you don’t have to support people’s political agenda, but you did have to love them, if you want to follow Jesus. … I tried to live in what I’d heard that day, that to love your enemy meant trying to respect them, it meant identifying with their humanity and weaknesses. It didn’t mean unconditional acceptance of their crazy behavior — they were still accountable for the atrocities they’d perpetrated. But you were accountable for yours, and you worked at doing better, at loving them, because you were trying not to make things worse.

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Contemporary Reading: From Eugene Pickett in The Meaning of Your Life I would suggest that the meaning of our existence, our fulfillment, and our happiness depends on our relatedness to others. Cooperation, motivated by our interest in others, is the basic means for achieving this relatedness without diminishing our individual integrity and freedom. It is when we begin to think that we don’t need others — that we can be sufficient unto ourselves — that we begin to frustrate, distrust, and eventually hate each other. If we could come to understand that we are interdependent beings in a great cooperative venture, I am certain that we — that humanity — could be a great deal happier and healthier than we are today and that we would have a much deeper understanding of what life could mean.

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Second Reading: From Maya Angelou in Still I Rise You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries. Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard 'Cause I laugh like I got gold mines Diggin' in my own back yard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

Contemporary Reading:               From the poem “Outwitted” by Edwin Markham

He drew a circle that shut me out —
        Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
        We drew a circle that took him in!

Contemporary Reading:         From Frederick Buechner in “Journey Towards Wholeness” in Theology Today

      The world floods in on all of us. The world can be kind, and it can be cruel. It can be beautiful, and it can be appalling. It can give us good reason to hope and good reason to give up all hope. It can strengthen our faith in a loving God, and it can decimate our faith. In our lives in the world, the temptation is always to go where the world takes us, to drift with whatever current happens to be running strongest. When good things happen, we are in heaven; when bad things happen, we are in hell. When the world strikes out at us, we strike back, and when one way or another the world blesses us, our spirits soar.

      I know this of no one as well as I know it of myself. I know how just the weather can affect my whole state of mind for good or ill, how just getting stuck in a traffic jam can ruin an afternoon that in every other way is so beautiful it dazzles the heart. In other words, we are in constant danger of being, not actors in the drama of our own lives, but reactors. The fragmentary nature of our experience shatters us into fragments. Instead of being whole, most of the time we are in pieces, and we see the world in pieces, full of darkness at one moment and full of light the next.

      It is in Jesus, of course, and in the people whose lives have been deeply touched by Jesus, as well as in ourselves at those moments when we also are deeply touched by him, that we see another way of being human in this world, which is the way of wholeness. When we glimpse that wholeness in others, we recognize it immediately for what it is, and the reason we recognize it, I believe, is that, no matter how much the world shatters us to pieces, we carry inside us a vision of wholeness that we sense is our true home and that beckons to us.

From Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson in Our Tribe: Queer Folks, God, Jesus and the Bible It is an audacious thing . to claim purpose and meaning for gay and lesbian people on the planet. How unbelievable to claim that those who were labeled sick, perverted, criminals, and the foulest of sinners could have personal, cultural, spiritual, yes, tribal gifts to share! Part of moving beyond, way beyond apologetics is to assert that we are not an aberration. We are not a deformity, a mistake. We are not a genetic deficiency that needs to be tolerated or eradicated. We are not an annoying group of sex fiends seeking to legitimize perverted sex in the streets or schoolyards. We are a necessary part of creation, biologically, sociologically, spiritually. We, like others-not more or less than others-contribute to the wholeness, the multidimensionality of creation. Neither creation nor the church is complete without us.

From Parker Palmer in Let Your Life Speak The social systems in which people must survive often try to force them to live in a way untrue to who they are. If you are poor, you are supposed to accept, with gratitude, half a loaf or less; if you are black, you are supposed to suffer racism without protest; if you are gay, you are supposed to pretend that you are not. You and I may not know, but we can at least imagine, how tempting it would be to mask one's truth in situations of this sort - because the system threatens punishment if one does not. But in spite of that threat, or because of it, the people who plant the seeds of movements make a critical decision: they decide to live "divided no more." They decide no longer to act on the outside in a way that contradicts some truth about themselves that they hold deeply on the inside. They decide to claim authentic selfhood and act it out - and their decisions ripple out to transform the society in which they live, serving the selfhood of millions of others.

From "Making a Living" in Sojourners Magazine, July 2006 The federal minimum wage was last raised in 1997 to its current level of $5.15 an hour. There are now 20 states that have raised the minimum wage above the federal level. Nevada will put the question to its voters this fall, and the minimum wage issue could be a significant factor in gubernatorial races. What will it take to make work "work" for the majority of Americans? Consider these statistics: . 83 percent of Americans favor raising the federal minimum wage to $7.15 . 10 states have raised the minimum wage $2 or more above the federal level. . 76 percent of those earning a household income of $75,000 or more favor raising the minimum wage by $2 . $19,157 is the federal poverty level for a family of two adults and two children. . $9 to $9.50 an hour, for 40 hours a week, is the wage needed for a single adult (supporting another adult and two children) to reach the federal poverty level. . $8,300 an hour was the wage for the CEO of Halliburton in 2005. [Sources: "Wages, Gay Marriage Could Tilt '06 Ballot," by Mark K. Matthews (www.stateline.org); "Maximum Support for raising the Minimum" (Pew Research Center for the People and the Press); "$13,700 an Hour," by Katrina Vanden Heuvel (The Nation); U.S. Census Bureau 2005 Annual Social and Economic Supplement.]

From Emma Goldman Some day, men and women will rise, they will reach the mountain peak, they will meet big and strong and free, ready to receive, to partake, and to bask in the golden rays of love. What fancy, what imagination, what poetic genius can foresee the potentialities of such a force in the life of men and women.

Contemporary Reading: From Langston Hughes in Theme for English B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you - Then, it will be true. I wonder if it's that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here to this college on the hill above Harlem. I am the only colored student in my class. The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem, through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas, Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y, the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator up to my room, sit down, and write this page: It's not easy to know what is true for you or me at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you: hear you, hear me-we two-you, me, talk on this page. (I hear New York, too.) Me-who? Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life. I like a pipe for a Christmas present, or records--Bessie, bop, or Bach. I guess being colored doesn't make me not like the same things other folks like who are other races. So will my page be colored that I write? Being me, it will not be white. But it will be a part of you, instructor. You are white - yet a part of me, as I am a part of you. That's American. Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me. Nor do I often want to be a part of you. But we are, that's true! As I learn from you, I guess you learn from me - although you're older-and white- and somewhat more free. This is my page for English B.

Contemporary Reading: From bell hooks in all about love: new visions On my kitchen wall hang four snapshots of graffiti art I first saw on construction walls as I walked to my teaching job at Yale University years ago. The declaration, "The search for love continues even in the face of great odds," was painted in bright colors. . The declaration on the construction walls with its childlike drawing of unidentifiable animals always lifted my spirits. Whenever I passed this site, the affirmation of love's possibility sprawling across the block gave me hope. Signed with the first name of a local artist, these works spoke to my heart. I felt certain the artist was undergoing a crisis in his life, either already confronting loss or facing the possibility of loss. I engaged in imaginary conversations with him about the meaning of love. I told him how his playful graffiti art anchored me and helped restore my faith in love. . It had become hard for me to continue to believe in love's promise when everywhere I turned the enchantment of power or the terror of fear overshadowed the will to love. One day on my way to work, looking forward to the meditation on love that the sight of the graffiti art engendered, I was stunned to find that the construction company had painted over the picture with a white paint so glaringly bright it was possible to see faint traces of the original art underneath. . I told everyone of my disappointment. Finally someone passed on the rumor that the graffiti art had been whitewashed because the words were a reference to individuals living with HIV and that the artist might be gay. After much searching I located the artist and talked with him face-to-face about the meaning of love. . He gave me snapshots of the graffiti art. From the time we met, everywhere I have lived I have placed these snapshots above my kitchen sink. Every day, when I drink water or take a dish from the cupboard, I stand before this reminder that we yearn for love - that we seek it - even when we lack hope that it really can be found.

Contemporary Reading ~ From Keepers of the Story by Megan McKenna How does one learn? How does one teach? Silence, word, experience, solitude, relationship, dialogue, a slap with a wooden sword, questions that appear crazy but have innumerable revelatory answers, stories whose endings drop you through a trap door into a subterranean cavern, statements that are both beautiful and dissonant - anything that can turn the world of the disciple upside-down. All of these are good places to start!

Second Reading: From Parker Palmer in To Know As We Are Known In this secular age, with religion on the wrong side of the fact-fantasy divide, it may seem odd to turn to spirituality for a new way of knowing. I do so because I am ultimately concerned not only with knowledge but with truth. Most academic disciplines have largely abandoned truth in favor of facts and reasons; spirituality is the one discipline I know still committed to compassing truth in the round. . Well educated people have been schooled in a way of knowing that treats the world as an object to be dissected and manipulated, a way of knowing that gives us power over the world. . We are inquisitive creatures, forever wanting to get inside of things and discover their hidden secrets. Our curiosity is piqued by the closed and wrapped box. We want to know its contents, and when the contents are out we want to open them too - down to the tiniest particle of their construction. We are also creatures attracted by power; we want knowledge to control our environment, each other, ourselves. Since many of the boxes we have opened contained secrets that have given us more mastery over life, curiosity and control are joined as the passion behind our knowing. . .[But there is another way of knowing truth, one in which] we come to know the world not simply as an objectified system of empirical objects in logical connection with each other, but as an organic body of personal relations and responses, a living and evolving community of creativity and compassion. Education of this sort means more than teaching the facts and learning the reasons so we can manipulate life towards our ends. It means being drawn into personal responsiveness and accountability to each other and the world of which we are a part.

Second Reading: From Elaine Pagels The sociologist Peter Berger points out that everyone who participates in . a tradition today chooses among the elements of the tradition; for, like Judaism and other ancient traditions, Christianity has survived for thousands of years as each generation relives, reinvents, and transforms what is received. This act of choice - which the term heresy originally meant - leads us back to the problem that orthodoxy was invented to solve: how can we tell truth from lies? What is genuine, and thus connects us with one another and with reality, and what is shallow, self-serving, or evil? Anyone who has seen foolishness, sentimentality, delusion, and murderous rage disguised as God's truth knows that there is no easy answer to the problem that the ancients called discernment of the spirits. Orthodoxy tends to distrust our capacity to make such discriminations and insists on making them for us. Given the notorious human capacity for self-deception, we can, to an extent, thank the church for this. Many of us, wishing to be spared hard work, gladly accept what tradition teaches. But the fact that we have no simple answer does not mean that we can evade the question. We have also seen the hazards - even terrible harm - that sometimes results from unquestioning acceptance of religious authority. Most of us, sooner or later, find that, at critical points in our lives, we must strike out on our own to make a path where none exists. What I have come to love in the wealth and diversity of our religious traditions - and the communities that sustain them - is that they offer the testimony of innumerable people to spiritual discovery. Thus they encourage those who endeavor, in Jesus' words, to 'seek, and you shall find.'

Second Reading: From Walter Brueggemann in "The Costly Loss of Lament" When the lament form is censured, justice questions cannot be asked and eventually become invisible and illegitimate. Instead, we learn to settle for questions of "meaning," and we reduce the issues to resolutions of love. But the categories of meaning and love do not touch the public system questions about which biblical faith is relentlessly concerned. A community of faith that negates laments soon concludes that the hard issues of justice are improper questions to pose at the throne [of God], because the throne seems to be only a place of praise. [And,] if justice questions are improper questions at the throne ., they soon appear to be improper questions in public places, in schools, in hospitals, with the government, and eventually even in the courts. Justice questions disappear into civility and docility. The order of the day comes to seem absolute, beyond question, and we are left with only grim obedience and eventually despair. The point of access for serious change has been forfeited when the propriety of this speech form [- honest, open, lament-] is denied.