Herbert’s Discourse

There’s a hawk that spends a lot of time yelling at us.  When we come out the back door, when we walk in the cemetery, and sometimes we can hear him when we’re watching the Yankees.  The truth is, I’m not sure he’s yelling at us, or just yelling.  He may be calling for his girlfriend, or alerting other hawks he’s in the neighborhood, or complaining about a stomach ache.  I’m not sure if it sounds angry or lonely.  I don’t speak hawk.

It made me realize that there are a lot of languages I don’t know.  I’m not even aware of many of the priorities driving others.  Even others that walk around on the ground and don’t have wings.  It’s scary how arrogant we are, isolated in our assumptions.  And it’s so rare that we ever even notice how our small attitudes shrink our environments.  The glory is that it doesn’t take a lightening bolt to open us to bits and pieces of truth.  All it takes is a hawk’s cry.

Chris named him Herbert.  I wonder if he likes the name. He might be a Red Sox Fan. He does have a red Tail.

Waiting for the Rain

It’s hot, hot as only New Jersey can be.  The humidity is higher than the temperature.  Everything’s sticky.  They’ve been forecasting rain, even heavy rain every day for a while.  It gets cloudy, it rumbles, it feels like a cool breeze will bring a deluge.  And then the sun comes out.  What the heck!  If we’re going to put up with the ramp up to Noah’s flood, build the ark, buy the golf umbrellas, make sure all the windows are sealed shut…  We’re ready.  The hydrangeas are beginning to wilt.  The koi are gathered under the water lilies, assuming they’re going to need protection from the down pour.  So where is it?

There are frustrating bits and pieces of life, sticky, pregnant, ready to deliver something that we’ve been expecting, preparing for, working toward, even depending on, and it hangs there, just beyond actual.  It leaves us in the discomfort of labor, full of anxiety and frustration.  Sticky doesn’t cover it. 

Now, you’re all expecting a conclusion, a point.  Right?  No such luck.  Now you know what it feels like.  Pain in neck, isn’t it?

Witness

Nelson Mandella is dying.  His life has been so full of threat and abuse, it’s a miracle he lived this long.  But his life cannot be measured in days.  He’s a giant of history.  He was imprisoned for years for standing up for justice.  He refused to believe what he’d been told by the powerful people who had been telling such things to black Africans long before he’d been born.  The whites had told them to keep their place, to give up their rights to vote, to stop want a good education, to marry who they wanted, to get a good job.  They were told to give up their dreams for themselves and their children.  They were beaten and killed.  They were like lambs led to the slaughter.

In spite of all the horror and ugliness, Mandella refused to back down.  He insisted on maintaining his dignity and his humanity and his faith.  And his faith and his dignity pushed him beyond all the ugliness that had been heaped on him and his people.  He said, don’t let your past determine your future.  He lived by those words and by the dignity and faith of his Lord and Savior.  And because of his courage and witness he became an incarnation of the power of the Good News that guided his life, refusing to trade violence for violence, refusing to be determined by the ugliness offered to him.

Every time I get the feeling this faith business, this preaching business has little power or importance, I read the call of Jeremiah.  He was told that the words he spoke would “…destroy and overthrow, …build and plant.” 

If we are to believe in the promises of God and remember the cloud of witnesses that have lived by those promises down through the ages, we will never be able to denigrate the calling that has brought us to the ministry and the pulpit.  And we should never believe the statements of the smart and intelligent people who tell us we are wasting our time in this religion business, who tell us to take our Lord’s vision of love and justice back to the dark corner where all ideals should be kept. 

Nelson Mandella is dying, but he will never die.  His life rests in the hands and in the heart of his crucified and risen Lord.  As does each of ours. 

Thanks be to God.

Memories

Someone who was chronologically gifted once told me that we should make sure we live full lives full of love and beauty and fun because later on, in our old age, memories are all we’ve got left.  I didn’t agree with him then, and now from my advanced perspective, I still don’t.  One phrase that gives me hives is, “I’m too old to do ….”  If we’re breathing, we have the gift of life.  Gifts are made to be unwrapped and played with, used or worn.  Today is another day to live lives full of love, beauty, and fun, no matter how chronologically gifted we may be.

But I do think memories are important building blocks to what we are.  Gratitude is so important to how we see life.  Our harvest of the fruit of God’s gifts and a consideration of the glory that fills each day creates a sense of wealth and security that makes life an adventure that never quits. 

I remember finding a duck’s nest along the river near our house and hiding in the bushes watching the female mallard warming her children.  I remember a dark church, with a choir up somewhere above singing Randal Thompson’s ‘Alleluia.’  I remember falling in love in 9^th grade, 10^th grade, 11^th grade, etc, etc.  I remember my father’s sermon when I was ordained.  I remember Indian wrestling my brother until we fell on a table in my parents’ hallway and smashed it, laughing like idiots.    I remember ….

If we are to be wise, if we are to see the world from a of perspective that allows us to be open to the gift of mown grass on a summer’s day or proclaim the Good News of love and justice, then we must allow the memories of God’s goodness in history and in our lives to guide us and lead us, to teach us and to remind us of the faithfulness of the One.

So let us claim the deeds of our Lord, the gifts given down through the ages, that we may be wise and live each day in gratitude.  And let us live this day as the gift it is, that today may be a song to be sung, a source of glory and gratitude for us and those who follow.  Alleluia!

Prejudice

I’m prejudiced. 

Let me unpack that a little.  When the Supreme Court voted to gut the voting act, I was horrified.  When they voted to put down DOMA, I was elated.  It’s evident I have some presuppositions that underlie my opinions.  In other words, before I make decisions I’ve already made up my mind.  So, that makes me prejudiced. 

My stepdaughter just moved to Roanoke, Virginia.  She’s a doctor.  She’s anything but stupid.  Her husband is one of the most intelligent and capable people I’ve ever met.  They’re superior parents.  Their two kids are evidence that can’t be denied.  So, when they chose Roanoke, Virginia over Boston and Philadelphia, civilized places, I wondered.  There it is, prejudice again.  We went down to help them move in and I was exposed.  The place is beautiful, her hospital is one of the best, their new friends are gracious, intelligent, and have good senses of humor.

So what do I do about my lack of balanced reasoning?  How do I make my way through life even pretending to be anything but an uncultured, uncivilized, irrational, perhaps even un-Christian, idiot.  I may as well be wearing a hood.

On the other hand, without a few presuppositions we can’t begin the tortuous discipline of logic.  Somewhere back down the line of questioning there has to be a place where we dig in and begin.  It’s hard to know where in the universe of possibilities we should choose this place.  Almost everything is questionable.  Solid rocks of assumption succumb to the ugly pressures of brutality or the bit picking, tiring evidence of our wrongness and our weakness that creep in on the slime of fatigue and disappointment.  These solid places become mushy, undependable.

But is it about them or the horrible burden of free will that we carry like some backpack of terror.  If we surround ourselves with unquestionable bedrock, re-bared cement, unquestionable assumptions of truth, justice, and the American way, we become closed.  Our ability to claim something more than the ugly sadness of the past is eclipsed by all this ‘We-always-did-it-that-way-before.’ If we reach out beyond all that convenient and comfy ballast, we might be wrong. 

Ah, there’s the rub.  There’s the problem.  We have to be willing to be wrong if we are to begin or proceed.  We have to make a choice.  We have to choose where we stand and how we proceed.  We have to be willing to be wrong.  Such is life. 

I think we’ve all got a lot of learning to do about establishing some sort of environment of living where we are willing to learn as a rule, rather than only when we are shocked into it or dragged through it by a gifted and talented teacher, or grand children for that matter.  I’ve got some pretty definite assumptions.  Some of them I’ve heard about from others.  Some of them are incarnate truth.  Some of them blast my silliness to bits.  Some of them giggle when I tickle them.  Ain’t life grand?  Now that’s an assumption.