The Beast

 

In 2004 I became the partner of the Beast.  This has nothing to do with goats’ heads or black candles.  The Beast is a maroon Toyota Land Cruiser.  Since the partnership was formed he has schlepped me and my family, towed a sail boat, made fifteen round trips from New Jersey to North Carolina, on five of which he was towing a trailer full of beds, books, dishes, plants, and rocks, don’t ask.  In other words, this being has been an integral part of our existence. 

The Beast is sick.  Something is wrong with the dreaded technological whatzits that make all his systems operate.  They have unbooted, fried, or gone into revolt.  Why something as brawny as the Beast should need whatzits to make it tick is one of the grim metaphysical glitches of existence. He is sitting in the driveway wrapped in two blue tarps to keep the rain out of the windows that won’t operate (they’re stuck in the down position).  This is an embarrassing state of affairs for such a capable fellow.  Too expensive to fix?   Such blasphemy was considered in the same manner that one considers selling a child.

But as I look out there, I realize that I am rather attached to him.  A piece of machinery, you might say?  If that is your attitude, I wouldn’t hire you as a baby sitter.  Surely he is a thing.  But then again, so am I.  And if I was busted, my wife, bless her heart would insist on having me fixed (you know what I mean). 

So, he’s going to the hospital today.  I take him with the anxiety of a family member having to trust a healer with their loved one.  So show a little respect.  OK?

 

So Much for Deals

 

Everybody wants a deal.  Deals to get more for our money, to get more money for our work, to be able to have things we shouldn’t be able to afford.  Deals are short cuts.  They let us cut corners.  They make allowances where there should be none.  Some students in my classes look for better grades for less work.  They want to be able to get away with absences, missing homework.  It seems that the ends do justify the means.  According to this approach to living it doesn’t seem necessary for us to live up to standards of decency, or personal ethics as long as we get our car, our clothes, our flat screen TV’s, our grades, our time off.

It disappoints me when my students try to work deals with me.  But when their parents start calling me, telling me that their children really should get a better grade because they don’t get anything but A’s, then I start wondering if they’re living in a fantasy land that doesn’t even require deals to make things work.  No wonder their kids don’t even see the need to use spell check.

I think that’s the kind of strange place that people often use when they attend church, or profess a set of beliefs.  It’s like a magic wand that they wave to get what they want, or to make things easy.  It doesn’t matter what the scientists say, or whether the ice caps are melting, global warming has nothing to do with how many cars my family drives or my carbon footprint.  I can have what I want because I’m a Christian.  I never picked that up in the gospels. But then again, I’m lousy at making deals.

 

Al Opdyke

 

The magazine from San Francisco Theological Seminary came today.  It comes quarterly.  I like to read through it, though to tell the truth, I have expressed little support for the institution.  Perhaps as I move along that might change.  Nostalgia and all that.

On the page titled In Memoriam there was a name that stopped me.  Al Opdyke.  It took me a few switch backs and double clutches to get it into any sort of perspective.  The Al Opdyke I knew was part of my mythology.  He worked green chain to make money in seminary.  Don’t ask, it’s dangerous.  He spent every spare moment in the Sierra’s, mountains that is.  He nursed me through my seminary internship and probably was responsible with helping me make it through with any sort of sanity. 

He could take a dare.  He had a great laugh.  He worked with cops and got along with farmers.  He liked dogs.  He got pancreatic cancer.  So my mythology intersected with mortality.  I don’t approve. 

Important people in my life have died before.  People do that.  But each time it happens it’s like a body blow.  I can hear him chuckle about my comments.  He’d shake his head a little and tell me I had better things to do than worry about him.  But right now, I don’t think there is anything that is more important than spending some time remembering my mentor and a man whom I valued and respected, and will continue to do so. 

You knew how to love life.  You fought the good fight.  You took time to care for fools and dogs.  You helped me find my calling.  Bless you on your way.

Forgive me

 

It is hard not to become enraged when so many choose to ignore our home.  If someone came into my house and spoke and acted without any sense of decorum, choosing to undo things that we have labored to create, a garden, art, a quiet place to sit and read, a conversation shared with manners and with peace, how would any of us respond? 

I pray for the man.  I do.  But his behavior and the attitudes and actions of his supporters in response to his illogical, dangerous, and just plain rude rantings and policies, make it hard to allow any sort of peace to rule my prayers.  He is polluting my home.  So my prayers for him tend to end with prayers of confession.

I know I shouldn’t throw rocks.  But when I was a child, people threw rocks through our windows because my parents stood for integrated neighborhoods.  The notes attached were awful, lies that threatened and condemned the people who chose to stand for justice and reconciliation.  My family told me to be proud and confident that we stood with prophets.  But I was angry and hurt and afraid.

Now I feel that way again. 

And I remember what my father told me over breakfast before I went to school the next morning.  “Others will know of this.  Some may say things, ugly things to you.  Witness to the truth.  Keep your head up.  They are bullies who live in fear.  They throw stones.  We’ve got better things to do.” 

Martin Luther King said, “The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.”

I’ll remember my father’s courage and wise words.  I’ll remember prophets like Rev. King.  But once in a while, I get pissed off.  Forgive my language and my rage.

Blessed

 

Oh, I am blessed to see and know

Through him who has redeemed us

In his giving and his sacrifice

That which is the glory

In this joy of created glory

Light and beauty,

Simple and complex,

Accepted as a gift each moment

Not possessed,

But appreciated and embraced

 

Rufous

Mocking birds are one of the easiest birds for me to recognize.  They’re in your face, not afraid of much of anything, sing all the time every other birds’ repertoire, tail in the air, grey with white.  How can you miss them?  The other day I saw an iridescent brown mocking bird…  Ok, mutant in my yard.  Tail in the air, perched on top of the bird feeder, a singing filial. 

Chris called from the window, “Look, in the bird bath.  What is that?”  It was the mutant, dunking and fuzzing itself out.  With great authority I pronounced, “It’s that mutant mocking bird.” 

She went on, unfazed, valiantly trying to ignore her weird husband.  “It’s so pretty, look at its chest.”

That was her diplomatic method for trying to tell me I was nuts.  She should work for the state department.  And looking at it, it was pretty, and different.  It was speckled.  There was something too consistently different.  So go to the bird book.  There it was, plain as day.  A Brown Thrasher.  Not as common as the Mocking Bird, a bit more shy, but it sang with the same imitative call and it liked to perch on peaks, like the top of the bird feeder, a speckled chest, and a rufous back.

‘Rufous?’ 

Webster’s was the next stop.  “Reddish brown.  Can be iridescent in certain light.”

New word.  New bird.  New fascination for my lovely.  I’d say that was a good day.

Rufous to you too.

 

Should's

The scripture today is from the suffering servant songs of the second section of Isaiah.  The Prophet was speaking to the people of Israel while they were living in exile in Babylon.  He reminds them of their purpose and identity. 

Listen to the Word of God.

Isaiah 42:1-7

Should’s

Yesterday was Palm Sunday.  We remembered the celebration of the people of Jerusalem proclaiming Jesus as king.  People cheered, ‘Hosanna’ loosely translated is ‘Yippee!’  They waved palms, because foam fingers weren’t available.  Some people call Palm Sunday, Little Easter.  Lots of pageantry and the parking’s better. 

But why was our Lord, at the center of the hoopla so quiet?  And why did he weep over Jerusalem?

It’s easy.  People got it wrong.  People always have.  They got it wrong in Israel when things were fine.  The got it wrong in Babylon when they were captives.  They got it wrong in Jesus time.  They liked comfort.  They liked the status quo, don’t rock the boat.  They had a system, a law, a list of goods and bads, of shoulds and should not’s.  They could keep score.  They knew who was a winner and a loser, acceptable and unacceptable.  All those other people.  Sound familiar?

Isaiah told them no.  He reminded them they weren’t chosen to keep score.  They weren’t chosen to be winners with God on their side.  Everybody else did that.  If they were to be special, to be God’s people, the ‘should’ needed to be this:  “I have given you as a covenant, a promise to all the people, to be a light to the nations.”  The should was to live the promise of God, not by keeping score or by winning but by living in mercy and in hope.

We, this nation, were given a gift by the people of France.  She stands overlooking the towers of Manhattan, Lady Liberty.  She towers above the harbor.  After 9-11, when I worked at Ground Zero, I was angry and afraid.  We all were.  Most of us had lost someone.  Every morning before we took the ferry from Jersey to Lower Manhattan, I would stand and look at her lifting her torch.  I considered the message on her foundation.  “Send me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teaming shores.  Send them the tempest-tossed to me.  I lift my lamp beside the Golden Door.”

I realized that she stands, she is founded on mercy and hope.  That is her identity.  And I lost my anger and my fear.  I remembered who I was.  I was and am a child of her light. 

Jesus came to Jerusalem and witnessed to mercy and hope.  He invited all to share in that vision, the vision of Isaiah.  He invited them to be a fulfillment of God’s promise, of God’s covenant.  But they wanted a winner.  So they lifted him on a cross.

We have Lady Liberty.  We have the cross.  They both invite us to be people of mercy and hope.  We claim the symbols.  But are we witnessing to God’s Good News of mercy and hope or will we stick to business as usual and back the winner?  The choice goes on forever.  It is ours.  It is mine.  It is yours. 

It is Holy Week.  Look to the cross.  Dare to be a light to the nations.  Dare to be God’s Good News as you follow our Lord.  That the people of the world might say of all of us, “Thanks be to God.”

Amen.