I'm thankful that my local paper, The Decatur Daily, runs weekly religion columns on Saturday from James Evans - the pastor from Auburn First Baptist Church. If you've never had a chance to hear him preach or read his writings, I highly recommend it. I believe he does a moving job of focusing on the social gospels and discusses how to apply it to our lives and things to focus on as people of faith.
His column this morning, about torture as foreign policy and the call for basic human rights, is an interesting read...
How America lost its soul
It
was a noble experiment, risky but worth the risk. Human beings have
inalienable rights, Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence.
Of course, glaring omissions existed. Women did not have the same inalienable rights as men. African Americans and Native Americans would have even less standing than women.
But the seeds were planted that would eventually produce the fruit of an idea — all human beings have inalienable rights.
Some have worked harder than others to enjoy their inalienable rights, and some are still waiting for the full fruit of the idea to remove the shackles of prejudice. But if we will continue to say the words, and to believe them at some level, hope exists for us all.
Unfortunately, on Sept. 11, 2001, we began to doubt the words. Obviously there have always been those in our midst who doubted the words, even despised them. The notion of equal rights for every person is just too much to expect. To dream of a society where people have equal access to its benefits and its protections is simply too much to hope for — especially after horror and terror and death came to New York City.
But for some, after 9/11, it was time to revisit Jefferson’s words and rethink how they might apply in a new paradigm we call the war on terror.
In the new paradigm rights are entirely alienable. Rights can be suspended, ignored, trampled, removed, forgotten, abused — in other words, tortured.
Because we must be safe, because we cannot bear the thought of another terrorist attack, we choose to abandon inalienable rights in order to treat alleged enemies as less than human. Human beings have rights, but in places like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, “less than” human beings have only the rights we choose to give them.
This is not the America of Jefferson’s fully born declaration. This is an unknown America, gripped by a fear that tempts us away from the one thing that made us truly great.
Is it wrong for us to seek security within our homeland? Of course not. Is it wrong to seek justice for those who were murdered? Justice must be served. Is it wrong to want to track those down who attacked us and make sure they receive the due recompense of their acts? Track them down now.
It is wrong, however, to trample the Constitution in our efforts to seek justice.
If in our efforts to preserve our security and safety we abandon the core principles that brought us into existence in the first place, we will soon discover we have saved an America that has lost its soul.
What about those other sources of soul in American life — the great traditions of faith? Does anyone believe that the God of Jesus Christ, the God of John 3:16, the God who regards the flight of the sparrow and says come unto me all you who are burdened, is a God who condones torture? Only willful ignorance or a complete absence of spirit allows for such utter theological nonsense.
Jesus said it first, and later Paul concurred: We overcome evil with good, not with more evil. And the good we seek that will overcome the evil we face is found in the words we used to believe: inalienable rights.
James L. Evans is pastor of Auburn First Baptist Church. He can be reached at faithmatters@mindspring.com.
Having recently (ok, since February, explaining the lack of posts) started working in an advertising agency and not
So when I saw this article in the Washington Post this morning about artist Shepard Fairey, I could actually semi-understand, especially since it involved politics. I'm not making a political statement by writing about this, but I hope people will read it and understand the messages and theory behind the visual. Plus, the posters look pretty dang cool, no matter who you're going to vote for.
Each time I see leadership in young people -- in school, work or faith environments -- I'm given a little more hope than I had the day before.
This weekend I was gifted to live and work among young leaders as part of the Episcopal Youth Diocesan Convention at the gracious Church of the Ascension in Montgomery. Just being present as a Youth Department advisor and not having any direct responsibilities (not leading a small group, not on program staff, etc...), it gave me a chance to watch and listen to young people and observe what leadership and commitment look like. I saw a few things...
First, as an adult, I think my age group and those older (like Fred Matthews!) have a habit of VASTLY underestimating young people and their abilities to lead among both peers and adults. Diocesan Youth Convention is much like "big people's" convention, but instead on the high school level. They pass resolutions to be presented at Diocesan Convention, they elect new youth representatives to the Diocesan Youth Department and discuss issues of connecting their faith to their day-to-day lives. This -- as much as anything else -- is the work and business of the Church. Watching current YD Chairperson Alice Nix moderate and direct faithful exchanges about the mission of the Church shows me that even the young, or young at heart, "get it" and are capable of knowing what to do in the moment. We should never undervalue that spirit.
Also, I was reminded that young people strive for some of the same thing as adults, but it takes on a different skin. Part of the business of the weekend was deciding how to direct the youth offering for the covention. Traditionally, young people across the diocese bring an offering from their home parish and pool funds to be directed to a worthy organization decided upon by the convention body. In light of the Church's commitment to the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, the group decided to give .7% (the suggested percentage of GDP asked of each developed member country) of the offering to the effort -- something to which the Church is already annually pledged. The remainder was voted to be equally distributed between the Invisible Children campaign in Uganda and the Sawyerville Work Project -- a summer camp ministry for residents in the Black Belt region of Alabama staffed by young people and college students. Other very worthy organizations were suggested, and watching their passionate and spiritual debates about the vote reminded me that young people strive for justice and peace among all peoples just like adults. "Old people" like myself have a innocent tendency, I think, to get caught up in the day-to-day of paying the mortgage and need a reminder that we are ALL called to live out our Baptismal Covenant. Perhaps it's about perspective, and I'm thankful for young people helping remind me of that.
To avoid sounding too "pie in the sky," hope is bred in the hearts of our young people. So I ask the question of anyone... what does youth leadership "look" like?
Having known Kee for years, there is great, great joy in the start of his new ministry. A giant of a man at nearly 6'9, Kee had been the rector of St. Thomas in Huntsville since 1993. He's one of the kindest and most humble people I've known, and is tremendously gifted in pastoral care. For the past ten years, he has lead one of the most moving and amazing ministries I've seen anywhere. Each summer at Camp McDowell, he leads "Special Session," a summer camp for people with mental and physical disabilities in the diocese. The campers -- who range from young people to older adults -- get to do all the fun activities you connect with camp: arts and crafts, singing, swimming, playing games, and so on. They come from home care centers and assited living facilities from across the state, and almost all receive scholarship and financial aid to attend. Watching the counselors and other clergy on staff work with the campers, it is easy to see the light of Christ in each person, and how we are called to serve our neighbors of all shapes and sizes.
The service for Kee's ordination as new bishop contains beautiful, graceful prose that outline his responsibilities to lead and serve Christ in the diocese and in the catholic (note that's catholic, with a little "c") church. Below is from the Book of Common Prayer, on page 520. The service is presided over by the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. The italicized text is direction provided in the liturgy.
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Father of mercies and God of all comfort, dwelling on high but having regard for the lowly, knowing all things before they come to pass: We give you thanks that from the beginning you have gathered and prepared a people to be heirs of the covenant of Abraham, and have raised up prophets, kings, and priests, never leaving your temple untended. We praise you also that from the creation you have graciously accepted the ministry of those whom you have chosen.
The Presiding Bishop and other Bishops now lay their hands upon the head of the bishop‑elect, and say together
Therefore, Father, make N. a bishop in your Church. Pour out upon him the power of your princely Spirit, whom you bestowed upon your beloved Son Jesus Christ, with whom he endowed the apostles, and by whom your Church is built up in every place, to the glory and unceasing praise of your Name.
The Presiding Bishop continues
To you, O Father, all hearts are open; fill, we pray, the heart of this your servant whom you have chosen to be a bishop in your Church, with such love of you and of all the people, that he may feed and tend the flock of Christ, and exercise without reproach the high priesthood to which you have called him, serving before you day and night in the ministry of reconciliation, declaring pardon in your Name, offering the holy gifts, and wisely overseeing the life and work of the Church. In all things may he present before you the acceptable offering of a pure, and gentle, and holy life; through Jesus Christ your Son, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and power and glory in the Church, now and for ever.
The People in a loud voice respond Amen.
The new bishop is now vested according to the order of bishops.
A Bible is presented with these words:
Receive the Holy Scriptures. Feed the flock of Christ committed to your charge, guard and defend them in his truth, and be a faithful steward of his holy Word and Sacraments.
Continue to pray for Kee, his family and the beginning of his work for the church and Christ.
I've been a fan of Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, for a long time. An amazing writer and preacher, he is the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion (of which the U.S. Episcopal Church is a part), he leads the communion and serves as a "spiritual director" for this collection of churches. The Communion includes parishes and dioceses from all corners of the globe: Africa, North and South America, Europe, Asia and the South Pacific. We don't always get along all the time, but the adjective "worldwide" couldn't be more fitting.
As spiritual head -- not to be confused with the role of the Pope of our Catholic brothers and sisters -- his job often involves playing (and praying!) the role of referee and traffic cop of all sorts of religious disagreements and debates in the church. Recently, he is playing a central (though some would suggest distant) part in the debate regarding human sexuality and the place of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender peoples in the Communion. Despite the many sides of the issue, the emotion, the controversy and the politics, I am so proud to be part of a church that is facing the issue head-on, not brushing it under the rug and publicly stating everyone -- regardless of orientation -- is deserving of Christ's love. If the Advent season has taught us anything, it is that!
Dr. Williams is also an outspoke advocate for the responsible and proper use of God's creation and our calling to be faithful stewards of sustaining and improving our environment. As is the annual tradition, Archbishop Williams releases his Christmas Eve sermon as a message not just to Anglicans, but to all citizens of all countries and faith traditions. With conflicts raging in the Middle East, consumerism on the rise and ongoing tensions among religious groups, he reminds us of our call and what Christ expects of us.
Eleven days ago, the Church celebrated the memory of the sixteenth century Spanish saint, John of the Cross, Juan de Yepes - probably the greatest Christian mystical writer of the last thousand years. A man who worked not only for the reform and simplification of the monastic life of his time, but also for the purification of the inner life of Christians from fantasy, self-indulgence and easy answers.
Those who've heard of him will most likely associate him with the phrase that he introduced into Christian thinking about the hard times in discipleship - 'the dark night of the soul'.
He is a ruthless analyst of the ways in which we prevent ourselves from opening up to the true joy that God wants to give us, by settling for something less than the real thing, and confusing the truth and grace of God with whatever makes us feel good or comfortable.
He is a disturbing and difficult writer; not, you'd imagine, a man to go to for Christmas good cheer.
But it was St John who left us, in some of his poems, one of the most breathtakingly imaginative visions ever of the nature of Christmas joy, and who, in doing this, put his own analyses of the struggles and doubts of the life of prayer and witness firmly into an eternal context.
He is recognized as one of the greatest poets in the Spanish language; and part of his genius is to use the rhythms and conventions of popular romantic poetry and folksong to convey the biblical story of the love affair between God and creation.
One of his sequences of poetry is usually called simply the Romances.
It's a series of 75 short, mostly four-line, verses, written in the simplest possible style and telling the story of the world from the beginning to the first Christmas - but very daringly telling this story from God's point of view.
It begins like a romantic ballad.
'Once upon a time', God was living eternally in heaven, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, with perfect love flowing uninterrupted between them.
And out of the sheer overflowing energy of his love, God the Father decides that he will create a 'Bride' for his Son. The imagery is powerful and direct: there will be someone created who will be able, says God the Father, to 'sit down and eat bread with us at one table, the same bread that I eat.
And so the world is made as a home for the Bride.
Who is this Bride? It is the whole world of beings who are capable of love and understanding, the angels and the human race. In the rich diversity of the world, the heavens and the earth together, God makes an environment in which love and intelligence may grow, until they are capable of receiving the full impact of God's presence.
And so the world waits for the moment when God can at last descend and - in a beautiful turning upside-down of the earlier image - can sit at the same table and share the same bread as created beings.
As the ages pass on Earth, the longing grows and intensifies for this moment to arrive; and at last God the Father tells the Son that it is time for him to meet his Bride face to face on earth, so that, as he looks at her directly, she may reflect his own likeness.
When God has become human, then humanity will recognize in his face, in Jesus's face, its own true nature and destiny. And the angels sing at the wedding in Bethlehem, the marriage of heaven and earth, where, in the haunting final stanza of the great poetic sequence, humanity senses the joy of God himself, and the only one in the scene who is weeping is the child, the child who is God in the flesh:
'The tears of man in God, the gladness in man, the sorrow and the joy that used to be such strangers to each other.'
Well, that is how John of the Cross sets out the story of creation and redemption, the story told from God's point of view.
And there are two things in this that are worth our thoughts and our prayers today.
The first is one of the strangest features of John's poems.
The coming of Christ is not first and foremost a response to human crisis; there is remarkably little about sin in these verses.
We know from elsewhere that John believed what all Christians believe about sin and forgiveness; and even in these poems there is reference to God's will to save us from destruction.
But the vision takes us further back into God's purpose.
The whole point of creation is that there should be persons, made up of spirit and body, in God's image and likeness, to use the language of Genesis and of the New Testament, who are capable of intimacy with God - not so that God can gain something but so that these created beings may live in joy.
And God's way of making sure that this joy is fully available is to join humanity on earth so that human beings may recognize what they are and what they are for.
The sinfulness, the appalling tragedy of human history has set us at what from our point of view seems an unimaginable distance from God; yet God, we might say, takes it in his stride.
It means that when he appears on earth he takes to himself all the terrible consequences of where we have gone wrong - 'the tears of man in God' - yet it is only a shadow on the great picture, which is unchanged.
We are right to think about the seriousness of sin, in other words; but we see it properly and in perspective only when we have our eyes firmly on the greatness and unchanging purpose of God's eternal plan for the marriage of heaven and earth.
It is a perspective that is necessary when our own sins or those of a failing and suffering world fill the horizon for us, so that we can hardly believe the situation can be transformed.
For if God's purpose is what it is, and if God has the power and freedom to enter our world and meet us face to face, there is nothing that can destroy that initial divine vision of what the world is for and what we human beings are for.
Nothing changes, however far we fall; if we decide to settle down with our failures and give way to cynicism and despair, that is indeed dreadful - but God remains the same God who has decided that the world should exist so that it may enter into his joy.
At Christmas, when this mystery is celebrated, we should above all renew our sheer confidence in God.
In today's Bethlehem, still ravaged by fear and violence, we can still meet the God who has made human tears his own and still works ceaselessly for his purpose of peace and rejoicing, through the witness of brave and loving people on both sides of the dividing wall.
But the second point growing out of this is of immense practical importance. The world around us is created as a framework within which we may learn the first beginnings of growing up towards what God wants for us.
It is the way it is so that we can be directed towards God. And so this is how we must see the world.
Yes, it exists in one sense for humanity's sake; but it exists in its own independence and beauty for humanity's sake - not as a warehouse of resources to serve humanity's selfishness.
To grasp that God has made the material world, 'composed', says John of the Cross, 'of infinite differences', so that human beings can see his glory is to accept that the diversity and mysteriousness of the world around is something precious in itself.
To reduce this diversity and to try and empty out the mysteriousness is to fail to allow God to speak through the things of creation as he means to.
'My overwhelming reaction is one of amazement. Amazement not only at the extravaganza of details that we have seen; amazement, too, at the very fact that there are any such details to be had at all, on any planet.
The universe could so easily have remained lifeless and simple. Not only is life on this planet amazing, and deeply satisfying, to all whose senses have not become dulled by familiarity: the very fact that we have evolved the brain power to understand our evolutionary genesis redoubles the amazement and compounds the satisfaction.'
The temptation to quote Richard Dawkins from the pulpit is irresistible; in this amazement and awe, if not in much else, he echoes the 16th century mystic.
So to think of our world as a divine 'prompt' to our delight and reverence, so that its variety, the 'extravaganza of details', is a precious thing, is to begin to be committed to that reverent guardianship of this richness that is more and more clearly required of us as we grow in awareness of how fragile all this is, how fragile is the balance of species and environments in the world and how easily our greed distorts it.
When we threaten the balance of things, we don't just put our material survival at risk; more profoundly, we put our spiritual sensitivity at risk, the possibility of being opened up to endless wonder by the world around us.
And it hardly needs adding that this becomes still more significant when we apply John of the Cross's vision to our human relations.
Every person and every diverse sort of person exists for a unique joy, the joy of being who they are in relation to God, a joy which each person will experience differently.
And when I encounter another, I encounter one who is called to such a unique joy; my relation with them is part of God's purpose in bringing that joy to perfection - in me and in the other.
This doesn't rule out the tension and conflict that are unavoidable in human affairs - sometimes we challenge each other precisely so that we can break through what it is in each other that gets in the way of God's joy, so that we can set each other free for this joy.
This, surely, is where peace on earth, the peace the angels promise to the shepherds, begins, here and nowhere else, here where we understand what human beings are for and what they can do for each other.
The delighted reverence and amazement we should have towards the things of creation is intensified many times where human beings are concerned.
And if peace is to be more than a pause in open conflict, it must be grounded in this passionate amazed reverence for others.
The birth of Jesus, in which that power which holds the universe together in coherence takes shape in history as a single human body and soul, is an event of cosmic importance.
It announces that creation as a whole has found its purpose and meaning, and that the flowing together of all things for the joyful transfiguration of our humanity is at last made visible on earth.
'So God henceforth will be human, and human beings caught up in God. He will walk around in their company, eat with them and drink with them.
'He will stay with them always, the same for ever alongside them, until this world is wrapped up and done with'.
Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to those who are God's friends.
I would love to hear anyone's thoughts or reactions...
In Sunday school yesterday, we talked about the idea of living simply, caring deeply and understanding that all the gift God gives us are both treasures and plenty for us to live a fulfilling and nurturing life. This morning, a dear friend emailed me this story and suggested it continued where that story left off. Granted, I think this is a very simplistic way to look at it, but I think it gets the point across.
A group of graduates, well established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their old university professor, now retired. During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives. Offering his guests hot chocolate, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of cups - porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the hot chocolate.
When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said, "Notice that all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. The cup that you're drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup; but you consciously went for the best cups...and then you began eyeing each other's cups.
Now consider this: Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life. The cup you have does not define, nor change the quality of life you have. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate God has provided us. God makes the hot chocolate, man chooses the cups. The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything that they have.
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.
Thanks Janet.
This was one of the prayers this morning from The Daily Office, Morning Prayer Rite II:
Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad. Defend them day by day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give them courage to face the perils which beset them; and grant them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, pg. 823)
With friends that serve and spouses that long for their return, I'm amazed and inspired by their strength and steadfast dedication. Despite what you may think about the war and the politics of it all, let us all remember to pray for our brothers and sisters that serve our country and await their safe return.
Perhaps Jesus was Irish. I mean, the night before he died he went out drinking with 12 of his best lads!
I was always deeply moved by this prayer. When we were in Assisi in the summer of 2006 on our pilgrimage, these words seeped from the clay walls and echoed in the narrow hillside alleyways. It's remarkable, I think, how words this old still call us to something current.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Words of St. Francis of Assisi
1181-1226
When you read this, what is the first thing that comes to mind? How do you think you can apply these words written hundreds of years ago to your world today? Does it make you think anything about war and conflict in the Middle East or Africa? How does this apply to the stranger you saw today at the grocery store?
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