What I said at the opening of the Maitreya Loving Kindness Toiur

10/17

Pastor Brashear at the Maitrya Loving Kindness Tour

It is a joy and honor to be with you here this evening for this exhibit and tour, this night, dedicated to loving kindness.

It is pretty generally known that in my tradition, when Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment, he responded, 

 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment ^. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

But I have two other passages I would like to share with you this evening. The first is one that is extremely important to me in my own life:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God?

This tells us first of all that justice and mercy are inextricable from one another, They must always go together. And as Thomas Aquinas reminded us, mercy without justice is powerless but justice without mercy is cruelty. We must always hold the two together.

The walking humbly is also an essential  part. As we understand ourselves as creatures, part of creation, we can only be humble. It leads to what Jonathan Edwards called benevolence to all being. And as we walk humbly in relation to creation, justice and mercy are easier expressions of that humility.

Finally, another bottom line verse from the first letter of John 4:7:

 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

For all of us, the ultimate truth is behind a door. Occasionally that door opens and we get glimpses, but we see is only that and nothing more. We use our own languages to describe what we have seen and build our institutional structures based on that language.

The error is when we mistake our expressions of what we have seen as the whole and exclusive truth, superior to others. The fact of the matter is, we need to share with one another our own particular insights in order to even begin to come closer to the whole vision. And as we are human, it will always be partial.

So we must walk humbly with one another and out of that humility learn to love one another.

The deepest purpose of this tour and this evening is the opportunity to further the experience, the reality of loving kindness in the world we share.

And for the opportunity to share these thoughts with you this evening, and in this experience, I am profoundly thankful.

It's not warming it's dying

10/8

Milton Glaser Climate design

Madelyn is another friend of Jeremy G with her own vision of a theatrical production. We’ll see if we can find her a space.

We’re seeing if our administrative candidate is going to work out.

David S is still trying to come up with the right solution for the security cameras. I just want to say do it and get it done.

John R2 comes in to visit. Brings me one of Milton Glaser’s Climate pins. Glaser is famous for his Bob Dylan poster and Aretha's poster and Shakespeare covers and most of all the iconic I <3 NY design. His new design is radically simple. Sometimes accompanied with the words it’s not warming, it’s dying. It was good marching with my old Tulsa friend John.

Session meets for its weekly update and then Don and I go to discuss our proposed Gun Violence program. Don’s just back from China. When he was in the Peoples Republic, no news about the Hong Kong protests. He recommends cutting our program in half. Most people not interested in the Presbyterian Church position or even a theological discussion, just want to deal with guns…

Leila and Charles tried 3 times to get the old man off of the steps. He finally moved to a place between us and Greengrass, though technically ours. I decide to leave him be for now.

10/9

The police come for a thorough crime prevention walk through of the building, though the female officer is excited just it get the tour. They’ll give us a full report. And we have to get the cameras up.

Pat comes by for a daily check-in of issues current and pressing.

Finally Lauren C comes in. She’s a Tibetan Buddhist in the neighborhood and has asked me to speak at a special event with sacred relics next Friday. I’m happy to meet her. Want to know more.