...And now to honor those men and women who are serving...

 5/25

Camo 

Today as we meet we are midway between “Armed Forces Day” and Memorial Day.  To be honest, I can’t remember Armed Forces Day growing up. It only seems to have come to my attention in  a really backwards kind of way. 

From 2008 tp 2019, Major League Baseball would “honor the men and  women serving our country” on Memorial Day Weekend by wearing camouflage hats and some years even uniforms with proceeds of sales going to veterans.

Finally someone pointed out that Memorial Day was to remember those who had died  in  military service and had nothing to do with currently  serving  troops. Its origins go back to 1868 and a proclamation by John A. Logan, Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic to “decorate” the graves of those who had fallen in the Civil War and the sho it was first known as Decoration Day.  (Southerners argue that the idea was stolen from Confederate Memorial  Day.)  At any rate, that was the beginning. In 1970 it was  established  as a Monday holiday as another of our 3 day weekend specials. 

Armed  Forces Day, on the other  hand, goes back to President Harry S. Truman combining the days of all five services  into one day of commemoration in 1950 on  the third Saturday  of May. It has remained relatively unnoticed until MLB decided to no longer wear came on Memorial  Day and shifted to the lesser known Armed Forces  Weekend instead.  So now for the third weekend of May , come  Camo hats on top of all teams.

"Dress Up Soldier"

My hat is the 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates  official Armed Forces Weekend Hat.  Every team wears the same hat  with their regular uniforms which leads to some very jarring aesthetic  combinations. Its was actually better the years they went to camo uniforms as well.   My shirt is from the Uni Watch blog, dedicated to  the careful study of athletic aesthetics, especially uniforms. On the back name plate, are  the words Dress Up Soldier to critique the appropriation of came by non-military people as if that actually honors those on active duty.

My Quaker cousin objects to my use of camo and I generally agree.  Though coming from Pittsburgh, camo has more various uses including deer  hunting and the colors worn by the United Mine Workers Union in protests, My oldest son grew up. identifying camo with minrs. So I’m okay with a a few days of camo wear each year.

As for Memorial Day, it was for my family a day of remembrance. My dad would ‘decorate’ the grave of his father. No one does that anymore. But my sister made a trip to our old hometown to decorate my father’s grave. It wa a great weekend fo 4th reopening of our swimming pool and barbecue go the back yard.  Though the New York City beaches are opening this weekend, I really miss the cookout and the burgers and dogs and beans.  

As for honoring  those serving in the military, first we should have some kind  of mandatory national service so that  everyone of us shares  in the responsibility. And second, we should never  send them to pointless wars of empire protection. Bring them home, that’s the way to honor them.

I do have nothing  but the most profound respect for those veterans who  are honored I the ballparks for what they have given.  So today, hats off to veterans and hats on for  those who serve….

Living in Coronavirusworld 64: Of Memorial Day....and Ascension

5/25

In Morningside Park

Memorial Day. When I was a kid, my dad would go to Somerset to put flowers on his father’s grave. In later Pittsburgh years, there were always morning 5K races and parades and American flags everywhere. We’d go down for opening day at my mom’s pool then back to her house for a cookout on the back deck and dinner on the upstairs deck, the decks built to feel like an Outer Banks beach house deck. It still feel like that’s what I should do on Memorial Day.

It’s supposed to be a day to honor those who died in this country’s various wars. Somehow Major League Baseball got that confused with “honoring the troops” and  wearing camo as a tribute.

Yankee camo

Thankfully, most of our troops are still alive. Truly honor them? Forget  wearing camo. Just bring them home. Or make damn sure we know what we're doing before sending them somewhere we'll have to bring them back from in the first place.          

We meet in Morningside Park for our walk again.  The turtles  are out in mass again

turtles

She’s lookingg for bees tttttt.              to photograph and share with one of her kids.  As we walk through Central Park, in the Garden I realize that all the tulips are gone, the beds empty,  I wonder what will come next. And I realize that I have lived here for 25 years and never  before was aware of how the seasons  of flowers changed in the Conservatory Garden. And that we spent all of tulip season in quarantine.    

                                                                ****

Time for our West Park Bible Study. Tonight we’re looking at Acts 1:6-14, the story of Jesus’Ascension.  I get a laugh out of Marsha when I  refer to “fly up day” which is what it used to be called when you went from  Brownies to  Girl Scouts.  I remember my surprise when I was in modern secular Germany on this day and discovered it is still a public holiday. Everything closed. And some how merged with Father’s Day, which is  basically men going  out to drink with  other fathers. The word in German, Himmelfahrt, from Heaven Journey.

I talk about  the three portal, or gateway days in the liturgical year. Days we walk through like doors to go from one season to the next. Took me a lifetime  to “get this” but here we are. Ascencion takes us from Easter into Pentecost, Christ the King, the crown of the church year,  from Pentecost into Advent, Transfiguration Epiphany into Lent.. Jesus is preparing his disciples for his leaving earth.  He makes  three promises…the gift of the Holy Spirit, the purpose of the spirit to help us be witnesses to the ends of the earth and finally, his eventual return.

I hadn’t noticed before that Easter to Ascension is 40days. That umber again. Days of rain for Noah. Years in the wilderness for the people of Israel, days of temptation in the wilderness for Jesus. These two 40 day periods bookend the ministry of Jesus. The accounts in Luke and Acts are directed  to 'dear Theophilus”, which means Lover of God. Either an homage to one person or intended for any and all lovers of God.  Also essentially a repeat of Luke 24:44-53.  Only here do we hear this discussion of kingdom where they want to see Israel returned  to sovereignty and Rome driven out.  (In scripture, Kingdom of God usually refers to the reign of God on earth. ) The answer is, it's not for you to know. As Russ points out, a message that this doesn’t negate the desire or expectation of kingdom restored, only the power to predict.

Marsha, trained in community  organizing, is taken by the use of the word  power. That is the goal of organizing, to gain power. In organizing, power is a necessity, not a negative. In Spanish, it’s the word poder, the same exact word as can, i.e. to be able. That  is the challenge ahead. 

Power to do what? Well, to witness. To Judea (the home), Samaria (hostile territory of our closest neighbors, a faith so similar to ours, our closest other ) and to the ends of the earth.  Is that Paul’s trip to Rome? Is it the mission to  the gentiles?   And what does it mean to witness?

All this takes place in a “cloud.” Which usually represents the presence and activity of God. And again takes us back to Moses on Mt.Sinai, waiting for the Ten Commandments,. And again for how long was Moses up there? Well, of course, 40 days. There is also a cloud during the Transfiguration. (Luke 9:34) and in the prediction of his second coming. (Luke 21: 27  And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.)

Our attention is drawn to the two men in white who speak to them 10:   While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.  We can almost imagine them in white suits with a long white limo ready to take Jesus away. And although they are clearly angels, Luke does not say angels. While Luke speaks of angels several times and even very specifically of Gabriel once, (1:19) he only has two men in white twice. The other time being at the tomb. (Luke 24: 3-5) And both times they have questions as to why we are looking in the wrong direction:

Luke 24: 5.   “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6He is not here; He has risen! … and 

Acts 1: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” In both cases, we’re looking to the past and Jesus has already moved on. And we’ve got work to do. The two men in white are brackets, the parentheses that contain the 40 days of the risen Christ's time on earth.

Finally, we see a glimpse of their life, spent in prayer.  There’s a list of the disciples, minus Judas Iscariot, of course.  And the mention of Mary. The last time her name appears in the New Testament.   We spend some time talking about the lack of information about her death. What was it like? Who was there? What was said? (Just as interesting to me is what was Joseph’s death like? What was the conversation like between Joseph and this adult man he had raised as his child, a boy he had not fathered? A story still to be written.)

So we are left. On our own. We are called to witness. And we are on own, but not alone. The Holy Spirit will sustain us. Not just comfort us, not just an arm around the shoulder, but the sustenance to keep us going. As Marsha says, it’s a pretty horizontal vision.  We sustain each other in the vision, in the witness. 

In the days ahead, following the virus, many churches will not be able to afford pastors and perhaps even preachers. It will be up to communities to

bear the witness in new (or perhaps very old) ways. And we will not be alone. 

                                                                                                       

        

Sixth Sunday in Easter: Pick up your mat....

5/26

Ready for worship

It's a sunny Memorial Day Sunday as I head to Good Shepherd Faith. Folks are talking about the holiday. And Fleet Week. And the Yankees...Pam starts the service by playing "Eternal Father Strong to Save," the Navy hymn. And I think of my father, and what  that  hymn mean to him. After the scripture is read, it's time for my reflection, or "prompting," as they call it here.

So it's been  a busy  week in the city.  Graduation week. The streets uptown were filled with Columbia blue robes. The subways with NYU purple. And all around Times Square with sailors in their dress whites and marines in khaki and blue. Fleet Week. Not sure why, but I always enjoy this annual visit of the navy ships to our city.  And now, Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial beginning of summer. And the beaches are open. And we are here, still in Eastertide. Alleluia! Christ is risen. (Christ is risen indeed!)

I chose this passage this morning because it's a weird one. And I wanted to wrestle a bit with it.

We're at a pool in Jerusalem ,at a time of an unnamed festival. Beth-zatha, probably the same as 'Bethsaida'or even "Bethesda." Meaning "House of newness" or "house of kindness." There's a back story here you don't have. The tradition was an angel would stir up the pool and the first one to make it into the water would get healed. We don't know exactly what was wrong with this man except that he'd been ill for 38 years.

Apparently he gets beat out every time he tries to get to the water. No wonder he sounds bitter. It's perhaps the strangest of Jesus' healing stories. When Jesus asks him "Do you want to be made well?"  you expect, as is usually the case, to hear an affirmation of faith followed by either a statement of Jesus about faith or forgiveness followed by a healing.

But what do we get? A complaint. No one will help me..And how does Jesus respond? He says
"Stand up, take your mat and walk." And  he does. Our lectionary ends with Now that day was a sabbath. 

If you're paying attention, that means trouble. Because pretty soon Jesus will be accused of healing on the sabbath. Which was forbidden.  And there's no note of gratitude on our man's part. Never even bothers to say thanks, just goes on.

And later, when confronted by the authorities for carrying his mat on the sabbath, he tries to deflect the blame back on Jesus whose name he didn't even bother to ask.  When he learns Jesus' name, he immediately goes to tell the authorities. Maybe hoping they'll leave him alone.

On the one hand, it's the nature of living under occupation. It reminds me of the  popular current Broadway play  "the Ferryman" where the IRA (no worse than the British) coerce and manipulate people into informing on each other. In the East Germany, during DDR years, some 260000 people were recorded as being informers. One never knew who to trust. Likewise with Palestinians today and their Israeli overlords.

This healed person is the least heroic, let alone faithful, loyal or even thankful of all Jesus' healings. So what's up here?

A simple answer might be that Jesus is promiscuous in his love....not just for the worthy or deserving, it's for all.

But maybe there's something deeper going on here. Three images come to mind:
* First, I remember John Lennon singing "War is over if you want it"....sounded overly simplistic, but.... that's kind of how it starts.

Or the lesson I learned  that if you want to play music, the only way to do that is to play music.

Or the exercise I've seen in retreats and you're in a group and they tell you to imagine you are surrounded by an invisible box then are asked how do you get out of the box. There are usually overblown strategies or dead silence. The answer of course? Step out of the box...

So Jesus tells him to pick up his mat and walk. And he does. It's that simple. No faith has made you well. No sins are forgiven. Just  "Stand up, take your mat and walk." And it works...

So what do we see here? Sometimes the answer is right in front of us. And we can't see it because we believe theres no there there. And so we keep on waiting for someone to carry, drag or pull us down to the pool. Or take us out of the box. So we refuse to take the first step or even try because you know, we can't, right?  And 30 years or more go by and we're still bitter, lying there beside the pool. Waiting.

And Jesus says, "Yes you can, pick up your mat and walk."
Where have we been stuck? What are we waiting for? Are you ready to take that step?
"Stand up, take your mat and walk." 

Alleluia! Christ is risen! (Christi is risen indeed...)

Amen.


We talk. Neil, who does flower arrangements, says it's often the ones who get something for free that are most demanding and least appreciative. We talk about gratitude, how important it is to get us moving. And how hard that step can be. And about the Jewish Passover story that the Israelites had to go into the water up to their noses before God parted the waters. We finish by singing "How beautiful for spacious skies" and I mention the irony that this much beloved hymn, as someone reminds us, was written by Kathy Lee Bates. How conservatives don't even realize it was composed by someone who could so clearly fit that general category of queer. And of course, the conversation turns to Ray Charles....

                                                       Ray sings it....


Gospel John 5:1-9

1After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

2Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3In these lay many invalids-blind, lame, and paralyzed. 4, 5One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" 7The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me." 8Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat and walk." 9At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Post-memorial day thoughts

5/25

Honoring our troops with camo

It’s late afternoon on  Memorial Day. Four young sailors in summer whites are on the corner of 86^th and Amsterdam checking out their iPhones. I walk over and ask if I can help. Finally, one sheepishly says, We’re looking for a place to pick up some women. I tell them, about the string of young adult bars and Irish pubs heading south on Amsterdam. Put in a special word for the Gate.

It’s also Fleet Week, that annual visit of  naval ships to New York City. It used to be a bigger deal. There’d be ships from Canada and France and other allied countries. All docking at our westside piers and filling our streets for  a week. Now it seems to be just Americans. And more ships docking in Brooklyn as well. But somehow, i still look forward to it every year.

I just got back from the Memorial Day ballgame at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees wore special hats and uniforms with camouflage trim, something they never otherwise do even when every other  team has multi-special event unis. So did the Royals, and every other MLB tam, including my Pirates. The national anthem was sung by an active duty sailor. Every inning saw groups of white clad sailors on the scoreboard. Much was said about honoring the troops.

We seem to have gotten something confused along the way. Memorial Day is supposed to be about, well, memory. Remembering those who  served and are no longer here. My father always went to the cemetery to honor his father. Something in me wishes I could be back at home  and go to his grave and do the same. It wasn’t about honoring the troops.

Honoring the troops. All this camo. At every level of sport. It's emotionally distancing, abstract. Pro forma.Ritual. Liturgy. Paul Lukas of ESPN’s Uniwatch calls it going GI JOE. OK, we’ve worn camouflage, on to the picnic.

We honor them, but they are somehow not us. They fight on and on in wars we don't think of and that don't touch most of us on a daily basis. I’m thinking maybe ending the draft was not such a good idea. 

Oh, I know why we did it. During Vietnam, we believed that only those who wanted to serve should have to  serve.  Yet even though there were ways for the rich and educated to avoid serving, by the time they instituted the lottery and ended college deferments, we were all vulnerable. The whole concept of citizen soldier was still in effect. Every working class community was emotionally  connected to the daily events in Vietnam. Our fraternities held draft lottery night parties to toast brothers on their way. And we toasted them  when (or if)  they returned. So much older. It was that shared commitment of communities, I’m convinced, as much as anything that led to the end of the war when  we collectively said no more.

We never imagined the class based system that we now have. The lowest number of US congress ever have now served in the military. Most of us have no connection with those across the seas on active war duty. Disproportionately people of color and poor looking for the only way they can to make a living, escape poverty. As some families reach second or third generation, it’s as if we’re creating a warrior caste that lives among us but not with us. It’s out there. Dangerous. Other peoples' children paying the consequences for decisions made by people who will never feel the personal weight of what they have done.

So we cheer. And we say thanks. And wear camo baseball hats. And are never responsible. And there will always be more to remember.

The sixth Sunday in Easter: Memorial Day reflections

5/25

Stephen arrives and Samantha soon after to watch Steve’s son. Cute little guy. Dion and Deacon James helping  get everything set. Outside, Anna is there with puppy and Sergeant Keith disappearing up the street with an older woman. Apparently he’s doing OK.

It’s Memorial Day weekend so I know it will be a slow day.

We start with Acts 17: 22-31. We’re looking at Paul as a preacher. Paul, far from Jerusalem, meeting the Athenians where they are,.praising their religiosity. Riffing off of their altar to an unknown God. (23) he speaks of immanence… though indeed he is not far from each one of us (27) and finishes with that zen-like formulation, (28) In him we live and move and have our being. I say it’s like swimming in the ocean. We’re in it. We’re surrounded by it.  Sustained by it.

The  we read Psalm 66: 8-20 responsively. I stop with verse 12:

you let people ride over our heads;
          we went through fire and through water;  which of course makes me think of James Taylor, Oh I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen

rain…and then  …yet you have brought us out to a spacious place….I ask how many have ever been to a Passover Seder. And how in Hebrew, the word for Egypt, for slavery, is mizraim, the narrow place. That’s where we live. Squeezed in. Restricted. Constricted. And instead God leads us out to a spacious place, a place where we can breathe. And I ask folks to reflect on what are, where are our narrow places? What would a spacious place feel like?

The Epistle lesson, from I Peter 3: 13-22, raises the idea of suffering for righteousness sake again….¹⁷For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. ¹⁸For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God….as Andre always reminds us, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s reference to the power of unmerited suffering.  And this very tactical advice, . Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, ¹⁵but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; ¹⁶yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. And Jeremy reminds us how the tactics of non-violence push the powerful to expose themselves. Like the firehoses and dogs of Selma. The Tiannamen tank. The bodies of Mississippi when searching for Goodman, Cheney and Schwerner. Gandhi took this as tactical advice from Jesus. And King took it from Gandhi. Circle complete.

Finally the Gospel, John 14: 15-21.  At this point in Eastertide, more than half-way through, Jesus is  preparing his disciples for life after he is no longer with them in the flesh.

He is sending another advocate. As Anna reminds us, in Spanish, abogado, attorney. How Satan is the accuser, the prosecutor,the voice in our head that tells us that we’re no good, that we can’t make it. And that it si the Spirit of Truth, the voice ta reassures of of our worth, our value, our belovedness. The defense attorney, as it were.

Then it moves to ¹⁷This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you which gets 

us back swimming in that cosmic ocean again. And if I could do  it , we’d go to

 I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together

You know, I am the walrus...

But no way even Jeremy and I could pull that off.

It’s Memorial Day weekend. I think of how my dad always wanted to put flowers on his father’s grave. And I wish I could be in Washington, Pennsylvania and visit my father’s grave. I see it in my mind’s eye.

John R remembers Vietnam veterans coming home to no recognition. I remember my steel town.Only 40 % of my classmates going to college, The disproportionate numbers who went to Vietnam. And the children of lower classes sent off to war without any notice by the rest of us. Somehow the major league baseball players wearing camo isn’t quite enough.

It is Fleet Week, Times Square and the tourist areas with sailors in their dress whites, Marines in their khaki and blue.I miss  the foreign sailors and ships.

Anna recalls how her father was a pacifist inside militarist japan. And I remember the man I met last week who was born in an internment camp. And took 20 years to regain hsi citizenship. We all have our stories. 

Or maybe Memorial Day’s just the day the beaches open. Where so many of our folks are. And I wish I was.

The service ends. We make our circle. .Go our separate ways. I'm alone .I’ll go see Rachel this afternoon.

Trinity Sunday reflections

5/26

Trinity Sunday. The only day of the liturgical calendar devoted to a theological concept and not an event in the life of Jesus.

I know from the start it’s going to be a short Sunday. Holiday weekend. People gone. People sick. Anna is at the bus stop with puppy, waiting. I’m pleasantly surprised to have Brian, one of my bicoastal members arrive. Anna comes in, picks up the broom and pan to take her turn at sweeping.

I gather chairs in a circle. Invite everyone down and begin. It’s also Memorial Day weekend. Not a day to celebrate the military..why does major league baseball have to go GI Joe with all the camouflage this weekend? But a day to remember our loss...

My father always tried to place flowers on his father’s grave on this day. I can’t be there to do that fro my father. But I  can see where he is buried. Imagine myself at the grave side, placing  flowers there.  The feel of the wind, the smell of the place, there in my hometown.  Imagine myself there.

After we read the scriptures for the day( Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Psalm 8, Romans 5: 1-5, John 16: 12-15), we begin our conversation. John of course begins with a reference to the father, son and holy ghost. Nirka focuses on the person of Jesus. Anna recalls her upbringing as a Catholic and all the different religions and their threes...Brian recalls his being Santa Claus at West-Park, his story about the candy cane and its  stripes. For the big three again. And if you turn a candy cane upside down, it’s a J for Jesus, the reason for the season, as he puts it. Also a shepherd’s crook, say, and the red and white, blood and purity....

There are conventional approaches to explanation, like I can be my parents’ child, my wife’s husband and my children’s father all at the same time. Also the idea that key to understanding is relationship.

That’s what the father language is all about, not masculinity, but intimacy, relationship. And strange that the Wisdom lesson, Proverbs, is about, well,  wisdom. The  language makes John think of Jesus, but it’s really wisdom, and feminine.

Wisdom, too, comes from experience, relationship. Wisdom is not knowledge like facts are not truth. It’s deeper than that. An inner knowledge of whats right. 

Likewise, the Paul passage refers to Jesus as the human one.  The suffering/endurance/hope sequence doesn’t always work in real life. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger sounds  good but doesn’t always work fro everyone.  Sometimes what we experience, endure, doesn’t make us stronger, just messes us up. I’ve got a lost patrol of marines  on my steps with PTSD to attest  to that reality.

But as one of my colleagues said, suffering  is a given, misery optional.  In the end, suffering is  not a punishment, it simply is. And although few of us are truly innocent victims, there is simply a function of grace, or at least mystery at work here. 

Hope does not disappoint. Being what we WILL be begins now. And as Sharon Welch has said, cynicism remains the  prerogative of the privileged. Hope is not optimism, as I’ve said here so many times. As Jim Wallis has said, hope is believing despite the evidence and having the courage to work to make the evidence change. And the reality is, hope works. 

It’s about resilience. And hope is the one thing that can counter depression. Like Lincoln, or Martin Luther King, Jr. Believing that in the end God’s will will be done. 

Finally, the Holy Spirit. What sustains us, keeps us going. Jesus says he’s got more to say, but we won’t understand it. Mystery again. Again, truth is relational. Again, facts and truth not the same .Jesus did not say he was the facts, he says he is the truth. 

So as I say in my Spanish benediction every Sunday, con el amor  del Dios, nuestro creador;  la gracia de Jesucristo, nuestro hermano, companero y salvador; y el poder sustenando del espiritu santo....

(With the love of God our creator, the grace of Jesus Christ our brother, companion and savior and the sustaining power of the Holy Spirit....)

For today: 

Father and Wisdom

Son:  being, living...compassion....suffering....and the Spirit that sustains.

Don’t worry about doctrine or theology. Live. Be. Relationships...know the Trinity by experiencing it.

We gather in our circle. Say our benediction. Sing amen. Worship is over. The service continues...

Memorial Day, Pentecost, breathe...

5/26

It has to be an important meeting to be scheduled for 8:30 am for the Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend. I’ve made some last minute copies, go to Barney Greengrass to get bagels and  told  young white George he’s got to get up and leave the steps. Hope soon arrives with the coffee. I’ve got my packets ready to hand out.

Our guests, representing two Presbytery committees, are arriving. We are presenting our plan for the future. Plan A, in which we make one last effort at the overall interfaith Center at West-Park vision. Then contingency plans, ready to be put into motion should any part of A fail. we’ve put a lot if hours into this presentation.

All the hard work paid off. The guests could see that we had taken our challenges seriously. Had done hard thinking and had brought in people with needed expertise.  At a certain point in the meeting, the energy moved towards what can we do together to make this work. 

We leave with a timeline and deliverables agreed to.  A successful meeting. Again, hard work, preparation. Moving from a defensive position to taking the lead. All good. 

5/27

This Memorial Day weekend feels strangely quiet. Almost like August in Manhattan when nobody’s here.

Teddy, who’s gone to work, has warned me that the steps are pretty messy. But I have to start inside. There’s a lot to be done. Rachelle has come in to claim her SUV cart. Asks if I need help. So she helps set out the candles, take away the dead flowers. 

I’m outside sweeping. Anna sees me. Tells me I need to get inside and work on my sermon. Make sure she gets her 50 cents worth. As she’s picking up a broom, Chris comes out to help as well. We’re getting  it together.

Lots of people are out of town. I’ve planned the service to fit who’s ever there. My regulars are there. Don back from China. Glen. And all of our hearts are gladdened to see Deacon James back after many weeks of fighting chemo.

As we’re beginning, I talk about Pentecost in the Jewish tradition. Shavuot. First harvest festival. I remember how Andrea told me that on kibbutz, there’d be  a parade of tractors and new born animals.  And I look at Glen’s dog. The tradition of Moses giving the law on Sinai. Fire on the mountain. And smoke. And the tradition of all night study. The great night our neighbors at Manhattan Jewish Experience had planned with a different study every hour and breakfast on the roof at 4:45 m. Greeting the dawn like Moses coming  down from the mountain. 

Deacon James reminds us that t’s memorial Day weekend. We need to remember the veterans. And also those who are serving now. I remember how my father always used this day  to remember his father. And now I remember my own. And I tell James that my subtle nod of honor  is the the blue candles on ether side of the white Christ candle on a red cloth covering the table.  

We start by singing Spirit of the Living God in English and Spanish. Prepare for prayers with Veni Sancti Spiritu. John reads the story of Pentecost. Hope Romans 8:m 22-27 and then Hugo the gospel in Spanish, John 15: 26-27, 16: 4b-15. And I in English. 

I ask everyone to breathe in. Hold it. Then breathe out.....Ask what it feels like. Think of the peace of the first few underwater breast strokes before you have to breathe. Quiet and peaceful. Breath and life. Spirit. Inspire...breathe into. Respiration...breathe back into... Conspiracy...breathing together...Breath and life. 

Any Pentecost memories? Hope has the best . Red balloons, blown up, played with. Talks with children. Her father loved the day.

Then I ask who remembers the Wizard of Oz story? What’s that got to do with Pentecost?

Things were set in motion by a great wind

Dorothy sees things  wonderful and amazing

Oz on the one hand a phony, but on the other knew she had it within her all that she needed  to go home...that each of the characters already possessed what they wanted the most and just didn’t realize it...

And when she  returns to Kansas, everything is the same,  except her....

Pentecost. What do we see? 

1. They were all together. The manifestation of the Holy Spirit takes place in community
2. There was a tongue of fire on each.  No exceptions. Each person receives no more, no less than the other
3. And that somehow the spirit overcomes all barriers of communication

I remember OWS, Zucotti in the early days...Mic check.....the rolling waves of words moving back through the crowd...a miracle of hearing, not of speaking...everyone feeling they’re singing my song, they’re speaking my language...

In Joel’s prophecy, we see a cosmos under threat...and we must ask ourselves, in the face of amazing creation, 

Do we allow ourselves to wonder?

What to we do to become more aware?

How do we celebrate?

As it says in Romans, we’re in a time of groaning, in society, and especially in the church...The words of course are familiar, I say them every Sunday as we begin our prayers. How the spirit prays with us in sighs too deep for words. I recall the woman Puerto Rican pastor years ago who led our church in a multicultural retreat. How she said she had finally reached the point where she dreamed in English. But I will always moan in Spanish, she said.

What does it meant experience the spirit? It’s about , as Sharon Welch says, the ethic of control vs. ethic of risk . Our US culture is a culture of control, even when motivated by good intentions...what is required of us to truly be open to the spirit is to have:

1. Genuine interest in other cultures, religious differences, not simply euro dominant assimilative acquisition
2. Genuine nonvolatile confrontation...in which differences are taken seriously and honored and....
3. Genuine perseverance past difference

Easter was all about learning resurrection living. The narrative of the risen Jesus walking in our midst. But now, in the season of Pentecost, we need Jesus to be gone so that we can get on with it....we are in a continuous process of becoming, both as  church and us

In a very real sense, we have come full circle. We begin with a breath that brings  clay to life. Then the holy written word which sustained people and broadened understanding of God, as God’s living word. Then, as Christians, we believe that  word became FLESH and dwelt among us. And now WORD and BREATH together, back to  spirit again.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Let yourself feel it inside of you. Let us take the risk if letting the spirit to live within us. 

And we all sing, every time I feel the spirit....An intimate Pentecost. But the spirit was there.

As we stand in the circle, Glen has acquired another quilt,and again tracked down its story. We spread it out, And he tells the story of the two plays he is producing.  And talks about his vision of a growing community as the plays are developed. we hold the quilts together. We fold the quilt and put it away in the office, to await rehearsal. 

Hope, Willa, Glen, James and Hugo

The sanctuary folks are beginning to arrive. I give Jane a warm greeting. The choir is warming up. Jeremy back from San Franciso. 

Berik has arrived to take down some paintings in anticipation  of the coming dance  festival. 

People are leaving for Memorial Day picnics. 

It’s very warm outside. And quiet.  Almost like August.

5/28

Memorial Day night. Coming back from dinner with Katherine in an Indian neighborhood, I stop at the church. Little Christopher  is outside. Holding Glen’s script tight in his arms. He’s been studying it. No one is answering the bell. I call Teddy. He and Chris and Runi are at Jamie’s showering in preparation for tomorrow’s trip to Maine. Teddy comes back to let Christopher in. Rachelle arrives with a cart full of Starbucks leftovers. Teddy has to pick out a wrap or two to keep her happy. Plus a few for the others. She’s already been to the steps. Dave and Donna are back. If I can get them seen a couple of more times by Reachout, they’ll be eligible for services. There’s also white George and two rather sketchy characters.  

Teddy and I walk together down to Jamie’s where we’ll plan the trip. We all come back together. We’ll be getting  up early in the morning.