The man I would never see again is still there .

11/3


George is gone. An so is the rack of men's clothes. 

Have to go refill the gas can. Go to three service stations before I find one with diesel. The can is too heavy. Back at the church, I struggle to get the tank filled. Won’t do that again. Need to plan time better.

All day long I’m dealing with a man asleep on the steps. I tell him he can’t be there during the day. He says half his foot is gone and he’s waiting for a friend and his stomach hurts. I tell him if it’s that  bad, I’ll  call an ambuance. He’s not interested in that. I tell him to at least sit up. He tells me that after his friend comes, I’ll never see him again. This bothers me a lot. Not sure what to do . My clergy colleagues are coming at 4. What wil they think? And what do I mean by thnking that thought? Is it compassion to let him stay or laziness? Is it irresposnblele for him to stay asleep there? Which he couldn’t do across the treet at CVS or PC Richard or the Belnord. And of course,our communtity image comes into the picture as well. How to strip it all down to core values?, That’s the question.

One by one my neigborhood clergy colleagues arrive. It’s the first I’ve hosted them here since we moved  back. I used ti host them in my comfortable offce. If it were 10-15 degrees warmer, I’d take them all outside and we’d sit in the yard. That was my original idea....an Octoberfest kind of day. It’s the best turnout we’ve had in  awhile. Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians...Lots to talk about. Occupy... and the faith community. Bread for the  World’s Circle of Protection for poor and vulnerable, Cather Mike’s postcard campaign on budget issues and hunger. Our upcoming interfaith Thanksgiving service.   And as for our annual Martin Luther Kng, Jr. march for peace, father Mike points out it’s our tenth anniversary. We sotarted because of the war in Iraq. That seems to be ending  but....And many of us want to bring  econmic justice into our MLK commemoration, that’s where he was headed when he died.

My friend Father John comes late and stays late.  It’s good talking with him. A true friend.

When I come  back to lock up after the symphony rehearsal, the man I would never see again is still there.

(By the way, props to Oakland. )

Friends from Nicaragua

Carl and Leslie

Early morning. Brandon comes by to pick up his stuff from Sunday night’s concert. So far, he has been the most successful of any concert producer we’ve had. He’s had quality concerts...standing ovations both times. He’s drawn a young, hip, probably mostly Brooklyn based demographic to West-Park.  He has yet to crack the profit ceiling, but it’s clear that properly managed, we could make this place, well,a  place to be. A place that works. 

Tonight we are hosting the Rev. Leslie Clay and Carl Agsten, currently working as mission workers with CEPAD (the Protetant Council of Churches) in Nicaragua.  This is a somewhat different group for them in that two of the West-Park members are not only native Nicaraguans but with personal histories of engagement in their country’s struggles. There are also around the table members of Dos Pueblos, organizers of the sister city program with Tipitapa in Nicaragua.

We talk about the history of CEPAD, founded after the eathquake in 1972 to respond to a disaster. As the crisis moment never really ended but just shifted,  CEPAD chose to instituionalize its work.(One interesting note:  the D that now stands for desarollo, development; originally stood for damnificados, those who are damned,cursed.... ) Of Dr. Gustavo Parajon, founder, peace maker, man of integrity who just died this year. (And who treated me with my debilitating dysentary in the summer of 1983 during what was to become Witness for Peace.) Everyone is sure it was us volunteers standing on the border with Honduras that ultimately kept then President Reagan from invading. 

Today, CEPAD is involved in water projects and sustainable agriculture. Not projects, but assisting with the development of long term infrastructure needs based on what the people themselves can do. It’s accompanimentt, not doing for. We talk about the upcoming election, the complexities surround Daniel Ortega. The  country seems to be moving further and furhter form a Cuban model and closer an closer to a Chinese model. 

We will continue to figure out how we will all work together...I will continue to be part of the national Nicaragua Mission Network.....and I’m happy to have this international connection in West-Park’s ministry still developing, partners brought closer.  


When I'm heading home, I see George on the steps.I ask how he's doing. Fine, he says, and you? Fine, too, I guess. I see a freshly cleaned rack of men's business clothes hung up on the scaffolding. Where'd the clothes come from? I ask. Lady brought them  by, George says. I'll have to deal with that in the morning. 

Forgiveness (IV)

11/1

Overwhelmed. That’s what I feel. Just too much to get my head around.

It’s El Dia de los Muertos, so I take the little altar Holly gave me last year and build my own ofrenda.  There’s an angelita muerta on the top step. Candies, coins, rose petals. A photograph of a little girl we found in the church. And a candle. May any good spirits of West-Park be with us today.  

Ofrenda

Tonight is the last night of the Forgiveness series. Again, a good group has gathered, including a young musician new to the neighborhood who just saw the sign and walked in. A lot of tonight’s discussion begins with the case of Kathy Powers, the early 70’s radical convicted in a bank robbery in which a police officer was killed. She was just the driver, was she truly guilty? Was her anger at generals and politicians who ran the  Vietnam war just displacement? Justifying herself? Was her desire to be guilty itself a sign of arrogance? We’re not quite sure. 

One member brings up metapractice in Buddhism in which one meditates on:

• May I be  happy
• May I be healthy
• May I live safely
• May I be free

And then  want that not  only for your self, but for family, friends, a difficult person,  and finally, for all beings everywhere.  What would that really feel like, to truly want that for yourself and others?

We note the difficulty when you want, need, to forgive someone and they don’t even understand what it is they have done. How complicated it gets in relationships. 

We speak of needing to be aware of our own responsibiity in situations where we have been hurt by someone. With the exception of small children, most of the time, very few of us are truly innocent victims. 

We  conclude with the movie’s final scenes, the words of Helen Whitney that there is almost something primordial about forgiveness. That it has to do with our connection with humanity. That it is a choice. That one person forgiving another is at the very heart of our shared humanity.  That it involves the memory of lost possibilities, an ache for what has been and is no more. That the search for forgiveness is a search to move past the fear of nothingness.

I feel the accumulated weight  of a number of experieces, broken relationships. I hope, but what is possible? That’s what’s going on inside of me.

In the end, we reach no conclusions. Nor did we expect to. But there is great appfecation for what has gone on here these weeks. Eleanor has doen a great job bringing to life Katherine’s vision for a program/exploration. It has been exactly what we want for the Center. And as I said last week, this truly has been a shared sacred space. 

Talking about forgiveness

Katherine and Eleanor

Eleven Theses for 2011

At Sunday's Reformation Day service these were this year's theses:

Theses 10/30/11

1. The quality of a church is not defined by its number of members or financial status but by its faithfulness.
2. We are called to have faith and grant ultimate  authority to Jesus Christ, and no other power, civil or ecclesiastical, church or state. 
3. Our obedience is to the God who created us.
4. We have a specific call to live out in this specific place: our location, our context  is a call, not a circumstance. 
5. We have been given all that is necessary to live out our call. 
6. Our building is a means to the end of mission, not an end unto itself.
7. We are committed to reclaim, renew and restore this  building as we renew and restore our mission, our ministry, our witness...and ourselves. 
8. The church has too often been silent as economic systems and theories have been accepted as if they were divinely created, God determined and worthy of worship. We have accepted our systems as the way things are and will be without asking with God’s help, what could be?
9. As the greatest commanment is to love our neighbor as ourselves, we must live that out in our personal, church and political life. We cannot leave our children a future without hope. 
10. The doors of this church are and always will be open and be a place of welcome  to people of every ethnic, cultural, and national origin, those who are and are not citizens, people of different economic circumstances and sexual orientations, differing abilities.  All who would be partners are welcome.
11. At this church, love is love and marriage is marriage. 

We are West-Park. Here we stand. We can do no other. 

For last years' theses go to  (http://west-parkpress.blogspot.com/2010/11/on-steps-1018-first-day.html)

Halloween: More fuel

10/31

Halloween.

A single wrapped piece of American Cheese and an empty Romanoff vodka mini.

I’m anxious. My friends from PHEWA  (http://gamc.pcusa.org/ministries/phewa/phewa-networks/) are coming for a day of strategy and planning. Danielle’s not here yet. I can’t figure out how to get the temporary heater on. There’s all this stuff from last night’s concert around. I want to feel good about hosting them. When long time friend John Scotland arrives, in his usual warm and good spirits, I relax. Soon Bebb whose own church in Skocharie New York has been devstated by post Irene flooding arrives. Sees me sweeping. Says Excuse me Mr Janitor, do you know where the pastor is? Then Bill SJ and Martha Bettis Gee from the Lousiville staff arrive. And the heater is on.

We dig into our work. Planning strategy for the coming funding Armageddon due to hit at the end of 2012. The church as we once knew it is quickly disappearing.  The future has to come from well organized networks of  grass roots ministries at the local level. Ever diminshing funding will be determined by the denomiation’s priorities. Which means  as determined by the General Assembly Mission Council which means the Executive Committee which means...At present, the priority is healthy congregations. Which means what exactly? As defined by? (Ironically, much the same emphasis is emerging at the Presbytery level at last weekend’s retreat.) Of course we can agree to that, but....

Yes, just as the job of the congregation is to prepare its individual members for their individual ministries where they live and work, in their daily lives, so too, larger governing bodies, or whatever they’re now called, exist to strenghthen individual congregations in the faithful carrying out of their ministries. But something is missing here...our church has always been about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. There is a called ministry of the whole that canot be carried out by the parts. That is what differentiates us from congregational or free church polities. 

There is also an issue with a decision making process that while seemingly based on a corporate model, feels like a soviet style politbureau process. Any request for detailed information or serious question raising is discouraged as an attempt to micro manage.  This is one plae where conservatives and progressives agree, discontent with an essentially closed system process. 

As numbers and resources dwindle, the church clings desperately to a corporate model whose day is past, that no longer works.  As Occupy... wildifires break out across the globe in response to a system that is irretrievably broken, passionately calling for new ideas, the church seems to believe that it is just a matter of better management, not profound exploration of the spiritual dimension of the questions now being raised everywhere. Forgetting that it is a matter of faithful living, not management. 

Scant resources go for branding and fundraising efforts disguised as communication while  one clever evangelism program gets pushed after another. It is simple...evangelism, fundraising, stewardship..all comes down to one word, relationships. That’s at the base of what every Occupy....manifestation is trying to create. Evangelism is walking with a Korean Presbyterian union organizer who didn’t know the church cared about the exploitation of immigrant workers or Chinese workers who had never been inside a church before. It is being with....that’s all. 

At every level of church snd society the urgent questions being raised are the same. 

We will create that future by being with and by being authentic.By being real,not resigned to being realistic.   By not mistaking  the scheme of things for the way things are. That is how we make a future. For Christ’s sake, literally, it’s time to wake up. 

It’s a long day. Different people duck in and out while we meet. Including Marc checking up on his sound  system. The work is hard. The heater stops. Needs fuel. It’s getting colder. We need tomeet again. We’ve got one last shot. Beyond ideology, beyond theology and ecclesiology, it’s one to one person to person from the ground up. John and I have to go out to buy some diesel. More fuel, yes more fuel.

Bebb, John, Trina, Martha, Bill SJ, Bob

                                           * * * 

Later I go back ot the church to lock up after Symphony rehearsal. George is bac on the front steps. 

 Good evening George, how are you?

Fine, you?

Not bad. I notice a rack of men’s clothes in dry cleaner bags hanging on the scaffolding. 

Where’d the clothes come from?

Lady brough them by.

Don’t suppose any of them fit?

He scowls. Nah, What do you think?

Too small, too small.

And he nods. Lights his cigar. Draws in. Breathes out. 

Ghosts and goblins on their way home.


(The opinions expressed above are personal, not official PHEWA or any other denominational body's )

Reformation Sunday and a Winged Victory for the Sullen

10/30

Can’t find my broom or my dustpan. It’s cold. Andre arrives and I go out to get the bulletins. My Bengladeshi friend tells me that next Sunday, he’ll be closed. Muslim holiday. It will be Eid-al adha, the day that commemorates Ibrahim (Abraham)’s willingness to scarifice his son Ismail (Ishmael) in obedience to God. Traditonally, a lamb or goat is sacrificed. The family keeps a third, friends, relatives, neighbors get  a third, and the other third goes to the poor. There was one man, he was our father, he says. Abraham I think. So Saturday, I will stay open until five, just for you, OK?  I thank him, go off for coffee befoe back to church. 

On this cold morning after, people are slow in arriving. Amy plays A Mighty Fortress... I remind them that it is Reformation Sunday.  The day that Martin Luther  started something he had no idea how it would end. October 31, 1517....394 years ago...may we all be around for the 400th, God willing.....I ask if anyone remembers what this was about.  I get some good answers. 

Then I say it started with fundraising, something we know about. We need moneyfor a boiler (God knows we do). They needed money for a Sistine chapel. To pay Michalangelo’s bill. Creatively came up with the  selling of indulgences. Buying your loved one’s way out of purgatory.  This was at heart of Luther’s critique. You couldn’t buy your way into heaven. 

I don’t believe that Luther wanted to start a new church anymore than Jesus did anew religion.  But he opened the door to a revolution. 

In Matthew 23, we read  Jesus’ critique. Note that Jesus does not question the authority of the religious establishment leaders. He does question their actions, their performance. he laying on of heavy burdens. 

Burdens?  Yes, like the 33 years my lgbtq brothers and sisters were denied ordination in he Presbyterian church. Even this week, Pittsburgh Presbytery rescinded thier invitation to my seminary friend  Chris to speak. Because he is openly gay. No other reason. Not becuse he’s a skilled preacher, caring pastor, theologian, rertreat leader and Henri Nouwen student and interpreter.  These are hard times, they said, churches are threatening to leave, we can’t provoke them .The time is not right for this man.  I really can’t go home again. How I admire the courage of the saints who remain. The saddest thing was, Chris said, I was invited to speak about reconciliation. 

Burdens? Now the issue turns to marriage. Last week, I attended a workshop  on our ecclesiastical law regarding same sex marriage. It was sad. Our Interim Executive Presbyter had prepared a chart of different possible actions and their possible consequnces. Green, ok; yellow, caution; red, danger. Kind of like a national security chart. I heard all kinds of complicated gyrarations devised by my colleagues to avoid scrutiny. Like an ecclesiastical game of Twister. So thankful I am that West-Park’s tradition is one where Love is love. Marriage is marriage. Long before I got here. NO burdens on this account. 

Now about those phylacteries and long fringes..(Matthew 23:6). I confess I love fancy liturgical garments. I have to admit it was almost eniugh to get me to go Anglican.That’s tempting. (Although ultimately too much anglophilism.) One  of my favorite blogs is Uni watch, devoted to detailed scrutiny of sports uniforms. I’d like to start vesty watch, devoted to vestments. 

But the hard part comes with the banquets..Most clergy I know have been invited guests to bless  more than one banquet that made them uncomfortable. Do you know  who butters your bread? Literally? I have seen prophetic witness blunted...softened...by the awareness of who pays...often in the form of preemptory self censorship.

We in a sense are  in that  situation...We are part of the 99 potentially dependent on the 1....

I can only recall that what Luther did all those years ago led to Barmen, (http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/barmen.htm) when Niemoeller, Barth and Bonhoeffer and others stepped away from the German Chrisitan movement and became the Confessing Church stating unequivocably that our only authority is Jesus. What sounds like a simple theolgical statement had profound political implications in Nazi Germany, 1934. And that’s what Matthew 23 is all about on the bottom line, authority. On this Refomation Sunday, 2011, in the time of Occupy....where is authority, who is the authority in our lives? 

With that question in the air, Andre sings I want Jesus to walk with me..We take up the collection and all sing.

After the service, the Session meets. And reaffirms our commitment to marriage equality. And extends an invitation to any clergy unable to celebrate in their own congregation the opportunity to celebrate here.   In our church. We review the boiler situation. And leave before it gets too cold. 

We fire up the temporary heater for Sanctuary’s service. I hear their spirited opening. And see that Jane’s brother Paul Mowrie, a candidate for presbyterian ministry, is preacher of the day while she's in California. No longer excluded, he will be accepting a call to a church in Sausalito, Caifornia. 

I’m off to Occupy Faith at Zucottii. (see http://www.facebook.com/notes/robert-l-brashear/occupy-faith/10150393091633361)                                      

                                                           * * * *

A Winged Victory

Tonight’s concert features Benoit Pioulard (http://pioulard.com/) opening for Winged Victory for the Sullen. (http://www.last.fm/music/A+Winged+Victory+For+The+Sullen)

Benoit is a solo guitarist wondering from Indianesque drone to metallica to intricate smooth as silk neo folk singer song writer. The digital projecions on the walls and ceiligns take me back to the days of psychedlica. I’m surprised at how much I enjoy his music. 

What’s really surpising is Winged Victory... a string quartet, electric guitar, and piano keyboard, the new project of Berlin-based Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie and Dustin O’Halloran. Neo-chamber neo classical Philip Glass/Erc Satie minimalism plus....well, you get the idea. They come righ to the edge of too-mellow meditation music then move away in surprising directions. 

All goes well unti 10:15 when I hear an uproar in the narthex. A very angry man is shouting and ranrting...You are breaking the law, you are being bad neghbors...trying to sleep ... having to listen to this crap for three hours...breaking the law...nice neighborhood...disturbing the peace..

Brandon and I try to talk him down. Tell him it will all be over in five minutes.  If he’ll just calm down.  I know the pastor of this congregation... (Well, apparently not) We finally get him to calm down. He leaves. The concert ends with a standing ovation. 

Brandon and I try to figure it out. Condo or Capital Hall? Clearly condo. At Capital Hall, they don’t argue, they just throw bottles. We’ve had concert shere thay lasted past one. Last nigh twe had reggaeton. What happened? Apparently the open window for the heater exhaust let too much sound out. But still... 

This much is clear: tonight there were at least 250 people attending a concert for neo-chamber nearing avant garde music. I loved seeign their tour poster with our name on it. Brandon has been thre most sicessful misic producer here yet. (With BIG help from Danielle.) Well managed, (a big challenge), within a year we could be  a landmark venue, a place you want to, have to, play. We could do that. But will this corner of the Upper Westside want that? A little piece of Brooklyn on the Upper Westside? BAM* Manhattan? We’ll have to see.

* Brooklyn Academy of Music

Trick or treat

10/28

A quick stop at the office between coming back from the Interfaith Assembly retreat and going back north to the Presbytery Council reteat in Garrison, New York. I don't want to go. A moment to catch up with Danielle and to prepare the Sunday service, then off again. The first of three days of people in costumes. In New York City, on Halloween, how do you tell who’s in a costume?

10/29

Arrive back in the city after a horrendous five and a half hour drive through a blizzard. A usual hour fifteen max. The Palisades Parkway was other worldly. Tree branches, still filled with leaves, unable to bear the weight of snow. Cracking and breaking, falling across the highway. I see a car with a tree through its back window. Stopped under a tree, a load of snow falls and stops my wipers. I have to get out and clear it off. Luckily, traffic had ground to a halt. At Exit 7, highway completely closed, traffic rerouted north woth no directions to get back south. I wander off into a small town, eventually find my way to the New York State throughway and then the Sawmill. Further south, it’s pouring rain, not snow. Parts of the Sawmill flooded. I’ve been amazingly calm through all this.

At the church, I’m amazed at what Samantha and Lilly and her family have done to the basement for Halloween. They’re surprized to see me, send me back out so that they can properly greet me. I go in through the cemetery, a ghoul jumps out at me and I give them a proper scream. Each room, so recently Tenant space, done up in its own unique  scary character. Cobwebs, body parts, severed fingers, skeletons. And Stephen playing DJ with reggaeton.

The snow kept the afternoon crowd down, though still there were arts and crafts for children and a screening of  Casper the Ghost. Even a family from Brooklyn saw the sign and came in. 

At the bar, I’m drinking sangria. Leila tells me that this cold snowy morning, the NYPD and FDNY had entered Zucotti and removed  all the generators. They’ve been using them for months, she says, why did they choose today? With the snowstorm? Yes, why indeed. Their source of heat, of power for cooking, cell phone charging and internet sending and receiving gone. Trick or treat. 

There’s arroz con pollo, with sausage and olives. Cupcakes and Marsha’s rich cornbread muffins.  I wonder how Halloween came to be such a big tradition for  the Martinez/Santiago/Ayala clan. Lilly tells me it was always just been  her favorite holiday. They’ve produced more than one great Halloween party here. 

Outside, it’s bitter cold. Somone, I can’t tell who, is asleep in the center doorway.