The sixth Sunday in Easter: Abide in Love

5/6 

On the way to church Sunday along Beverly Road

Back to Beverley for the first  Sunday in May....

SO finally, it feels  like spring...we're now six Sundays into our Easter journey....a journey I am so happy that we began together...a 50 day exploration of what it's like having the risen one, the living Christ, back and present  with us once again. As we get closer and closer to how we're going to have to go on without his physical presence  with us, Jesus keeps bringing the message closer and closer to the bottom line.   And for Jesus, the bottom line is LOVE, that we LOVE one another.

Hear that.  It's not about your theology, what doctrine you adhere to, what church you belong to or even what religion you follow. Do you love? That's all Jesus wants to know....

But it's not enough to speak of love...we have to do it....and we have to figure out what that means...I remember when our Presbyterian General Assembly many years ago in Hartford, Connecticut.  It's theme was Love So Amazing ( from the old hymn  When I survey the wondrous cross...) I remember the representative  from the Presbyterian Church in Cuba, Miriam Ofelia  Ortega, said No me tengo interes en amor increible, yo prefiero  amor eficaz...by which she was saying  I prefer love effective...or like that hymn based on a Native American song, in the chorus it says, They'll know we are Christians by our love.

Now that puts a little catch in things...it's kind of  like this...if someone came in here this morning, for the first time, unannounced...would they know we were Christians by  our love? What would that look like? Feel like? 

He wants us to love each other as he has loved us. And at the center of that love is laying down one's life for one's friends, exactly what he did for us.  And he tells us we are his friends...Think about that for a second...the usual and expected relationship between a human and a divinity would be that of master and servant...but Jesus wants us as friends...like, you know, What a friend we have in Jesus. We can live without lovers...some of us do that for years. But I can't imagine living without friends...

He chooses us...not the other way around...and it's all to the end that we love one another..

I find it very interesting....and very sad...how we act and treat each other sometimes...some of the meanest,nastiest fights I have seen anywhere have been in churches...I was asked by Presbytery to help resolve some problems in a church. And it's like they want the problems to be unsolvable. I said to them we're watching pictures of Presidents Kim and Moon holding hands and you're telling us this can't be taken care of? 

When planning a funeral yesterday, and this happens all the time, I heard of family members who might not come because they hadn't spoken in years. How crazy is it that we can pray for peace between Israel and Palestine and a brother and sister don't speak for years? If there's someone you haven't spoken to for years, speak to them!

Love. It's about love. And it's not a just a warm and fuzzy emotion.  It's Gandhi, inspired by Jesus developing satyagraha, soul force. And Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., inspired by Gandhi and following Jesus, who brings it back to us again. 

I spent a whole day last week in a training session for non-violent direct action as part of the Poor Peoples Campaign. It's named for the campaign Dr. King was planning when he was taken from us. Organized by Dr. William Barber from North Carolina, the Moral Mondays Campaign. I believe that the only kind of mass based movement that has any possibility of succeeding has to be one motivated by love and carried out with non-violent means. 

Abraham Joshua Heschel taught us that a prophet must come from a people and speak to that people and must be motivated by love. That was the beauty and power of Dr.King's work...he acted as if our country were capable of better, could be better, was not hopelessly evil by nature. Dr. King believed in us.  Just as Jesus believes in us and expects us to do better. 

That is the love he calls us to and wants us to abide in. And here's the truly amazing thing...so that our joy can be complete...I have learned that the two most important spiritual qualities , the  two most radical qualities, are hope and joy. And man, joy seems hard to come by some times.  If you want to know what joy looks like, remember the joy of Archbishop Desmond Tutu...in the face of the most outrageous oppression of apartheid, he smiled with joy because he knew whose he was and in whose hands lay the future. He knew he had already won. I am convinced that it was that power that finally defeated apartheid. 

(“At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.” ― Ernesto Che Guevara · )

Loving one another is both the easiest and hardest of commandments.
Couldn't Jesus  just ask us to believe three unbelievable things? 
Or say so many hail mary's or our fathers?
Or fast for 40 days? 
Or stand on our head or...

NO. Just love one another. Even as he has loved you.  And abide in that love. 

As always we shared our prayers with each other, This week including a disappeared child. We shared communion. We greeted a man in the Navy whose mother lives nearby and who drops in when he's in town. There were grandchildren. It was another Sunday in the season of Easter.

Beverly Road

First Reading Acts 10:44-48

44While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. 45The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, 46for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, 47“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 48So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.


Gospel John 15:9-17

9As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

12“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

Worship with Ecclesia in Marcus Garvey Park

4/29

Dr. Brashear and Father Clyde

On the 5th Sunday if April, a mild spring day, I came to lead worship  for the Ecclesia congregation in Marcus Garvey Park.  Ecclesia worships outside every Sunday in three parks around the city. The word is broken, Eucharist celebrated and then a meal served on the altar on which communion was shared. The service begins with my friend Father Clyde consecrating the ground with holy water as he does every Sunday.

Consecrating the ground

Hymns are sung, the gospel read. Then it's time for my sermon:

You ever encounter those  people  who  want to know if you are saved? You  see them on the street, on the subway, any public place. And I'll be honest..sometimes it can worry you, right? Do I believe the  right thing? Am I going to get into heaven? How could God possibly love me? It's easy to feel that way.

I'd like to share two words of "Good News" with you today.  First from the First letter of John. (This was a really important verse to me...) When I was young and wanted to get married, I was in love and going to marry a young Jewish woman. I was a little worried about this and asked a minister friend about this.  And his response was these words:

Love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God
and...God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.  

So I want to make sure you heard that and got that straight...if you can love, if you love, you are born of God and know God and you abide in God and God abides in you...it's that simple. It's not about what ideas you believe or with what words. Or what church you belong to or even what religion. The bottom line is  love....

As for worthiness, that story  in Acts  of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch is one of my favorites.  Now on the one hand, he was doing pretty well. He was a court official. In charge of the  whole treasury of the Ethiopian queen. He came to Jerusalem to "worship", so he was already looking for something. 

BUT from Philip's perspective, the guy had 3 strikes against him already.  First, he was not a Jew. Not only that , but he was a eunuch. Which meant under their law, he was permanently unclean....like being gay or trans today in the eyes of some church people, and to top it off, he was BLACK. So when he asks Philip sincerely if he can be baptized, Philip's got to cross some boundaries.. And he does. And the Ethiopian eunuch is baptized and becomes the first non-Jewish Christian.  And the whole thing is so amazing, Philip is blown away. So blown away, he wakes up the next day in Azotus. (Which always sounded like one of those New Jersey towns to me like Paramus or Bogota or...)

Anyways, the point is...there are no bounds to God's welcome and embrace. It's about one thing and one thing only...LOVE...

When we come to the sharing of bread and cup, we all, ALL of us are invited to share in this holy meal together. As brothers and sisters. Fully welcomed. Fully accepted. And fully loved. As together we share in ....and become...the body of the risen Christ.

After the eucharist is celebrated and we have our prayers and sing more hymns and pass the peace, the service is over. Oh, there were prayers for the recently fired House Chaplain Father Conroy and Paul Ryan who fired him. The homeless people thought it might have something to do with them. It's time to share a meal (provided by my friends from West End Presbyterian).

sharing another meal

Then again, maybe sharing the meal is a continuation of the service. 

One by one the people go off in different directions...

the peace of the Lord be with you...

Amen
First Reading Acts 8:26-40

26Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) 27So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” 30So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 32Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this: 
     “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, 
          and like a lamb silent before its shearer, 
               so he does not open his mouth. 
33  In his humiliation justice was denied him. 
          Who can describe his generation? 
               For his life is taken away from the earth.” 
34The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. 36As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” [37And Phillip said,“If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he replied, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”] 38He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. 39When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. 40But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.


Second Reading 1 John 4:7-21

7Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

13By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 15God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. 16So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 17Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19We love because he first loved us. 20Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

Sunday afternoon. Harlem. Spring.

4/22

Global women leaders mural

Sunday afternoon. Spring. Harlem.

It's the first day that really feels like spring. Like it actually might finally be here. Walking up my street towards the Boulevard, the neighborhood craps game is up and running again. Fists filled with dollar bills. White basketball shoes. A whiff of weed. The sound of dice as they rattle and bounce off the corner where the stoop meets the wall. Sure sign of spring.

The store front apostolic holiness church on the corner is in full tilt rockin mode the with rising vamps of organ and drums and an almost Tina Turneresque gospel singer, the sounds spilling  out into the street.I look inside to see the women in their white hats and dresses bouncing in a dance of joy. A woman in a wheel chair sits outside and is occasionally graced with plates of food. Two deacons/bouncers, meticulous in 3 piece suits and medals,  are stationed outside, just in case....They're talking about the passing airplanes above. And drones. "See that shiny light there? That's a drone. Keep them away from me. Don't want no drones looking down on me." 

The outdoor tables of the cafes are filled with the brunch crowd. Prices clearly set for black professionals and Harlem's new white emigres. 

The African men in their long flowing robes are out strolling the street.

At the Harlem Tavern, anticipation is rising for LeBron's game later tonight and on the side wall, a new street mural is being painted to honor global women, and of course, prominently featuring Michelle Obama.

A salt and pepper matched set of Mormon missionaries walk down the boulevard, confidence in their step and earnest purpose in their faces. 

It's Sunday afternoon. Spring. Harlem.

Bread & Puppet's 50th Anniversary

4/23

To read about Bread & Puppets's 50th anniversary residency at West Park, read here:


http://west-parkpress.blogspot.com/2013/11/thanks-for-all-who-came.html

http://west-parkpress.blogspot.com/2013/11/reign-of-christ-sunday-communities-of.html

http://west-parkpress.blogspot.com/2013/11/paper-mache-religion.html

http://west-parkpress.blogspot.com/2013/11/and-then-they-were-gone.html

Bread & Puppet Theatre Company: Puppets of Resistance

4/22

Bread & Puppet "Cheap Art"

When Bread and Puppet Theatre Company began in 1963, it was a visionary amalgam of medieval street theatre, European avant garde and nascent hippie esthetic.  To this founder Peter  Schumann added his own love of bread and baking with the quasi liturgical sharing of bread that takes place at every B&P performance.

Over the  last 55 years B&P has gone  from cutting edge to dated and stuck in the sixties to being all but forgotten to now being seen as a unique artistic expression of theatre, all without ever changing their esthetic or ethos. Which, as one observer said, was probably Peter's vision all the time. 

Over the years, other troupes with their roots in street performance have taken other paths. (Viz. Cirque du Soleil) One can chuckle imagining a B&P show in Vegas. Peter Schumann has managed to somehow survive this half century without changing his rigorous artistic ethic. You can call it persistence, stubbornness or just commitment but he has remained true to that vision.

Bread & Puppet eschews corporate patronage or traditional grants. They survive on voluntary contributions ...no one is ever turned away from a performance...and the sale of their "cheap art."  They live as a community in Vermont and travel in the same way, cooking, eating, celebrating forever with an ever changing cast of characters. Their summer interns come literally from all over the world. It is an experience one lives through and then then moves on in an ever expanding community of support. Every performance is made possible by local cadres of volunteers where they visit. 

In the end, it is the performance that keeps drawing people back. From the start, B&P has always been about analysis and critique of the present moment. They were a constant presence in the anti-Vietnam and anti-nuclear protests which helped bring them global visibility.  Much like Grotowski, there is a deep understanding and use of ritual along with their own archetypal lampoon. The voice of protest shifts between almost didactic declamation to deeply moving inference. There are always complicated Rube Goldbergesque instruments and devices. And as much as Schumann is a committed humanist, his music always goes deep into traditional hymns and church music. Their 50th anniversary production, for example, wove the 1599 German "Es ist ein Ros entsprungen" throughout. The current production, The Basic Bye Byes Show, uses the late 16th century Tallis Canon, first with a song written shortly after Trump's election, but in many other ways as well. 

The Basic Bye Byes, now on tour, is classic B&P. The topic is all that we are called to bid "Bye Bye" to if we are to survive.  In their own words, "The Basic Bye-bye Show – a manifesto on transformation, inspired by Albrecht Dürer's apocalyptic woodcuts, Brahms 4 Serious Songs, and the daily news. BREAD & PUPPET PRESENTS: THE BASIC BYEBYE SHOW." The various scenarios reference the climate crisis, the international capital system, the newly heightened anxiety over nuclear apocalypse and in a final devastating scene, gun violence.

A giant James Madison impregnates a "Holy Cow" (read Sacred Cow) which gives birth to the Second Amendment. At one point, small school chairs are turned over, one by one. The effect is emotionally devastating. At the final conclusion, the cardboard guns are gathered and tossed in the trash. I write this only to give a slight impression  of what you see. 



Having Bread & Puppet live at West Park for a month or so in 2013 celebrating their 50th anniversary was a true experience of community. They have continued to return West Park as one of their New York City homes, the other being the East Village's Theatre for a New City, in a nod to their Village roots. They are yet another expression of what the Center at West Park seeks to be. (And already is.)

If they come your way, join in. And break some bread with them.

Erich Kastner's "Going to the Dogs"

4/7/18

I always thought that if lived before, it was in Weimar Berlin. Or maybe I was a New Yorker hanging out there Isherwood style. It feels so familiar and at home to me. I also have always felt that if we could somehow come to understand late Weimar, we could understand how it happened, that is the hijacking of  one the world's most cultured societies and its descent into genocidal madness. I may have finally given up on that thought.

However, I have just finished Erich Kastner's Going to the Dogs: the story of a moralist. Like a 1936 instagram from Weimar Berlin right before the Nazis took over. (Not translated until 1990 as Fabian.) . Although covering much the same territory as Isherwood (and the musical incarnation Cabaret,)  Kastner's postcard arrives to us from an insider, one whose own culture is being transformed. In it's own day damned as "improper," Kastner's book brings us an objective description of a  culture "going to the dogs." Kastner objectively describes long journeys into Berlin nights through a world of the 30's version of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. It's interesting that even as Kastner's Fabian describes himself as a moralist, his participation in this world is basically described without judgment. In the early scenes, it comes off more as amoral than immoral.

That is until Fabian becomes emotionally involved with an aspiring actress who has her own Weinstein moment and chooses to enter into a relationship with a manipulative and predatory filmmaker. Their love cannot withstand this corruption. There is a clear economic base to late Weimar capitalism as a fatally flawed economic system destined to dehumanize and debase  its participants. Looking deeper, however, we see Kastner is clearly pointing to a spiritual failure, a spiritually empty society with no redemptive resilience in the face of a dehumanizing system.  It is that spiritual failure that may come as close as we can to understanding not only what happened but why it happened. 

As we look at our own late neo-liberal society, we can find the connections with Weimar. A veneer of moralism  covers over a spiritually deadly culture. Anger against perceived cultural liberal elites rages within marginalized white working people and sustains the President's base even as his own behavior runs counter to all professed values. 

In the end, without spoilers, the fate of our Fabian may be a metaphor for the society. If we are going to resist a slow but inevitable slide into an American form of fascism, we will need to be always alert as to what is going on around us.  And this much is clear...we have to be creating a sustainable spiritual core to keep us alive in the struggle. This short but powerful novel is yet another resource in that ongoing project.

Easter 2018: Rising

4/1

Happy Easter

As I leave my apartment, people are lined up around the block waiting for the early Easter service at First Corinthian Baptist. At the Jay street station, I see women in fancy "bonnets" heading to the 5th Avenue Parade. I'm on my way to Beverley. It's Easter. 

Here's what's on my mind this Easter Sunday:


All the years I lived  in Pittsburgh, my neighbor Greek Orthodox priest, throughout the fifty days of Easter, would greet me with Alleuia! Christ is risen! and I would  respond  with Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!....and so today, we begin Easter...
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!  

Easter....so many memories...for twenty years Easter began for me in Central Park, at the foundation stones of All Angels Church in Seneca Village, the buried, forgotten community of African-Americans and Irish and later German immigrants whose story is rising again....because it represented a multi cultural church, because if you try to silence people the  very stones will cry out and because you cannot bury the truth forever...sooner or later it will come out...that's how my Easter began...

Memories of Easter go deeper...later this afternoon, my boys and I will go to Trenton to have Easter with my sister and my mother...they..and their cousins...are all adults now....but how can I forget the many years my sister took over for my mom and created the magical backyard wide  Easter egg hunt to find all the hidden plastic Easter eggs filled with treats....from Berlin my son calls me and says, tell your grandson his chocolate eggs are for dessert...

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!

I believe Mark is my favorite version of the Easter story...it ends with the words... they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.....in fact, in the Greek, its a dangling preposition...they were afraid for...for what?  and why? Man, there is so much space to explore there....

#Emptytomb
#Hesnothere
#Whatnow

and right now there is so much fear...as I was  quoted  last week's West Side Spirit and Our Town about fear:
Yes, there are, and the Rev. Robert Brashear, pastor of the West-Park Presbyterian Church on West 86th Street since 1995, ticked off a few of them, citing, “Fear of the other, fear of people who are different, fear of people who look different, fear of people who come from different places.” (http://www.westsidespirit.com/local-news/20180327/a-season-of-faith/2)

Yes a lot of us are afraid...and we need to speak to that...but EASTER....
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Let's get something straight...this holiday is not nor never has been about trying to prove that something extraordinary happened 2000 years or so ago. Can't be done.  No cell phone shots, instagram posts, snapchat posts or tweets. No external verifications. None.

#wheredhego
#whereshenow

Even the earliest gospel just leaves us with an empty tomb and questions. 

The earliest biblical witness is in Paul,1 Corinthians 15: 1-11....and the bottom line here is that we're right there with Paul, ok? We encounter Jesus just as Paul did no more...and get this ....NO LESS....

at the  end of the day, if you  want proof that Jesus is risen, look around you... it's you and me ...we're here...Christ is in us...and Christ is risen....

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Except wait a minute.  Back to fear.  As long as there is fear, the  risenness is not yet complete.  Jesus is still in the state of rising....and we need to be rising with him ......

And there are signs...

Central Park West

I give you just one...last week over 100 presbyterians gathered at Rutgers Presbyterian Church and we marched together to join with the march for our lives....

Leaving Rutgers

.by the time we reached Central Park West there were100s of thousands...j

oining in with the young people to say #neveragain to say #enough....

Students demand

They don't accept that they are too young, that it's too hard, that there's nothing to be done...they're telling us they're disappointed in us and that something can be done...they give us hope....

With Steve Phelps

Look...I get why the gospel ends with "Afraid"....resurrection is scary...
the easy part is to say, ok, it's over we lost, get over it...the disciples returned to their old jobs as fishers, John says...the scary part is to say no, the tomb is empty...the struggle continues...we are in the process of rising...that's what it is my friends, the process of rising...let us continue to rise together....

And we shared communion together. More friends and family than usual gathered. Even a baby, which always brings smiles and hope. And Geraldine shared her music. And then the traditional community meal in the fellowship hall.

And then, to the train. To meet my boys. Family. Easter.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!










Second Reading 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

1Now I should remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, 2through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you — unless you have come to believe in vain.

3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them — though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.


MARK
 the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were