Remembering

Sacred places of loved ones
marked by stone
monument
solid, forever
impervious to time
as it should be.
Memories that we will not suffer lost.
Ever.

Marked by flowers
pretty, fragile
fleeting traces of beauty and life
passing through creation moments of joy.
Smiles.
Memories
like humans
drift fragrantly on the wind
only for awhile.

O the Power!
Memories
Strong, lasting, immutable
Fragile
Beauty
living things.

A day
merely a day
but a marker in time
a calling
permanent history
mindful of mortality
we salute you
we give thanks for you
and we remember.

This is why Christians should listen to their politicians

Some people are suggesting that Rand Paul is a racist. If it was only that simple.

Commenting on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in a recent interview, Paul noted, “I don’t like the idea of telling private business owners—I abhor racism. I think it’s a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant,” Paul said, “but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership.”

In the world of “No Government is good government,” business owners must be allowed to discriminate if they choose. Not that we want them to, or like it, or affirm it in any way. But it is the natural outcome of our worship of individual freedom, that we must be willing to tolerate the words and acts of others with whom we disagree for the sake of the greater good. It is not, nor can it ever be, the place of government to tell individuals how to think, what to say, or how to act.

Which is pretty much the problem with the world.

It is assumed, of course, that “market” forces will correct anti-social behaviors, that a business would in time realize that it is unprofitable to discriminate, and change. When I read history it looks to me like slave-owners found racial discrimination rather profitable, but perhaps that’s not what we mean here. Rather, I’m guessing, we are asked to believe that freedom-worshipping people will, by nature of their God-given Free Will, in time, come to do that which is right and best for themselves and society as a whole.

When was the last time that happened?

I have to admit that I love discovering how absolutely right Martin Luther really was. About everything.

The failure of libertarian thinking ought to be self-evident by this point . Where are all the benefits of this great free-will? Where are all the acts of charity and love? Where is the wide-spread prosperity promised by the exercise of an unfettered marketplace?

Mine got buried under a pile of mortgage-based derivatives I guess.

People are not good. No, not even you. Occasionally they do good things, but that does not make them good. No, we never have been, and unless human evolution takes an unimaginable turn in the very near future, we never will truly be. Shall I list megalomaniacs, tyrants, mass-murders and criminals? Shall we peruse the daily news and read of drug wars and pollution, pedophilia and hate crimes? In every age, of every degree, people have been bad. We lie, we cheat, we steal, we speed on the Freeway in rush hour.

We are not good. We are bad.

Under what false assumptions do libertarians believe this will change? If we just give people their freedom, do you really believe they will then be good? No, in societies where there is less restraint, less powerful government, there is more corruption, more oppression and violence, more evil.

Human good will is the ultimate tenet of atheism. If we believe that people are by nature good and will do the right thing left to the acts of their free will, then we need neither God nor Savior. Both of those are, in actuality, a great restriction on human freedom, what with their demands of absolute devotion and total obedience to their superior divine will.

No, Christianity is not Libertarian. It is very likely the opposite of it.

For God at least knows that people need to be told what to do. There is a reason why He gave Moses 631 commandments, starting with the big Ten on Sinai. He knew that left to their freedom the Israelites would soon destroy themselves and each other. And he soon discovered (to His holy chagrin) that the provision of Law did by no means create or empower a good people. It would require a much greater work to finally put the lie of human freedom to death.

It would require a crucifixion.

Jesus, by the way, was a big believer if the work of governance to regulate the behavior of individuals in the community. Read Matthew 18 even once. He says, if your brother sins against you, go to him. If he does not listen, bring a witness. And then two or three. And then bring him before the whole congregation. He does not say, well, sometimes you have to put up with what your brother does because he is, after all, free to choose how he wants to be. No, this is Christian community: to exert the will of the whole and demand change from each of us.

The kingdom of God, Jesus tells us, is wherever people are gathered. Together. Bound to one another in mutual love, respect and desire for the good that transcends individual freedom.

To know the Grace of God is to love his truth more than freedom itself.

If loving Grace is wrong, I don't want to be right ...

The only thing worse than being wrong is being right.

Sister Margaret McBride can probably speak to this issue better than I.

A member of the ethics committee of St Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, she consented along with other Doctors and professionals to allow an abortion because a patient’s life was endangered by continuing the pregnancy.

For that she has received the harshest of penalties – excommunication from her church - because of that choice. Only someone who has “married” themself to the church can fully appreciate what this has cost her.

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted said that "the direct killing of an unborn child is always immoral." He is absolutely right of course. Sister Margaret did something wrong, and the church is unquestionably right to reprove her.

I myself cannot imagine the horror of facing such a choice – trading a woman’s life for her child’s (assuming that the baby could have been saved, which is not certain). It is an appropriate outcome in such cases, according to Bishop Olmsted, that the mother should die. To which there is also a certain horrible but inescapable logic.

Doing the right thing is not always easy. And this is what should happen in a world ruled by anyt sense of what is right, undeniably, irrevocably, and always right.

Who cannot appreciate the desire, even the need to live in such a world, with clear-cut rules and orders and categories. It is our constant search, our constant debate. And as long as we never face such choices as Sister Margaret, it seems an appropriate and fine way to live.

But then again.

Consider the ranging battles in the church today, the driving desire for the right, to erase wrong, to stand clearly on the side of God and His Word and stem the rising liberal erosion of value, of rightness. Is it not true that the Bible clearly tells us homosexuality is sinful, and if so, are we not obligated to stand firmly against it, in defense of marriage and pulpit? Churches are bleeding members and congregations for the lack of this simple rule: there is no place in the church for tolerating gay and lesbian marriage or ministry. None.

And shouldn’t then this always be our modus operandi? If we are called to the place about right and wrong then we will stand with integrity and power over and against all manner of sinfulness, wherever it is clearly proclaimed by Scripture and Tradition. We shall eradicate our pews of adulterers and fornicators, of liars and cheaters, of the irreligious and the intemperate.

People who forsake the speed limit on the freeway. Students who cheat on tests at school. Employees who take pens or post-it notes home from the office. Pastors who look at their Facebook page during office hours.

Do you know where this ends? I do. With Sister Margaret McBride and her awful, unimaginable, choice. Divorced from the church we love and the God we need.

Though it seems at first blush not to be, the fact is that Bishop Olmsted surely had a choice, too. What he did in excommunicating Sister Margaret was affirm the Law of God, the primacy of righteousness, and the authority of the church. What he did was turn his back of Jesus Christ.

For the sake of being right he forsook grace.

And we live daily in danger of doing so, too.

Someone recently reminded me that there are many, many people in the church who are angry and frustrated, who fear the direction of the church in its unwillingness to stand correctly against things that must be wrong. Someone recently reminded me that to many people this doesn’t seem like their church anymore.

Which it is not. Nor has it ever been. This is the church of Jesus Christ, who rules his kingdom in a very different way.

Being right is a powerful anchor, a steady foundation in the stormy seas of a difficult and confusing world. But like all weights, it is also the force that holds us down, turns us against one another, keeps us from rising above the real powers of sin, death and the devil, restrains us from the very Grace of God. Being right is the power to drown our church, each other, ourselves. Being right is very death.

It was Luther, finally, who reminded us, that the gift of Grace is a more wonderful “daily drowning” in baptism, the collapse of our search for righteousness until all that remains is a healthy dependence of the Grace of God. This God reminds us daily that we do not actually know the difference between right and wrong, not matter how powerfully we assert it, that we are not good, ever, not matter how certain we feel, that we must have a faith which knows only one good, only one God.

Sister Margaret faced a truth that we must face every day, though hopefully in not such a dramatic way. Life is full of choices too large for human beings.

We cannot depend on them. We must only depend on Him.

For our own safety, for the sake of our mortal souls, maybe we should stop trying to be right so much, and be thankful for the God who saves us in spite of them, from them, and through them.

Sister Margaret, our prayers are with you, and our pews are open for you.

If loving Grace is wrong, I don't want to be right ...

The only thing worse than being wrong is being right

Sister Margaret McBride can probably speak to this issue better than I.

A member of the ethics committee of St Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, she consented along with other Doctors and professionals to allow an abortion because a patient’s life was endangered by continuing the pregnancy.

For that she has received the harshest of penalties – excommunication from her church - because of that choice. Only someone who has “married” themself to the church can fully appreciate what this has cost her.

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted said that "the direct killing of an unborn child is always immoral." He is absolutely right of course. Sister Margaret did something wrong, and the church is unquestionably right to reprove her.

I myself cannot imagine the horror of facing such a choice – trading a woman’s life for her child’s (assuming that the baby could have been saved, which is not certain). It is an appropriate outcome in such cases, according to Bishop Olmsted, that the mother should die. To which there is also a certain horrible but inescapable logic.

Doing the right thing is not always easy. And this is what should happen in a world ruled by anyt sense of what is right, undeniably, irrevocably, and always right.

Who cannot appreciate the desire, even the need to live in such a world, with clear-cut rules and orders and categories. It is our constant search, our constant debate. And as long as we never face such choices as Sister Margaret, it seems an appropriate and fine way to live.

But then again.

Consider the ranging battles in the church today, the driving desire for the right, to erase wrong, to stand clearly on the side of God and His Word and stem the rising liberal erosion of value, of rightness. Is it not true that the Bible clearly tells us homosexuality is sinful, and if so, are we not obligated to stand firmly against it, in defense of marriage and pulpit? Churches are bleeding members and congregations for the lack of this simple rule: there is no place in the church for tolerating gay and lesbian marriage or ministry. None.

And shouldn’t then this always be our modus operandi? If we are called to the place about right and wrong then we will stand with integrity and power over and against all manner of sinfulness, wherever it is clearly proclaimed by Scripture and Tradition. We shall eradicate our pews of adulterers and fornicators, of liars and cheaters, of the irreligious and the intemperate.

People who forsake the speed limit on the freeway. Students who cheat on tests at school. Employees who take pens or post-it notes home from the office. Pastors who look at their Facebook page during office hours.

Do you know where this ends? I do. With Sister Margaret McBride and her awful, unimaginable, choice. Divorced from the church we love and the God we need.

Though it seems at first blush not to be, the fact is that Bishop Olmsted surely had a choice, too. What he did in excommunicating Sister Margaret was affirm the Law of God, the primacy of righteousness, and the authority of the church. What he did was turn his back of Jesus Christ.

For the sake of being right he forsook grace.

And we live daily in danger of doing so, too.

Someone recently reminded me that there are many, many people in the church who are angry and frustrated, who fear the direction of the church in its unwillingness to stand correctly against things that must be wrong. Someone recently reminded me that to many people this doesn’t seem like their church anymore.

Which it is not. Nor has it ever been. This is the church of Jesus Christ, who rules his kingdom in a very different way.

Being right is a powerful anchor, a steady foundation in the stormy seas of a difficult and confusing world. But like all weights, it is also the force that holds us down, turns us against one another, keeps us from rising above the real powers of sin, death and the devil, restrains us from the very Grace of God. Being right is the power to drown our church, each other, ourselves. Being right is very death.

It was Luther, finally, who reminded us, that the gift of Grace is a more wonderful “daily drowning” in baptism, the collapse of our search for righteousness until all that remains is a healthy dependence of the Grace of God. This God reminds us daily that we do not actually know the difference between right and wrong, not matter how powerfully we assert it, that we are not good, ever, not matter how certain we feel, that we must have a faith which knows only one good, only one God.

Sister Margaret faced a truth that we must face every day, though hopefully in not such a dramatic way. Life is full of choices too large for human beings.

We cannot depend on them. We must only depend on Him.

For our own safety, for the sake of our mortal souls, maybe we should stop trying to be right so much, and be thankful for the God who saves us in spite of them, from them, and through them.

Sister Margaret, our prayers are with you, and our pews are open for you.

The new face of book banning in the 21st Century

When I was young, the hard work of removing books from school libraries and curricula was focused mostly on books with an overly developed sexuality, lest they needlessly stir up simmering adolescent hormones. Which was a fairly significant challenge in and of itself.

Classic book burners went after writers with radical social outlooks, agitators, communists all. But that was then and this is now. Having lost the battle against ideas, I guess it’s time to go after the scientists.

A local school district is being pressured by a few parents to remove the dangerous tome The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming and its companion video because it dares to present carbon-pollution-driven global climate change as science, even as scientific fact, when everyone knows “scientists disagree.”

Now, is that “scientists” who disagree, or just oil and coal company lobbyists? And is it truly actual disagreement, or just nit-picking over data and detail? I’m skeptical of the skeptics.

That this protest is being made by the wife of a Congressman who has voted for the oil companies and against clean energy legislation is probably noteworthy, but oversimplifies this conversation.

Then again, when has it ever been simple? What are the forces, not of nature but of human power and corruption, that have always stood against the pursuit of knowledge, that have disputed fact when it challenged institution, that persecuted Copernicus and Galileo, that shunned and still shun Darwin? When has the world ever accepted as truth proven fact when it was difficult or costly so to do? The answer is mostly never, especially when such truth calls out the sin and stupidity and corruption of the powers that rule us and the way we’ve always done things.

Undoubtedly, the real danger of Laurie David’s book is her portrayal of the “big corporations” who are accumulating untold wealth at the expense of the environment. One ought not expect such powerful giants to stand idly by, or not pour their considerable resources into the work of contesting this smear to their reputation. Luckily for them, they own plenty of Congressmen and Congressmen’s wives to aid their cause.

But Ms. Terry is right about one thing. The oil companies are not the enemy here. At least not the only one. We are. It is our dependence on cheap energy, our addiction to the road of least resistance, our unwillingness to change our habits and give up our indulgences that pollutes the earth. Oil is pouring into the Gulf of Mexico because we desire it, we demand it. Tarred beaches and destroyed marine life are the inevitable outcome of the battle for cheap gas in my SUV.

We are willing to bear the consequences of using oil because we are unwilling to do the hard and expensive work of converting to clean energy and changing the way we live. Whatever happens to the environment in the meantime, well, that’s a problem for some other day, some other generation.

All of which points to the greater and even more indisputable truth which has little to do with science. The despoiling of our plant, of God’s planet, is a serious moral failure, a great sin, a human catastrophe. Challenging the science is a great distraction, a way to not face up to the significant crimes we have been and are still committing every day against ourselves and generations to come. We have failed as human creatures, and we are bearing now the cost of our wrongdoing.

It must stop.

Congressman and Mrs. Terry, we should communicate that to 6th graders and 60 year olds in whatever way, by whatever book or video, we can.

Fences

As the Macondo oil spill haunts the gulf coast of America, one man proposes a giant sand bar that would keep the pollution away from shore and protect sensitive environments like wetlands, beaches and casinos. Dredging, I understand, could begin in 10 days.

It may be a workable solution, a good idea. It may help minimize the impact of a significant environmental disaster. And it is the perfect human reaction.

When faced with any calamity, with any hard problem, we build a fence. We build a wall, a border, a defense. It is the predictable and inevitable jerk of the knee final resort to any of the real or scary bogeymen that inhabit the universe. Build a fence.

Crime? Add a security system. Computer predator? Get a network firewall. Immigration problems? Build a border fence. Protect what we have. Protect us. From them.

This is the thinking, the acting, that makes us human. And this is what condemns us to the lives we live.

It was St. Agustine who coined the phrase incurvatus in se – curved in on ourselves – to describe the state of living in sin. Our brokenness is this intransigence for defining life by how the world affects me, hurts me, harms me, scares me. That “how this affects me” is the smallest part of any problem in the world is of no concern. It is, from beginning to end, all we consider, all we see.

Never mind that this is what inflames the madness of our world. Never mind that the denial of our own culpability in the problems that trouble us condemns us to suffer them again and again. Never mind that seeing our own needs and not our own truth is our daily and final death.

No, just build another fence.

Or maybe there is another way.

Faith calls us to a powerful and new vision of life that reaches beyond fences to causes, to the root issues and needs and solutions that make the world out there less threatening, less harmful. Faith turns our attention from self to other, from today to tomorrow, from what is to what might be. Faith sees blessings not as treasures to be protected but gifts to use to transform the world and every life in it.

Faith turns us back to a God who breaks free from the tomb and invites us on the same path.

You see, the problem is that there is no fence high enough or wide enough or strong enough to protect us from all that threatens us. There is no border fence that will keep out every immigrant who want to, who needs to come in. There is no structure that can keep every drop of oil off from coast or wildlife, either this spill or the next one. There is no alarm system that can’t be beaten by a determined thief, no computer software sophisticated enough to keep your identity sacrosanct if someone really wants it.

But there are ways to be safer. There are ways to reduce poverty and corruption in neighboring governments. There are ways to not need more oil. There are ways to create jobs and futures and optimism in American cities. Oh, they are harder, higher, difficult, but there are ways.

There are ways, but they require skills and dreams other than building fences.

They require faith. They require the courage and hopefulness to look outside of our own very small needs and face the larger and more wonderful possibilities of the world around us.

They requires us to know that we are not the world but we are in it.

Shall we seek these ways, or shall we just build another fence?