under the palm tree

Dear Mom

2012-01-05T09:32:00.000-08:00

It has been almost a year since you died. Those last few months I spent with you were a blessing I will always treasure. I have slowly been going through your things and never knew what a pack rat you were. I hope you don't mind that I tossed out those little wooden spools of thread that had about 4 feet of thread left on each one. I kept a few packets of sewing needles, but didn't think I'd ever use 85 packets of them. Right now I am looking a bag you kept of maps. Roseville, San Francisco city guide, USA, Santa Cruz, Lake Tahoe, Florida, Sarasota, Michigan, Detroit, Lakeport, Placerville, Grass Valley , and ....India? I remember stories about many trips you took - the white sand in Sarasota, many trips to San Francisco and Michigan, but I never heard about India. Did you ever go there and I never knew about it? Did you want to go there? I'll never know. I think I will give these maps to a thrift store. I have kept them in a bag in my closet for 11 months now. These were records of your trips, your stories. Some will live on in me, but little by little I keep letting you go. Not that I love less or miss you less, it's just the reality that you are no longer here. I have a box with some of my own maps that I will hold on to - and I imagine that one of my children will be going through them one day tracing my journeys and wondering whether to hold on to them or give them away. I hope they will smile as they remember stories I've told them or trips we took together, and then let them go as I am yours.

I miss you.

Friday Five

2011-12-30T16:54:00.000-08:00

One of the online communities I belong to asks questions for reflection on Friday's called the Friday Five. This week we were asked: As you look back over 2011 share 5 blessings, they can be as grand or as simple as you like,if you year has been like mine they are probably a mixture!

As you look towards 2012 share 5 hopes- again, anything goes!

Pictures and songs welcome!

Blessings:

1. My family, especially the birth of my newest grand daughter, Charlotte.

2. Amazing friends, both online and live.

3. A congregation that is vibrant and loving.

4. My self-defense instructor.

5. Mocha and Chloe- a huge labradoodle and tiny schnoodle.

Hopes for 2012:

1. To put my keys and purse in the same place every day.

2. To be responsible for the energy I bring into a room. I heard that on an interview with Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard brain scientist who suffered a stroke. During her recovery she was aware of people's energy in a very palpable way. There are some people who really do suck our energy and leave us feeling drained. I want to be aware of my energy and what I bring into a room as I enter it.

3. To stay away from people who have toxic energy as much as possible.

4. To find a new living situation for my 35 year old disabled son. I need to find a counselor who can help him deal with agoraphobia and begin to engage in life with the limitations he has.

5. To sleep at least 7 hours a night.

Advent Christmas and new life

2011-12-30T07:20:00.000-08:00

It was a quieter Christmas than most. There were only a few around the dinner table. We normally have tables linked together that wind all throughout the house. This year we all sat at one table. I normally love the chaos and confusion and nieces and nephews and children running all over, but this year was nice in its own way. I needed a more quiet time.

I woke up feeling rested yesterday. It was the first time I woke up feeling that way in a long time. I haven't had a nightmare in 4 days. I am settling into a routine with prayer, exercise, sleep, errands, napping, cooking and did I mention sleeping and napping? I am also continuing with self-defense training and counseling. One of my Canadian friends just e-mailed me a portion of the psalms he read this morning from Psalm 144 which sounds like a motto for self-defense training; "Blessed is God, who traineth my hands to war and my fingers to fight."

I miss my congregation and work at the church, but know that this is still a time to unplug and re-set my body and soul.

Last part of this story

2011-12-17T07:49:00.000-08:00

This will be my last post about this topic. The main reason is that there are many, many things that are a part of my life and this is just one of them. I would rather spend my time writing about other things. There is a story about an old Cherokee goes like this:

“One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that was going on inside him self. He said, "My son, it is between 2 wolves. One is evil:

anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment,

inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego... The other is good: joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith..." The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather,

"Which wolf wins?" The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one I feed."

Nuff said.

I did go to the self defense training. I thought I was being very practical about the situation. It was a lot to take in and learn. I just kept on going like the Ever ready bunny in those tv commercials. The months of sustained hyper vigilance and constantly looking over my shoulder had an unexpected effect on my physical health. I went to see my doctor who did tests. The tests came back indicating my adrenal glands were barely functioning. He said I needed to re-set things - like shutting off a computer and turning it back on again. My fight or flight reaction had been going full bore for too long. I needed to take time off of work immediately to sleep and rest. I had planned on modifying that and working from home more but continuing to work. I had also been keeping the bishop up to date on all the things that were going on. He said that he wanted me to listen to the doc and take time off. We could arrange a long term supply to take care of things for the church for now. I would have kept pushing myself and so grateful to have a bishop step in and help me do what was best. Sometimes we can’t step back enough from our own life to see the whole picture, but when we walk with others they really do help us stay on the path and help us keep going for the long haul. This is what being in community is about. My church is in good hands with a vestry that is superb, a colleague who has taken the helm and a congregation that has a huge heart. I am getting the chance to sleep in, take naps and am beginning to feel the buzz of stress sluff off. I feel safe and deeply grateful.

On another note: I am reading, for the millioneth time, a book called Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas by Jan Richardson. It’s a beautiful book with her art work and reflections. The reflection for today is titled Working On It and is accompanied by a paper collage. You should all go out and get her book so you can see the art work too. The reflection is this:

And so let me let you hold me

when I have come to the place beyond the willingness to labor

beyond anything but the longing for rest.

Let my emptiness be emptiness till it reveals to me your face,

and let my weariness be weariness till it prompts me to your rest.

Then may I know the healing of slumber

and the possibility of dreams;

then may I greet the dawn and take up my work again.

Families, friends and conflict

2010-02-11T17:54:00.000-08:00

Today we remember the lives of Orthodox Saints. Today's example is sadly a story that is too ordinary; friends and family members involved in a dispute that leads to division and hardness of heart. My daughter called yesterday to say that one of her friends' brother was killed in an accident. The two siblings got in an argument four days ago and weren't speaking. When I heard that and then read this mornings story about St. Nicephoros I thought of something that a friend of mine, a Methodist pastor, recently sent the following to me. I include it here fyi. I found the photo on the website of the Daily Word - and I'm including it just because I like it! May you bring peace to others today- Rev Deb

Nicephoros
In third century Antioch, Syria, Nicephoros was a layman and Saprikios was a presbyter , and they were friends. However, once after a disagreement, they refused to speak to each other. With humility, Nicephoros later tried to accept the blame, but the Saprikios was unmoved.
Saprikios was later arrested during a persecution and sentenced to die. Nicephoros waited along the path to the execution and begged for Saprikios' forgiveness, but Saprikios' heart was hardened. Finally Nicephoros told the executioner that he would take the Saprikios' place, and Nicephoros was beheaded.

Peacemaking is not avoiding conflict or running from problems…that is cowardice. Peacemaking is courageous. Also, Peacemaking is not appeasement or simply letting the other person have their
way…that is passivity. Peacemaking is active. Jesus was never a doormat. Jesus stood his ground and made things happen.

Second, some truths about unresolved conflict. Unresolved conflict blocks your fellowship with God. I John 4:20 "For anyone
who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen." I Peter 3:7 "Husbands …be considerate with your wives and treat them with respect…so
that nothing will hinder your prayers." ...Check out your relationships. Unresolved conflict hinders your happiness. Job 18:4 "You tear yourself to pieces in your anger." Resentment is consuming…it
monopolizes your attention, thoughts, and feelings. We all need to learn to be at peace…then learn how to become makers of peace.

PLAN a Peace conference. P.E.A.C.E. Matthew 5:24 "If you remember your brother has something against you go at once to make peace."
YOU take the initiative…”you go”. Don't wait for them to make the first move. It doesn't matter if you're the offended or the offender;
it is always your move. Why? Because Jesus said so. And because you are more mature. Schedule a face to face. (not via e-mail!) Conflict is not
resolved accidentally. You must intentionally deal with it. When? "...at once ..." Don't avoid or delay, it only grows worse.

EMPATHIZE with their feelings. * Philippians 2:4 "None of you should think only of his own affairs, but consider other people's interests also."
Pay attention to their needs. When you're upset, who are you thinking about? Yourself, your needs, your hurts. God says reverse
that. When you hold your peace conference, step into their shoes and think about them for a moment. What you are thinking and feeling is important, but you need to empathize with them as well.
Parents of children, adult children of parents, spouses, friends - all know they have to listen, be sensitive, and empathize with what
going on with the other person. One of the values of conflict is when you solve it, it usually leads to greater closeness because you understand them better. You've been listening and caring.

ATTACK the problem not the person. * Ephesians 4:29 "Do not use harmful words, but only helpful words, the kind that build up and provide what is needed." Don't go criticizing, condemning, and comparing. Say things that build people up, not put them down. You can't focus on fixing the problem and fixing the blame at the same time. It's impossible. If you meet planning to blame the other person, then forget it. Proverbs 15:1 "A gentle answer quiets anger but a harsh one stirs it up." Engage your mind before you engage your mouth. Be sincere, not sarcastic. You don't get the point across by being cross. Attack the problem not the person.

COOPERATE as much as possible. * Romans 12:18 "Do everything possible on your part, to live at peace with all men."
The hallmark of a Christian ought to be our ability to get along with other people. However, for all of us, some people are a
challenge. “Do everything possible.” Peace has a price…always. It costs your self-centeredness. “We” is the goal, not “me”.
Maybe they are right…or a legitimate gripe…or maybe they do know what they're talking about. Learn to say: "I was wrong" and "I'm
sorry".

James 3:17 says "Peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of goodness." Whatever you sow is what
you're going to reap. If you want people to cooperate with you, you have to cooperate. If you want people to be nice to you, you've
got to be nice to them. Whatever you're dishing out is what you're getting back. So you look and say, "What can I do? What seeds
am I planting?" If you are always planting seeds of griping, complaining, arguing, hassling, and putting down others guess what
you're going to reap. Start planting seeds of peace and cooperation.

EMPHASIZE reconciliation not resolution. * 2 Corinthians 5:18 "God has reconciled us to Himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation."
Jesus models what God wants us to do. A synonym for peacemaker is reconciler -- one who brings people together. God sent
Jesus Christ to bring us to Him so we could have peace with God. God is the original peacemaker…Jesus is the Prince of Peace.
What Jesus has modeled God now wants us to do with other people. “Reconcile” means “to reestablish a relationship.” It does not
mean you resolve all the problems. A lot of times there are some legitimate, honest differences. Reconciliation means you bury the
hatchet, not the issue. You can disagree, agreeably. You can walk arm in arm without seeing eye to eye. Reconciliation focuses on
the relationship. When you help restore relationships you're doing what God would do. When God looks down on you and you are
taking the initiative to restore harmony in that marriage or in that office or with that parent or child - God looks down on you and says,
"That's my girl!" or "That's my boy!" That person is a child of God.

Who can be a peacemaker? Anybody. But first you must have peace on the inside of you. You can't spread peace if you're at war
on the inside. Only what you have can you offer to others.

A poem from the Panhala website
Why Regret?

Didn't you like the way the ants help
the peony globes open by eating the glue off?
Weren't you cheered to see the ironworkers
sitting on an I-beam dangling from a cable,
in a row, like starlings, eating lunch, maybe
baloney on white with fluorescent mustard?
Wasn't it a revelation to waggle
from the estuary all the way up the river,
the kill, the pirle, the run, the rent, the beck,
the sike barely trickling, to the shock of a spring?
Didn't you almost shiver, hearing book lice
clicking their sexual dissonance inside an old
Webster's New International, perhaps having just
eaten of it izle, xyster, and thalassacon?
Forget about becoming emaciated. Think of the wren
and how little flesh is needed to make a song.
Didn't it seem somehow familiar when the nymph
split open and the mayfly struggled free
and flew and perched and then its own back
broke open and the imago, the true adult,
somersaulted out and took flight, seeking
the swarm, mouth-parts vestigial,
alimentary canal come to a stop,
a day or hour left to find the desired one?
Or when Casanova took up the platter
of linguine in squid's ink and slid the stuff
out the window, telling his startled companion,
"The perfected lover does not eat."
Didn't you glimpse in the monarchs
what seemed your own inner blazonry
flapping and gliding, in desire, in the middle air?
Weren't you reassured to think these flimsy
hinged beings, and then their offspring,
and then their offspring's offspring, could
navigate, working in shifts, all the way to Mexico,
to the exact plot, perhaps the very tree,
by tracing the flair of the bodies of ancestors
who fell in this same migration a year ago?
Doesn't it outdo the pleasure of the brilliant concert
to wake in the night and find ourselves
holding hands in our sleep?

~ Galway Kinnell ~

(Strong Is Your Hold)

gossip

2009-03-03T07:01:00.000-08:00

The story about gossip that I used in my sermon on Sunday came from the movie Doubt. When I did some research on the story I discovered that John Patrick Shanley, the writer/director of the movie heard the story preached in a sermon when he was a boy attending St. Anthony's in the Bronx. He said: “Gossip and cutting the pillow was a sermon I had heard. The Cure of Ars (St. John Vianney) used that sermon in the Middle Ages. And before that it’s Jewish in origin. The story told in the sermon has a priest reproaching a woman for gossiping by telling her to cut open a pillow on the roof of her apartment building and shake out the feathers. When the woman tells the priest she’s done so, he then tells her to pick up each feather — a near-impossibility, like stopping the spread of gossip once started. “To me as a kid, gossip meant nothing,” Shanley added. “It was (imagining) the pillow and the feathers and all that.”

I thought about cutting a pillow during my sermon to add a visual effect, but thought I better try it at home first. Robert and Maria had a great time throwing feathers around the yard. I decided not to use the feathers in church though. They got everywhere, in everything and spread all across the neighborhood. Since I am of the belief that if I make a mess then I clean it up and I didn't want to clean up a million down feathers from the red carpet.

I chose the New Testament reading, instead of the one from the Old Testament, from the Daily Office. I like the phrase "today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts." The poem comes from Linda Hogan (which I get from Panhala.net)

So, today if you hear the voice of God, harden not your hearts.

Hebrews 3:1-11 (NRSV)

Therefore, brothers and sisters, holy partners in a heavenly calling, consider that Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses also “was faithful in all God’s house.” Yet Jesus is worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that would be spoken later. Christ, however, was faithful over God’s house as a son, and we are his house if we hold firm the confidence and the pride that belong to hope.

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, as on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors put me to the test, though they had seen my works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘They always go astray in their hearts, and they have not known my ways.’ As in my anger I swore, ‘They will not enter my rest.’”

The Radiant

In night,
at the dark limits of earth
where land ends and water begins,
at the elemental border
where you can go no further
without one entering the other,
the green light goes on.
It's not the man who fishes here,
not the light of human making
because we are the ones who measure light
and because light was created before us
from blood of flesh and sea
like this animal light of the manta ray
traveling the latitudes of night
and longitudes of darkness
knowing the blue unfathomable shifts
and dark ranges of the world beneath water.

It travels a rich sea away from us,
its light falling on plankton,
bringing food and fish toward it,
as if it is moonlight
opening across water,
it passes over the fished-out places
beyond the reef where coral is dying,
out past the point where the British captain was killed
by those who first thought he was a shining god.

It moves steadily out into darkness
to where the colder darkness begins to well up
from the sea depths that have no bottom,
the place where I have feared the pale face of a shark
with its deadly touch
against my naked legs.

The ray travels over the many
other lives that have light
and below them is the blindness
of fish who need no sight,
and out toward the place where sun left the sky,
to where the larger creatures live,
where fishermen once found their boat cast in shadow
and looking up, saw what kind of cloud it was,
the manta ray risen out of water, a leap
so large it darkened the sky.
The men returned haunted by
everything that was larger than they were,
more beautiful and bearing its own light.

Tonight on this dark shore,
watching the animal light go over the horizon,
I long to be in water heading for open sea,
for no other power,
no other light.

~ Linda Hogan ~

(Rounding the Human Corners)

morning thoughs

2009-03-02T06:24:00.000-08:00

i've been using a great blog site to get the readings from the Daily Office (dailyoffice.wordpress.com) each day and will include one of the readings here, along with a poem from another site (Panhala)

The Daily Office website had the following caption and photo on its page. Lent is a good time to ask ourselves what are the idols in our lives. They could be material or they could even be things like the prayer book or hymnal. We need to distinguish what we use as tools to help our experience of God from God. peace, Rev Deb

"Interior of Anglican church on Gangwha Island, South Korea—so that we don’t make an idol of our own familiar architecture and furnishings."

The poem is called The Apple Orchard.

The Apple Orchard

Come let us watch the sun go down
and walk in twilight through the orchard's green.
Does it not seem as if we had for long
collected, saved and harbored within us
old memories? To find releases and seek
new hopes, remembering half-forgotten joys,
mingled with darkness coming from within,
as we randomly voice our thoughts aloud
wandering beneath these harvest-laden trees
reminiscent of Durer woodcuts, branches
which, bent under the fully ripened fruit,
wait patiently, trying to outlast, to
serve another season's hundred days of toil,
straining, uncomplaining, by not breaking
but succeeding, even though the burden
should at times seem almost past endurance.
Not to falter! Not to be found wanting!

Thus must it be, when willingly you strive
throughout a long and uncomplaining life,
committed to one goal: to give yourself!
And silently to grow and to bear fruit.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

(Rainer Maria Rilke: Selected Poems, trans. by Albert Ernest Flemming)

hard times

2008-12-19T06:32:00.000-08:00

Dear ones,

Good morning everyone. I have chosen the canticle from Morning Prayer for today's selection. It has a verse that kept me going during a time that was quite difficult (quite difficult... that's my polite English side keeping my wilder Irish side from using other adjectives). It seems like a story I read about rather than one I lived. When I was 21 years old, an undergrad in Michigan, I was the victim of an attempted rape and murder. I escaped, but was badly badly beaten. The perp, although known (he was my Abnormal Psychology professor, Dr. Henry Orloff) was never put behind bars. I used to meditate on the verse from today's scripture "Violence will no more be heard in your land, ruin or destruction within your borders." Meditating on that verse helped me turn the corner (eventually) from continuing to live in fear to tip toeing into life again. God is present, even in violence. God is present, even when destruction comes. God is present, always, to carry us through those times. Peace.

Canticle 11 The Third Song of Isaiah
Surge, illuminare Isaiah 60:1-3, 11a, 14c, 18-19

Arise, shine, for your light has come, *
and the glory of the Lord has dawned upon you.

For behold, darkness covers the land; *
deep gloom enshrouds the peoples.

But over you the Lord will rise, *
and his glory will appear upon you.

Nations will stream to your light, *
and kings to the brightness of your dawning.

Your gates will always be open; *
by day or night they will never be shut.

They will call you, The City of the Lord, *
The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.

Violence will no more be heard in your land, *
ruin or destruction within your borders.

You will call your walls, Salvation, *
and all your portals, Praise.

The sun will no more be your light by day; *
by night you will not need the brightness of the moon.

The Lord will be your everlasting light, *
and your God will be your glory.

Move over Martha Stewart

2008-11-29T18:01:00.001-08:00

The turkey at my sister's house - nice shot, huh?

Advent Conspiracy

2008-11-27T06:01:00.000-08:00

blessings passed down

2008-11-22T05:19:00.002-08:00

Dear ones,

We survived the Treasure Hunt that we did for the twins birthday. My thoughts turn to another time when 11 years ago I was holding two new babies in my arms. I recall that wonderful newborn smell and the softness of their skin as if it just happened. There was an older woman at my church who was a twin and had been looking forward to the birth of my twins, but she had been battling cancer and was near death. It seemed like the only thing keeping her alive was meeting Robert and Maria (we called them Click and Clack then - we didn't know that we had a boy and girl until they were born). Her doctor kept calling me and asking when I was going to go into labor. He said that this woman, Zelda, was ready to die but refused to do so until she met my babies! Finally they came - and when we left the hospital our first stop, even before we went home, was to visit Zelda. Her twin sister came down from Reno for the occasion. They were 95 years old. In preparation to greet these new twins Zelda got out of bed and put on makeup so she could look her best, and I have to say, she looked stunning. She shone with joy that day. I will never forget the image I have of Zelda and her sister holding these babies who had just come into the world. When Zelda held each one, she leaned over and whispered into their ears. She told me that she had to wait for their birth because they needed to have the blessing of elder twins to welcome them into this world. I don't know what she whispered but I know that she passed on to them a powerful blessing for their lives.

Enjoy the readings. Take time to reflect on the questions that the poem asks. Peace. Debra+

Malachi. 3:13-4:6 (NRSV)

13 You have spoken harsh words against me, says the LORD. Yet you say, "How have we spoken against you?" You have said, "It is vain to serve God. What do we profit by keeping his command or by going about as mourners before the LORD of hosts? Now we count the arrogant happy; evildoers not only prosper, but when they put God to the test they escape." 16Then those who revered the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD took note and listened, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who revered the
LORD and thought on his name. 17They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them. 18Then once more you shall see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. 3And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts. Remember the teaching of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. 5Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. 6He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse. "

What's In The Temple?

In the quiet spaces of my mind a thought lies still, but ready to spring.
It begs me to open the door so it can walk about.
The poets speak in obscure terms pointing madly at the unsayable.
The sages say nothing, but walk ahead patting their thigh calling for us to follow.
The monk sits pen in hand poised to explain the cloud of unknowing.
The seeker seeks, just around the corner from the truth.
If she stands still it will catch up with her.
Pause with us here a while.
Put your ear to the wall of your heart.
Listen for the whisper of knowing there.
Love will touch you if you are very still.

If I say the word God, people run away.
They've been frightened--sat on 'till the spirit cried "uncle."
Now they play hide and seek with somebody they can't name.
They know he's out there looking for them, and they want to be found,
But there is all this stuff in the way.

I can't talk about God and make any sense,
And I can't not talk about God and make any sense.
So we talk about the weather, and we are talking about God.

I miss the old temples where you could hang out with God.
Still, we have pet pounds where you can feel love draped in warm fur,
And sense the whole tragedy of life and death.
You see there the consequences of carelessness,
And you feel there the yapping urgency of life that wants to be lived.
The only things lacking are the frankincense and myrrh.

We don't build many temples anymore.
Maybe we learned that the sacred can't be contained.
Or maybe it can't be sustained inside a building.
Buildings crumble.
It's the spirit that lives on.

If you had a temple in the secret spaces of your heart,
What would you worship there?
What would you bring to sacrifice?
What would be behind the curtain in the holy of holies?

Go there now.

~ Tom Barrett ~

(Keeping in Touch)

malachi and aquinas

2008-11-20T18:48:00.000-08:00

Dear ones,

Interesting reading from Malachi this morning. It is directed at the integrity of priests. Rest assured, I am not guilty of the things that the priests are accused of in this reading. The poem is attributed to St/Thomas Quinas. I will have to go back to my old Aquinas textbooks and see if I can find more of his poetry. Peace. Rev Deb

Malachi 2:1-16 (NRSV)

And now, O priests, this command is for you. 2If you will not listen, if you will not lay it to heart to give
glory to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse on you and I will curse your blessings;
indeed I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. 3I will rebuke your offspring, and
spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and I will put you out of my presence. 4Know, then,
that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may hold, says the LORD of hosts. 5My
covenant with him was a covenant of life and well-being, which I gave him; this called for reverence, and he
revered me and stood in awe of my name. 6True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his
lips. He walked with me in integrity and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. 7For the lips of a priest
should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the
LORD of hosts. 8But you have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by your
instruction; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts, 9and so I make you despised and
abased before all the people, inasmuch as you have not kept my ways but have shown partiality in your
instruction.

10 Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another,
profaning the covenant of our ancestors? 11Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in
Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the LORD, which he loves, and has married the
daughter of a foreign god. 12May the LORD cut off from the tents of Jacob anyone who does this-any to
witness or answer, or to bring an offering to the LORD of hosts. 13And this you do as well: You cover the Lord's
altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor
at your hand. 14You ask, "Why does he not?" Because the LORD was a witness between you and the wife of
your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15Did
not one God make her? Both flesh and spirit are his. And what does the one God desire? Godly offspring. So
look to yourselves, and do not let anyone be faithless to the wife of his youth. 16For I hate divorce, says the
LORD, the God of Israel, and covering one's garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So take heed to
yourselves and do not be faithless.

WE ARE FIELDS BEFORE EACH OTHER

How is it they live for eons in such harmony -
the billions of stars -

when most men can barely go a minute
without declaring war in their mind against someone they know.

There are wars where no one marches with a flag,
though that does not keep casualties
from mounting.

Our hearts irrigate this earth.
We are fields before
each other.

How can we live in harmony?
First we need to
know

we are all madly in love
with the same
God.

~ St. Thomas Aquinas ~

(Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West by Daniel Ladinsky)

rending and healing

2008-11-12T06:10:00.000-08:00

Dear ones,

The prophet Joel tells the people to rend their hearts, not their garments in today's reading. The practice of rending garments was written about in Genesis and is a sign of mourning. Joel calls for the real thing, not just a symbol. Most of you know that my first marriage ended in divorce after 14 years of marriage (it was an 'arranged marriage' which is longer story than my daily reading intro can deal with). A few years after the divorce, when I was in seminary and studying the practice of rending garments I decided to rend the garment of my first wedding dress as a sign of that marriage ending. I had no idea how hard it is to rend a garment! It's easier to split a 2x6 in half with your hands (that also is another story from my martial arts days!). I persisted and successfully 'rent' the garment and then sewed two of the pieces together to make a small baptismal stole for a young girl who had been sexually abused by a priest (she was only 2 years old when she came into my life). I carefully stitched the tear together and sewed a cross over the tear in the fabric. It was very healing for my soul to do that. What do you mourn? What do you carry in your heart that you need to let God take care of for you?

Thanks to Evelyn Wickham for the poem we have for today. Peace. Debra+

Joel 2:12-19 (NRSV)

12 Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with
mourning; 13rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and
merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. 14Who knows whether he
will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD,
your God? 15Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; 16gather the people. Sanctify the
congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his
room, and the bride her canopy. 17Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the LORD,
weep. Let them say, "Spare your people, O LORD, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among
the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, 'Where is their God?'"

18 Then the LORD became jealous for his land, and had pity on his people. 19In response to his people the LORD
said: I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a mockery among the nations.

Forewarned

Now when the breath of frost has chilled

The waiting aspens, when the sky

Has floated the birds to another country

and summer’s brook goes dry,

I can review and list my losses

Without complaint, shoulder my grief

While the cold-fingered wind strips

My heart of its last leaf,

And watch time’s plow turn under days

Like stubble, I must lace my boots

And fill the cellar bins – they winter,

Trees, in their roots.

~James Hearst, Snake in the Strawberries

2008-11-03T08:37:00.001-08:00

Today's reading comes from the book of Ecclesiasticus again. There are many days I find myself disagreeing with the words of scripture. This is one of them. I think that incredible wisdom comes from those laborers that are described in the following passage. Read it, engage in it, talk to God about it. God loves to engage in dialogue! My grandfather, God rest his soul, was an amazing craftsman. He made his living as an engraver. I remember sitting next to him when I was a child and watch while he carefully engraved etchings into copper that would become a piece of art or a logo for some business. He was a loving and steady presence in an otherwise chaotic childhood.

Also, I ask your prayers today for Tracie Schissel and the repose of the soul of her sister, Leslie. Leslie died yesterday from Lyme disease. I met Tracie and Leslie a few weeks ago at a Lyme Disease Conference. Leslie looked healthy and vibrant, but Lyme is a very strange disease. I went to the conference to learn more about Lyme because my son Cory (32 years old) was diagnosed with it. He moved in with us 6 months ago so we can help him. You can follow the link to http://www.lymefighters.org if you wish to know more about Lyme disease. It is more prevalent than you might think. Patty Butler's niece is recovering from it and MaryJane Ostrom's son was diagnosed with it several months ago. Please hold them all in prayer.

Here is the reading and a poem for today:

Ecclesiasticus 38:24-34

"The wisdom of the scribe depends on the opportunity of leisure; only the one who has little business can become wise. How can one become wise who handles the plow, and who glories in the shaft of a goad, who drives oxen and is occupied with their work,
and whose talk is about bulls? He sets his heart on plowing furrows, and he is careful about fodder for the heifers. So it is with every artisan and master artisan who labors by night as well as by day; those who cut the signets of seals, each is diligent in making a great variety; they set their heart on painting a lifelike image, and they are careful to finish their work.

So it is with the smith, sitting by the anvil, intent on his iron-work; the breath of the fire melts his flesh,
and he struggles with the heat of the furnace; the sound of the hammer deafens his ears, and his eyes are on the pattern of the object.
He sets his heart on finishing his handiwork, and he is careful to complete its decoration. So it is with the potter sitting at his work
and turning the wheel with his feet; he is always deeply concerned over his products, and he produces them in quantity. He molds the clay with his arm and makes it pliable with his feet; he sets his heart to finish the glazing, and he takes care in firing the kiln.

All these rely on their hands, and all are skillful in their own work. Without them no city can be inhabited,
and wherever they live, they will not go hungry. Yet they are not sought out for the council of the people, nor do they
attain eminence in the public assembly. They do not sit in the judge's seat, nor do they understand the decisions of the courts;
they cannot expound discipline or judgment, and they are not found among the rulers. But they maintain the fabric of the world,
and their concern is for the exercise of their trade. How different the one who devotes himself to the study of the law of the Most High!"

Tracie Schissel and Leslie Wermers

poetry from a site I subscribe to called Panhala

2008-11-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

Let's remake the world with words.

Not frivolously, nor

To hide from what we fear,

But with a purpose.

Let's, As Wordsworth said, remove

The dust of custom" so things

Shine again, each object arrayed

In its robe of original light.

And then we'll see the world

As if for the first time.

As once we gazed at the beloved

Who was gazing at us.

~ Gregory Orr ~

Reading from the Daily Office

2008-11-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

The lesson today comes from Ecclesiasticus 31:12-18,25-32:2 and the poem is from a favorite author of mine, Wendell Berry. Enjoy. It provides some good 'grist for the mill' to reflect upon.

Ecclesiasticus: "Are you seated at the table of the great?Do not be greedy at it, and do not say, "How much food there is here!" Remember that a greedy eye is a bad thing. What has been created more greedy than the eye? Therefore it sheds tears for any reason. Do not reach out your hand for everything you see, and do not crowd your neighbor at the dish. Judge your neighbor's feelings by your own, and in every matter be thoughtful. Eat what is set before you like a well brought-up person, and do not chew greedily, or you will give offense. Be the first to stop, as befits good manners, and do not be insatiable, or you will give offense. If you are seated among many persons, not help yourself before they do.

Do not try to prove your strength by wine-drinking,  for wine has destroyed many. As the furnace tests the work of the smith, so wine tests hearts when the insolent quarrel.
Wine is very life to human beings if taken in moderation.  What is life to one who is without wine?  It has been created to make people happy.
Wine drunk at the proper time and in moderation is rejoicing of heart and gladness of soul. Wine drunk to excess leads to bitterness of spirit, to quarrels and stumbling.
Drunkenness increases the anger of a fool to his own hurt, reducing his strength and adding wounds.  Do not reprove your neighbor at a banquet of wine,
and do not despise him in his merrymaking; speak no word of reproach to him, and do not distress him by making demands of him.  If they make you master of the feast, do not exalt yourself; be among them as one of their number. Take care of them first and then sit down; when you have fulfilled all your duties, take your place,
so that you may be merry along with them and receive a wreath for your excellent leadership."

Reflections:

How do you handle it when you are slandered?

When have you slandered someone else? Why?

Bring your thoughts and offer them to God who will lovingly care for you and fill your souls.

Rev Deb

Lyme Disease

2008-10-19T04:05:00.000-07:00

I spent the day at the International Lyme Disease Conference in San Francisco. It was primarily for physicians who presented results of their research and those who are engaged in ongoing research for the disease. I wanted to go so I could put a face to some of the names that have become common in my household since my so Cory was diagnosed with Lyme. I wanted to go to have some hope about treatment for my son. I wanted to go to connect with others who are dealing with the devastating disease.

There's a new movie that made its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival called Under Our Skin. It's the story of lyme, its effects on people and the controversy within the medical and pharmaceutical community. Amazing film.

But for me, it is a journey of being with a child who is very much in the middle of a long process of healing. It's easier to be a support for illness that is more acute, but chronic illness calls for the ability to walk the walk of long-suffering and complexity. Cure Unknown is the title of a new book that just came out about lyme. There are many ways to treat, and anti-biotics need to be changed periodically. Treating lyme is an art form that demands physicians to be creative and passionate about their patients. Many doctors have lost licenses over treating these very needy patients.

As a mother I can only take in a little at a time. Not all lyme patients survive the disease, although I fully believe that Cory will. It's hard to see my son who got a full sports scholarship to USF be relegated to a life of survival. He sleeps 16 hours a day and is in a fog much of the time he's awake. He is not currently suicidal, although did buy two guns last year, just in case. The guns are now gone and the police are on notice in case he tries to purchase another.

Well, that's about all I can write now. I am in for the long haul and it does my soul no good to delve into a darkness that I sometimes get lost in.

Football - at 10?

2008-09-16T05:42:00.000-07:00

Number 43 -That's my ten year old disguising himself as a football player. When he told me he wanted to play football last year, I tried to look very wise as I replied, 'If you really want to play football, there is one thing you need to do first. It has helped all major league football players (I just read some of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's stuff on truth and figured I could tap into a deeper truth of motherhood and lie)..... you need to take ballet for a year first.' He was not convinced and is now Number 43.

Last week he came home very excited about being switched to play as a receiver for the offense. So, not wanting my little guy to get tackled, I said in my 'Deborah Under the Palm Tree voice', 'when the ball comes to you, you need to run in the opposite direction to make room for the other person to catch the ball.' I don't think the Palm Tree Voice works on him.

Baptism

2008-08-11T17:05:00.000-07:00

"You are anointed with this oil and sealed as Christ's own forever,"

I said as I made the sign of the cross on her forehead with the oil for baptism...

she asked, "will you put some on my toes too?"

Life

2008-07-26T06:38:00.000-07:00

I decided to start blogging a bit again. There are going to be big changes ahead at Grace Church and in my life. Rob, my husband and music director, resigned and took a gig at a larger church and will oversee 50 musicians and have several choirs with cantors. He will be able to use his many talents that my smaller church was not able to utilize.

I am going to add a service so there will be one early no music Rite I, one traditional and one praise service. I'm still working on the times of services. There is a lot to do and I leave on Thursday for my turn at the diocesan chapel followed by two weeks vacation.The piece we can't quite figure out is our young twins - we both leave too early to take them to church. We may get a babysitter and leave them home sometimes and do church at home with them for the time being.

On the family front, I'm very concerned about my oldest son who is battling Lyme disease. He is on a variety of medicines; antibiotics, antimicrobials, antipsychotic, and many more. He called last night to talk about his final resting place - and as a mother it tears at my heart to have that conversation with my son who very well may die as a result of this disease.

I'm feeling a bit worn out these days and can't wait to get up to the mountains.

thoughts about maundy thursday

2008-03-19T07:05:00.000-07:00

Sermon Maundy Thursday

March 20, 2008

Grace Episcopal Church

The Rev. Debra Warwick-Sabino

Tonight’s service begins the ancient and holy tradition called the Triduum. The services are seen as a continuation - beginning tonight and ending late Saturday night at the Easter Vigil Service. The word Triduum “Three Days” . Tonight's service is Maundy Thursday - it’s the night we reflect on Christ’s new commandment to love one another. The name “Maundy” is derived from the Latin “mandatum” or commandment. This is Jesus last night with his disciples and as they sit at that table we now call the Last Supper, Jesus tells them “I give you a new commandment, just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” This is also the night we celebrate the beginning of the sacrament of the Eucharist as we remember Jesus’ Last supper with his disciples.

All of the readings tonight are about meals, which got me thinking about how we gather to share meals ...

Family meals, where all are seated around the same table, seem to be a rare event in so many families due to the work and after-school activities. So many families consider themselves lucky to have weekend meals together and, at that, maybe only one. During the week fast food restaurants are often the places for a quick supper with the kids.

Think about what you bring with you when you come to the table- all those experiences you’ve had during the day- workday satisfactions and frustrations; school and playground achievements and failures; love and tensions between spouses and siblings; fatigue and high energies. Add to that being in a hurry so we can clean up, do homework, sports, play rehearsal, or housework and then to bed for not-enough sleep.

I remember another time that seems too long time ago - when as a child I’d spend summers at at my grandparents house. We ate together every night and it was at those meals that I heard the stories of the family, past and present. The pet bear my grandfather had and would take on a walk on a leash around the neighborhood in a Detroit suburb, the plane that he saved for and built and that my Uncle Stan crashed it ( I even learned some new words I brought home to share that summer!) - they never spoke again. At that table we became family, for we heard the same stories and ate the same food passed down from the "old country" - ok, England.

Even in a fast-food world, there are still have occasions for special meals. Easter, just a couple days away, may be such an occasion; birthdays, anniversaries

At some of these meals there are connections with today's scriptural meals. These special meals become occasions to set a table, light candles, have favorite foods and reconnect with others by the sharing of stories, past and present. Again the next generation hears the family stories, eats the family’s unique foods and so becomes more embedded and aware—"this is my family".

These celebrational meals help us appreciate today’s scriptural ones. The Exodus reading tells of the Passover meal. In some ways the first Passover meal had a lot in common with modern meals. It was an eat-and-run meal. Those eating are dressed and packed for travel. They must have brought different and deep emotions to the meal. They were worn out by their Egyptian slavery, yet they couldn’t acquire their own freedom by themselves. They must have been apprehensive; would God really be able to get them out? And once away from their slave masters, would they survive the long trek across the dessert? Suppose they perished in the desert or were caught by their pursuers? If they were caught, what punishment would they receive? Some at the meal would have had second thoughts about this venture and may have argued to stay put and live with "the devil we know." There would have also been those who were filled with excitement —God was coming to help them--- finally freedom! But this was not a once-only meal; the Jews are instructed to celebrate again;

The scripture ends with: This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.

Future generation s would eat this meal of lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs. The family story would be repeated. They would tell of past deliverance; but speak in the present tense, "Why is this night different from all others?" is one of the four questions that is asked by the youngest member of the family when Jews gather to recall the Passover meal -- I remember it well since my best friend was Jewish and we shared all our celebrations with each other. I was younger and since I was family I had to learn the four questions in Hebrew - and although it has been many, many years since I have asked those questions as the youngest member of a family I still know them -

Ma nishtanah halailah hazeh mikol haleilot?

What new slaveries, addictions, fears and dreams of liberation would succeeding generations bring to this table? If God could free their ancestors, trapped in a far-off slavery, then God could do it again and lead a new generation, step by step to freedom.

Paul reminds us of the new table story and meal being handed on to us. The story and meal are both past and present. We remember the life and death of the One who also provides this meal for us. What do we bring to this meal tonight?What modern slaveries tie us up or keep us imprisoned? What is our personal "Egypt," our place of captivity? We remember and are given courage; what God once did for us, God is doing again: helping us pass over from death to life; from despair to hope; from the darkness of our own making, to the new light that only God can provide.

When we gather for our "family" meal and tell the story of our new Passover in Jesus, John reminds us to make sure we tell the full story. In his account of the meal, with its Passover overtones, we hear who we are---- the story that links us to Jesus, it includes the washing of his disciples’ feet. The washing is a centerpiece of John’s narrative. There are Christian communities that use the towel, basin and pitcher of water as their symbols. Some churches have mosaics or paintings of these three items alone. No need to paint Jesus or his disciples into the scene, the symbols speak for themselves.

At formal meals the lowest slave would have been given the job of washing feet. Instead, Jesus takes the role of slave and washes his disciples’ feet. Just when the disciples were getting comfortable at a special meal, Jesus does something that really throws them off balance! Any strivings or ambitions to move up the discipleship ladder they might have had have just been turned on their ear. The "successful disciple," Jesus tells them, is one ready to take up pitcher, basin and towel to wash and dry feet. A person could lose one’s dignity washing feet! Exactly and they might gain another form of dignity, they might become knows as companions of Jesus.

In a moment you will all be invited here to have your feet washed by- when it is time please come forward in two lines, take off just one sock and shoe, and sit down in one of the chairs while we do the foot-washing. Let the story of the meal, the story of serving others, and the sharing of Christ’s body be part of your story. This is our family history.

Resources: Jude Siciliano, OP, Preacher’s Exchange web site

I read a poem called A Place Setting at the Lord’s Table by Gunilla Norris

As I lay the fork near the plate,
let me remember this is Your table, not mine.
As I set the water glasses down
and fold the napkins, let me be reminded
that every setting at this table
is Yours, not mine.

Each one who will partake of this meal
is a particular someone You love, a someone
You have made and whom You sustain.
In You nothing and no one is forgotten.
How vast and providential is the memory
with which You keep us all.

It is only we who forget You
and then one another.
It is we who starve each other
and exclude each other.
Give me new eyes.
When the glass is raised by my friend
let me see You drinking.
When the fork is lifted by my child,
let me recognize You eating.
You are the hidden joy which feeds
and keeps everything. You are the table,
the guest, the meal, and the commemoration.

Make in my person a place setting for You.
Remind me of my true nature
which is recalled only in You.

Friday Five

2008-03-14T05:41:00.000-07:00

RevGal Friday ay Five reflections:

1. If you could travel to any historical time period, which would it be, and why?

I would like to be there when Warwick Castle was in full swing. My grandfather, Frederick Warwick, used to tell me were we related to royalty and he'd tell me about Warwick Castle. Three years ago there was a job opening for a young maiden to lead the jousting knights in at Warwick Castle. Of course I applied, but didn't even get a response. I wonder 1952 date of birth had anything to do with it?

2. What futuristic/science fiction development would you most like to see?
Beam me up, Scotty.

3. Which do you enjoy more: remembering the past, or dreaming for the future?
I like to think about the possibilities the future holds.

4. What do you find most memorable about this year's Lent?

We just got news that my brother-in-law, 57 y.o., has only weeks - months to live. I feel like I got the wind knocked out of me as I adjust to the news. He is trying to quickly put his affairs in order, and a family friend
just offered him a burial plot close to where my father-in-law was buried last year. The readings for Holy Week have a visceral reality to them this year. I am walking in a fog of grief.

5. How will you spend your time during this upcoming Holy Week? What part do you look forward to most?

I will take one day of retreat. I have a vestry meeting on Monday night, Maundy Thursday service on Thursday at 7 pm, Good Friday service at noon and the Easter Vigil at 8 pm. I look forward the most to lighting the fire in the courtyard from the light of Christ and processing into the (hopefully) dark church with the new light of the season.

keeping eyes of the heart open

2008-03-09T04:21:00.000-07:00

It was just another day in a long series of rainy days. The clouds hung heavy in the sky. It had been raining for the season, which it does here in northern California. When I went to do an errand I decided not to grab my camera, which I always bring with me .. just in case. The sky was dark and nothing was going to happen to warrant any photo taking. Maria and I got in the car and drove through Davis on our way to Sacramento. And there it was - the most incredible, breath taking rainbow I have ever seen. The colors were brilliant - and several cars pulled off the side of the road just to look at it. There were two rainbows, but the birds - there were baby egrets, white as snow, doves, sparrows and crows or something - there were birds flying in and out of the rainbows as if they were dancing in it. The colors of the rainbow reflected off the wings of the white egrets - and it was the most amazing site I think I've ever seen. It ranks right u there with seeing the northern lights on a warm summer night in the upper peninsula of Michigan - sitting on top of a corn silo at 3 am.

As I drove through Davis I happened to pull behind one of the cars at a red light that had also pulled over to watch the rainbow. So, in a very uncharacteristic move, I rolled down my window and asked if they had happened to take a picture. They did, so I quickly wrote down my e-mail address and got out of the car (the light had since turned green and I was stopping traffic) and gave them my e-mail. My daughter was thoroughly embarrassed - and hid in the back seat.

Here is the photo, it doesn't do the rainbow justice - but I learned my lesson - always be open to the possibility of wonder on even the most dreary day in the midst of a dreary and uneventful season.

tithing your soul

2008-02-20T06:22:00.000-08:00

I'm back after a long hiatus - too busy, family activities, workshops and a smidgeon of depression thrown in.

This morning I was reading a daily meditation by Frederick Buechner called Listening to Your Life. He wrote a definition of Lent that I had not heard before.

In many cultures there is an ancient custom of giving a tenth of each year's income to some holy use. For Christians, to observe the forty days of Lent is to do the same thing with roughly a tenth of each year's days. After being baptized by John in the river Jordan, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where he spent forty days asking himself the question what it meant to be Jesus. During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves.

To hear yourself answer (such a question) is to begin to hear something not only of who you are but of both what you are becoming and what you are failing to become. It can be a pretty depressing business all in all, but if sackcloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end of it.

If you had to bet everything you have on whether there is a God or whether there isn't, which side would get your money and why?

When you look at your face in the mirror, what do you see in it that you most like and what do you see in it that you most deplore?

If you had only one last message to leave to the handful of people who are most important to you, what would it be in twenty-five words or less?

Of all the things you have done in your life, which is the one you would most like to undo? Which is the one that makes you happiest to remember?

Is there any person in the world or any cause that, if circumstances called for it, you would be willing to die for?

If this were the last day of your life, what would you do with it?

To hear yourself try to answer questions like these is to begin to hear something not only of who you are, but of both what you are becoming and what you are failing to become. It can be a pretty depressing business all in all, but if sackcloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end.

baptism of Christ - sermon notes -

2008-01-12T16:41:00.000-08:00

Today we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus –and at 10, the baptism of my granddaughter, Sage.

When I was doing some research on the history of infant baptism I came across articles called Infant Baptism, Its History and its Harm, Infant Baptism- Exposed!, and Infant Baptism is under Fire!

Like anything else, it can be a source of conflict and division – or a source of dialogue and acceptance.

The book of Acts talks about whole households being baptized – and it has been the norm of the church from the very beginning.

St. Irenaeus referred to baptism in his writings in the 2^nd century, St. Augustine began the gloomy theology of baptism that said that baptism cleanses an individual of the stain of original sin, and that the unbaptized were doomed to hell. Later, Thomas Aquinas suggested that the unbaptized wouldn’t go to hell but to limbo, which was part of Roman Catholic theology – but several years ago the RC said limbo no longer existed--- I remember the story about the International Theological Commission, a group of theologians at the Vatican who worked on "the fate of babies who have died without baptism." They focused on of God's universal saving plan.

Sounds a bit like counting angels on the head of a pin if you ask me.

Others argue that baptism that by baptizing infants the church shows that we believe all are acceptable before God – even when as vulnerable and defenseless as a baby.

Baptism is one of the sacraments of the church and we believe that is one of those outward signs of an invisible and spiritual grace.

It is not saying the person is an Episcopalian – the person chooses that religious affiliation later in life, but simply a member of the household of God- where we all promise to walk alongside the newly baptized on their journey.

The Baptismal covenant that we say describes the very core of our beliefs as Christians – also described in the earlier reading from the prophet Isaiah. It describes not just a standard of conduct, but who we are, and that sometimes get lost amidst the daily grind of life..

Listen again to Isaiah and also to some of the baptismal covenant -

a bruised reed he will not break,  and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; 

In the baptismal covenant we said yes to the question,

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

If you seek and serve Christ in all persons – even yourself – that means that you treat them with a gentleness being mindful of the image of a bruised reed – because whether we are aware of it or not, every single person has battles and conflicts and bruises – we need to be careful – we need to walk gently.

Isaiah says that he will faithfully bring forth justice and will not grow faint or be crushed  until he has established justice in the earth;

And we agreed that we would take our place in that and

strive for justice and peace among all people, and do it in a manner that respects the dignity of every human being?

and then the Lord speaks through Isaiah – about Jesus, but also to each one of us - individually –

I, am the LORD, I have called you

 I have taken you by the hand and kept you; 

I have given you as a covenant to the people, 

a light to the nations, 

to open the eyes that are blind, 

to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, 

from the prison those who sit in darkness.

You are the covenant.

When I was at St. Martin’s I wanted to really have the youth get into this story and feel as much as they could what it meant to go to the river to be baptized.

I was working with a group of youth and parents and we were repairing for a Jordan River pilgrimage for months- but it was really along the banks of he American River. I can’t remember why but I had them make a huge, huge

cardboard sculpture. They each had a huge box to paint a part of the cross and when we put it together it was supposed to make one cross made up from many different perspectives- Each box was 4 feet tall and 3 feet wide and when we put it all together it was much bigger than I imagined it was going to be. And for some reason I wanted to bring this huge cross with us on our pilgrimage, so one day we packed up these boxes on the roofs of three different cars – (and it was so tall that they almost didn’t fit under a bridge we had to go under).

We parked near the riverbank – and took our bibles with us and were walking down the street reading the story of the baptism of Jesus aloud. I can tell you people who saw us and asked what we were doing did not guess that we were Episcopalians!

So we made it down a sandy path, through some brush, and were getting near the riverbank. And we all knew it wasn’t really the Jordan River, but there was a kind of excitement in the air as we got closer, … a sense of expectation …

And we were at the part that said, “suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. " And a voice from heaven said,

And I paused; because I was being dramatic and just at that moment a man from down the river shouted “Be careful, there are rattlesnakes right by you”

It changed the whole atmosphere –one girl who had a snake phobia (we don’t ask on our youth field trip forms what kinds of phobias do people have) burst into tears and fled – she just ran and an and ran -

Luckily, my mother lived close to where she and we were- has a pool, She looked a bit surprised (really annoyed) with me when I showed up with a bunch of people she didn’t know (she’s very, very shy) and asked if we could pretend her pool was the Jordan River. What really got her was when we unloaded our cross from the car tops!

All of today’s readings are for you personally, so take them home and read them again and know that God is there ready to open the heavens and say to you – You, Linda and Pat and Jim. You, Kenny and Carolyn and Gregg and …

You – and you and you are God’s Beloved and with you he is well pleased.

Before we proceed with the baptism I want to say something about Sage’s name. Sage Linda-Ann Russell. In my family, my grandmother and mother and sister and me – when we are pregnant we all have our babies early, always. No exception – so when my daughter Rebecca was pregnant, I assured her that she wouldn’t make it to her due date. We always deliver early. Well, the due date approached, came and went – and three days later she finally had Sage. I turns out that sage was born 7 years to the day – after her grandmother Linda had died. And so the name Linda comes from her grandmother who is very much with us today.

Resources: Time magazine May 1968, CNN Dec, 2005

head above water -literally with all the storms out here

2008-01-08T05:31:00.000-08:00

sick kids, sick mother, sick parishoners....

haven't had time to write, post anything.. back soon

but i'll at least post a pre-sick photo of a snow trip..

light and darkness and christmas eve sermon

2007-12-24T11:06:00.000-08:00

Moon Set 12-23

I began the day watching the moon set - had a full day with a wonderful Christmas pageant, greening the church in preparation for the Christ child, visiting a sick parishioner in the Vallejo hospital, two other parishioners in their homes on the opposite ends of the hills of Green Valley. Then a bit of shopping, a training session with my new thurifer, and off to my daughter's house to get some last minute Christmas preparations. On the way to my daughter's I saw that the moon had come up again- and my day was only about 2/3 over. You know it's a long day when it begins with a moon set and the next day's moon hangs in the sky and you're still moving fast.

Moon Rise for the next night, although it's still 12-23

Christmas Eve Sermon

Resources: Home By Another Way, Barbara Brown Taylor,

Cloth for the Cradle, Iona and Rev Gal comments

Please close your eyes just for a moment and let go of all those things you have been busy with; the shopping, baking, cleaning, wrapping … let them all go and just and breathe.

God of the Manger, God of us all, we gather tonight in this holy place where hope is born to welcome you into our very souls once again.

Can you feel a hum in the air – The time of frenzy preparations is over. The stores are closed, the gifts are wrapped, - and the celebration begins. That membrane that separates heaven and earth is thinner – Everything that happened yesterday is before Christ and everything that happens tomorrow is after Christ – which leaves us right now, that eternal NOW – when God comes among us and is made out of the same stuff we are all made.

That’s the main thing we are waiting for tonight – but it’s not the only thing is it? I imagine that there is at least one person here who is waiting to find out what’s in that box propped against the Christmas tree. And someone else who is looking forward to waking up in a house filled once again with children and grandchildren who have come home for the holidays. There are families part of Grace church who have had new babies this year – which means that they will be waiting for the first Christmas morning when they wake up to their own nativity scene.

There are those for whom this is a hard time- and no matter how much they try to muster up a feeling of joy, there is still the empty chair to deal with, the stocking that stays folded up in the box this year and is not hung. All those rituals that were designed to share and do with others is now done alone. Christmas is the season when you want to see if the hurt has let up any since last year. On one hand you want to let go so you can go on with your life, but are afraid that letting go might mean you stopped caring and so you hang on.

For better or worse Christmas Eve acts as a time machine that takes us back to every other Christmas Eve. Right? We remember those times when we were in the front row of the holiday show and not the stage manager of it; the smell of pine boughs and cloves stuck in oranges, turkey roasting. We carry an image of mom and dad sitting around in their bathrobes sipping coffee while kids chase the new puppy through the sea of wrapping paper. And even though we are now the mom and dads, we still carry those memories of when we were the children – for me as a child growing up in Michigan I loved those times when the snow would softly blanket the trees behind our house. I would go stand outside at night and watch the snowflakes fall, as if in slow motion, reflecting the street light as they fell – it was like watching diamonds falling in the night air. The snow blanketed the noise and there was a silence that you don’t often hear.

Last week I got an e-mail from a friend of a friend who wrote: this is the time of year when we all think of our friends and our families - when we think of the people we love - and try to tell them how we feel. And this year, like everybody else, we have been thinking hard about how to reach out to the people we hold in our hearts - About a week ago, my daughter solved the problem when she emailed a link to NPR's This I Believe website. She pretty much said what the season's all about.

If you have never heard the This I Believe series on NPR you should check it out. Anyone can send in their stories and they are truly amazing reflections on life. This woman’s daughter sent in her story –– she wrote that she was the kid who took everything for granted and rebelled – she scoffed at religion and its threats of damnation. She ran away from home, got a tattoo, shaved half of her head, became a truant and barely graduated high school.

Bu then her father died when she was 19 and she wrote “I realized that that all of life’s lessons I had so adamantly rejected were meant to be taken seriously. .. I now have a new belief. .. I believe that I would never have learned how precious life is unless I lost someone irreplaceable, I stay healthy because I appreciate my body’s fragility, I enrolled in and graduated from college to gain knowledge previously ignored. I teach individuals with Autism to give people opportunities to live better lives. I’m getting married because I have found my life partner. I love being alive!

My father never got to experience the new me who was molded from his death. I am the product of his passing. I am a living painting, drawn by an artist whose work may not have been complete if he was still alive.”

No wonder the place is humming .. we bring to the manger all the losses as we gather around the manger looking for a glimpse of new life – and fresh dreams.

Because we come to God in Christ, not with a childishness, but with child like wonder. Sometimes we find those experiences of new life by listening to the child like parts in ourselves or, if not, in the children around us - I am blessed to still have young children living with me. And if I make time to listen to them I remember the child like sense of wonder.

A few nights ago I was waking past my 10 year old daughter Maria’s room at night and saw her sitting in bed praying – very seriously –

I sat down next to her – and asked what did she say when she prayed?

Well, tonight I was just asking God what his favorite color was. And? “It’s purple, she replied matter of factly, God said that purple is the color of royalty and God is a king after all. Right now God is wearing purple pajamas with angels on them!-

It began over 2000 years ago when on that first Christmas - God in Jesus, crept in beside us - a vulnerable human child, trusting human hands to hold him, trusting human hearts to love him.

Whatever the circumstances of our lives just now, in all of our mixed experience of being human,– the ones who walk past the empty chair, and the ones who simply take the time to ask God what his favorite color is – and get an answer – that the God of creation comes.

I close with some words from a reflection from a book called Cloth for the Cradle …

'When the world was dark and the city was quiet, you came. You crept in beside us. And no-one knew. Only the few who dared to believe that God might do something different. Will you do the same this Christmas?

We ask this not because we are guilt-ridden or want to be, but because the fullness our lives long for, depends on us being as open and vulnerable to you, as you were to us, when you came, wearing no more than nappies, and trusting human hands to hold their maker.

Will you come into our lives, if we open them to you - and do something different?

When the world was dark and the city was quiet you came. You crept in beside us. Do the same this Christmas, God Do the same this Christmas.'

God's favorite color

2007-12-18T05:23:00.002-08:00

Painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner ...Angels appearing to the shepherds

God appears to Maria quite often. Last night she had a conversation with God. It had been a good 15 minutes since I had tucked her into bed when I walked by her room and saw her with her hands together, sitting up in prayer in her bed. I went in and asked her what she says when she prays. She said that tonight she was just asking God was his favorite color was. It turns out that God's favorite color is purple because that is the color of royalty and God is a great king. At that moment, in fact, God was wearing purple pajamas with angels on them.

god

2007-12-18T05:23:00.001-08:00

the light of Christ through the eyes of a 6 year old

2007-12-15T07:55:00.000-08:00

Thanks to my Rev Gal pals for introducing me to this poem:

After Annunciation

This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There'd have been no room for the child.
- Madeleine L'Engle

I began to grasp some of the mystery Christ's light on one of those pitch black, moon-less nights. I was in a deep sleep when I was awakened by a tug on my sleeve. I opened one eye and saw little Maria standing there. She was 6 years old at the time and asked if we could go sit in the hot tub. It was 3 am and a school night, but for some reason I resisted my initial reaction to her request and said ‘yes.’ It happened to be one of those nights when the dark sky was filled with shooting stars, one right after the other. She listened very attentively while I explained what a shooting star was. She was silent for a long time and then quietly said, ‘I hate to tell you this, but you’re wrong.’ She went on to tell me that when a star falls out of the sky at night, it really is the light of God coming from heaven and being born in someone’s heart!

John the Baptizer in 2007

2007-12-08T15:42:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in a while, due to a case of carpal tunnel - ouch - but this is the latter part of a sermon I'm preaching tomorrow - a great story from a new young pastor who took his youth group to Uganda -

Modern Day John the Baptist

Robert and Maria’s godparents are missionaries in Uganda. They heard about a group pf pygmies called the Batwa pygmies who had been ordered to leave their home in a particular forest, called the Deep Impenetrable Forest, so that the country could better service tourists who were coming to look at a certain type of gorilla.

The pygmies presence interfered with tourist trade. This had ben their home ever since they appeared on this planet and when they left, and scattered to various places, they were dying of things like the common cold. They had no resistance to diseases that others had built up immunities to. So Dr. Scott Kellerman and his wife Carol set off to build communities for pygmies to live in together, and began bringing in vaccinations, refrigeration for medicine, etc.

This is an email I got from Scott a few months ago -

Dear Rob and Debra, Greetings from the Bwindi.

We recently had a visit from Seth, (their son) who is now an Episcopal pastor in Dallas. He brought a youth team of 14 with him. They built two houses for the Batwa, participated at a mobile medical clinic, played with the kids at the schools and did dramatizations of the parable "the Good Samaritan".

Saturday we worked at a Batwa settlement atop a steep hill. All were exhausted after the climb and weather threatened to terminate the home building efforts early. Little progress was being made, the mobile clinic proceeded slowly and the clouds continued to gather. The kids volunteered that they needed to do some ministry before the rain chased us off the mountain. After several worship songs they performed the "Good Samaritan", they substituted a Mutwa (pygmy) for the Samaritan and then asked for questions. The Batwa became very animated and vocal and talked about the demons that they worshiped when they lived in the forest but over the last few years they had found out about a Ruhanga (God) who loved them.

Seth told them that Ruhanga loved them so much that He sent His Son to die for them. This produced another series of questions and then one Mutwa asked what was necessary to accept Jesus Christ. Seth told him that it was a free gift and he just needed to open his heart in prayer. The man immediately ran off and Seth was a bit chagrined… but… he shortly retuned with his son so that he also could have Jesus. A large portion of the village of Mpungu became Christians that day and after the last person was prayed for, rolling thunder began, and everyone praised God as all descended from the mountain top.

The following day I had arranged for Seth to preach in church. The local pastor was unavailable but I assured Seth that they could communicate prior to the service. The usual crowd of around 500 turned up but the pastor was strangely absent. The choir began lively worship songs and after a half hour the pastor appeared, gave a hand shake to Seth and sat down a distance away. Seth felt a bit nervous as the youth group introduced themselves in the local language and then several gave testimonies about their lives. They then performed a dramatization of the Good Samaritan which was very well received. Seth did have a brief discussion with the pastor during the singing prior to his sermon and mentioned that he might ask for folks to come forward, the pastor seemed confused but agreed. Seth gave an inspired sermon focusing on how we are all called to be like the Good Samaritan but in reality the Good Samaritan is Jesus bidding us to physical and spiritual health. Seth then asked if there was anyone in the congregation who wanted to give their life to Jesus or needed to be healed of spiritual or physical afflictions. There was a long pause after the request was translated but eventually a few folks stood up. Suddenly there was an explosive response as a crowd of 200+ surged to the altar. The pastor asked Seth what they were to do next. Seth said he wasn’t sure as he had never done this before but that these people needed to be prayed for. The pastor suggested that perhaps a group prayer would be expeditious but Seth thought that individual prayer would be more appropriate. “That would take a long time” responded the pastor but he agreed. There ensued over two hours of prayers with three teams praying with individuals for physical or spiritual healing while the congregation sang worship songs. The service continued for almost 5 hours eventuating with multiple offertories and a lively auction where the youth group bought a goat and many other items. The youth group agreed that it was the most inspirational service that they had ever attended and suggested that the US Episcopal churches should replicate it but considered that it would take the average pew sitter a while to get used to.

Wish that you were here!!

Love, Scott

the morning

2007-11-26T05:19:00.000-08:00

i wake up each morning and before i open my eyes i ask myself 'what day is it?' and then all the details of that day come crushing over me like a huge wave. when i come up for air i remind myself that i have the whole day to get things done and fight the urge to get up and get to work. my goal each day is to check off the things on my list and maybe find some time that isn't already scheduled. so monday is filled - write, meditate, exercise, kids up and ready for school, calls re new health insurance, new spiritual director, sermon for wedding, final plans for advent, Christmas and epiphany.

i need a new way to wake up.

on another note, we've been hosting an interfaith forum at the church. yesterday there was a buddhist priest there and i asked him what difference does ordination mean in his tradition. and it makes me stop and pause to ask myself the same. who am i as an ordained priest? what difference does that make? i could go back to priest call 101, but want to delve more deeply into the question rather than rattle off an answer i know too well.

peace.

war

2007-11-17T06:51:00.000-08:00

One week ago today a friend of mine was told that her son was killed in Afghanistan. He had signed on for his third tour of duty with the marines and shipped out in August. She begged him not to go this time, but he wanted to go one more time. She is the kind of person who ached to have grandchildren and wanted him to settle down and have children, not go back to the middle east. He was her only child.

To complicate things, she was divorced from her son's father and the father is making all the decisions about the funeral and their son's belongings. He is going to be cremated, but the father is going to take the urn supplied by the marine corp. She will get half of his remains in a cardboard box. She wants the flag that covered his coffin on the flight home from Afghanistan, but the father is going to get it. It seems to get worse with each new bit of news.

I just pray that God will be evident to her, tenderly walk before her and enfold her these next days to cushion the harsh reality that she is facing.

RevGals

2007-11-14T05:28:00.000-08:00

I have not blogged in a over a week - just the busy-ness of life. My 30 year old son juts moved back in with us. He was diagnosed with Lyme disease and is on disability. I have 9 year old twins at home as well. You know, things like swim meets, helping in the classroom, basketball, and all the rest keep me a bit too busy. I cherish my 5 am time to meditate and still my mind that seems to be full of bouncing ping pong balls.

We just had our diocesan convention last week end. It was a good convention - the first one that was led by our new bishop. I'll try to post a video I made of the women in ministry dinner. I'm still trying to figure out how to save videos to a computer and a cd. It's not very intuitive for me.

I've also just joined a blog community - revgals - and have been thinking about the questions asked for one of their Friday at Five sessions. Take a look at their blog. It's fantastic.

A perfect day

2007-10-29T09:01:00.001-07:00

I think I had an almost perfect day. It began with a birthday party for my amazing and absolutely gorgeous grandson, Gabriel. He was one year old and did great with all the activity and people.

After the party I went on a kayak trip with my 9 year old daughter, Maria. I have always wanted to kayak a portion of the American River at sunset. We put in the kayaks at 5:30 - I thought there was plenty of time to get to the take out point. But I misjudged the distance. What I thought was one mile, turned out to be 3 miles - and it was pitch black by the time we reached the take out point. She was a real trooper though and didn't know I was getting a bit panicky about the current.
Then I stopeed to visit my one week old granddaughter, Sage, to hold her for a few minutes.

sage's first cry

2007-10-19T20:33:00.000-07:00

The Year of Living Biblically

2007-10-18T12:04:00.000-07:00

We have begun a new Bible Study at Grace - 11 am on Tues mornings. It follows the 10 am Healing and Eucharist service in the small chapel. All are welcome. I recommend that you read some of the Bible every day. I guarantee that you will find yourself in the same story and struggles and triumphs on the pages as you read.

The following comes from a New York Daily News on Oct 11, 2007. A.J. Jacobs decided to spend a year living as biblically as he could. He followed the more than 700s rules found in its pages.

"Since researching and writing "The Year of Living Biblically," A.J. Jacobs has a richer appreciation for religion.

He also has bag of beard stashed under a sink.

Jacobs' memoir is subtitled "One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible." It retraces the 381 days that he tried to obey every Good Book rule - about 700 of them - exactly as written.

"My goal was to get to the original intent of the Bible, to go right to the source," notes Jacobs, 39, who is editor at large for Esquire magazine.

Jacobs, an agnostic, said the idea came from his fascination with the role religion plays in people's lives. And, he admits, it was a stunt that could sell a book.

He knows about such things. In 2004, he came out with "The Know-It-All," which chronicled months spent reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z.

The eyestrain from immersing himself in that project was a picnic compared with what Jacobs went through to live the ultimate biblical life.

He heeded the Ten Commandments, natch, and didn't lie, steal or covet. He tithed his income. He wore white and attached tassels to his shirt-sleeves. He didn't touch his wife, Julie, or any woman, at certain times of the month. He pelted an adulterer with a pebble. "It was a surprisingly intense encounter," says Jacobs.

He consulted regularly with priests, rabbis and ministers. He wore biblical attire, purchased at a Halloween store. He invited a Jehovah's Witness into his upper West Side home. "I realize this fact already puts me in an extreme minority," he muses. "It's like volunteering for jury duty or paying to see a Vin Diesel movie."

He also did field study. He tended sheep in Israel, visited with the Amish and chatted up evangelical Christians at the Creationism Museum in Kentucky ("the Louvre," he writes, "for those who believe God made Adam less than 6,000 years ago from dust").

He also danced - hard - with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn. "It was like an Orthodox rave, and an interesting insight into the joy that religion could provide. There's sin and the dourness of religion, but there's a whole other side."

Until Sept. 18, 2006, the day his crusade ended, Jacobs left the edges of his beard unshaven, because the Bible tells us to do so.

"The facial hair is simply the most noticeable physical manifestation of a spiritual journey I began a year ago," he notes. That's why he felt compelled to save his whiskers in a Ziploc.

In a true act of biblical devotion, Jacobs was fruitful and multiplied. His wife gave birth to sons Lucas and Zane on Day 359 of his biblical odyssey. "I take my projects very seriously," he says, with a laugh. "We were trying anyway, book or no book, but the timing was, pardon the pun, divine."

Jacobs' book has been bought as a movie and has brought some lessons. "The outside shapes the inside, like Method acting," he says. "If you behave like a good person, you eventually become a better person."

Not that he always got it right. "I failed on an hourly basis, and that was one of the lessons," he says. "You'll never be perfect."

Nonetheless, he has changed in ways big and small.

"I spent so much time giving thanks while doing the book, I'm more thankful now. I focus on the 100 little things that go right every day.

"I'm a workaholic," he adds. "But there's a mandatory day of rest, if you follow the Bible. I see the beauty of it."

But there's always another book. His next stunt?

"Julie says I owe her one," he says. "She thinks I should do 'A Year of Giving Foot Massages.'"

For now, she is happy with Jacobs' fur-free face."

Gabriel

2007-10-06T21:11:00.000-07:00

Count down until the baby comes

2007-10-06T15:13:00.000-07:00

My daughter, Becca, is expecitng her first child. This will be my second grandchild. I have a 10 month grandson named Gabriel. Bec is due on Oct 16th, and today she went kayaking with me.

Book Chats

2007-10-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

I am reading a couple of remarkable books right now and thought I might put some things on this blog as 'grist for the mill' to get a virtual book club going. I'm starting with a review of Christopher Hitchen's new book called God is not Great. There was an article in Vanity Fair about Christopher Hitchen's chance encounter with the Archbishop of Canterbury. When the the archbishop was asked about the current issues that our church is facing, he replied that he was just keeping his head low for a while.

I think it's important not to keep our heads low, but to be to articulate, with enthusiasm and passion, who we are and what we believe.

This was a good review of Hitchen's book and we may find ourselves in conversations with seekers who are reading this book- so I thought I'd share this review for your info.

Any comments?

peace always,

Devorah (aka Rev Deb aka Debra aka.... you don't want to know)

Review from Christian Century on Hitchen's new book: God is not Great

2007-10-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

Fighting atheist

by William C. Placher

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

by Christopher Hitchens

Twelve, 288 pp., $24.99

In olden times, Hitchens contends, there were excuses for being religious, but arguments from the order of the universe to the existence of God collapse in the light of modern science.

After you have written books attacking Henry Kissinger and Mother Teresa, what is left, really, but to write a book attacking God—or rather, since God does not exist, attacking all who believe in God? So Christopher Hitchens, the brilliant bad boy of Anglo-American high-culture journalism, must have concluded.

Though now an American, Hitchens still writes in the best tradition of British polemic—clever, vicious and very funny. No sense of political correctness, moreover, restrains him: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism—you name it; they are all stupid, and all dangerous.

In olden times, he argues, when ignorance abounded, there were excuses for being religious: "The scholastic obsessives of the Middle Ages were doing the best they could on the basis of hopelessly limited information." But now science has provided us with correct ways of understanding the world, and thus "religion spoke its last intelligible or noble or inspiring words a long time ago." Arguments from the order of the universe to the existence of God collapse in the light of modern science. Appeals to revelation are absurd once we know that there are many different purported revelations.

Judaism, Hitchens writes, rests on an ancient text whose barbaric laws and false history far outweigh its "occasional lapidary phrases." Also, "the 'new' testament exceeds the evil of the 'old' one." Jesus probably did not exist, and the center of his story is in any event appalling: "I am told of a human sacrifice that took place two thousand years ago, without my wishing it and in circumstances so ghastly that, had I been present and in possession of any influence, I would have been duty-bound to try and stop it. In consequence of this murder, my own manifold sins are forgiven me, and I may hope to enjoy everlasting life."

Islam, he continues, is a fraudulent mixture of bits of Judaism and Christianity. Hinduism has done India terrible harm. The British were about to grant the country independence anyway, but Gandhi turned what could have been a healthy secular movement toward a modern state into a disastrous attempt to return to the values and customs of the ancient Indian village. Buddhism fries the brain: "The search for nirvana, and the dissolution of the intellect, goes on. And whenever it is tried, it produces a Kool-Aid effect in the real world."

Hitchens insists that religions are not just silly but also dangerous. Jews, Christians and Muslims are always fighting on behalf of their faiths. Sri Lanka is torn apart by Hindu-Buddhist violence. Your own religious neighbors may seem friendly enough, but do not trust them: "Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, . . . competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong." And do not think those days are over: "As I write these words, and as you read them, people of faith are in their different ways planning your and my destruction." Religion poisons everything.

To be sure, religious folks do good as well as evil. Hitchens particularly admires Martin Luther King Jr. But at the core of what King taught, Hitchens maintains, were simple human values; King expressed them in Baptist sermons because that was the language shared by the people with whom he was communicating. On the other side of the ledger, Hitchens admits that nonreligious regimes, like Stalin's and Pol Pot's, can do terrible things. But they do so only to the extent that they become quasi-religions, with sacred texts, absolute authorities and measures for condemning heretics. "Totalitarian systems, whatever outward form they may take, are fundamentalist and, as we would now say, 'faith-based.'"

It would be hard to find the standard arguments against religion presented in livelier form than they are in God Is Not Great. The book reads quickly, and even for most religious people grunts of annoyance will be balanced by regular laughter. Hitchens has not forged such a successful career without knowing how to entertain. Nevertheless, this is a flawed and frustrating book.

First—how to say this politely?—it is full of mistakes. George Miller, we are told (actually it was William Miller), founded a new sect in upstate New York in the 1840s, but the group soon disappeared. More than 20 million Seventh-day Adventists will be surprised to hear it. Hitchens reports in an excited tone, "One of Professor Barton Ehrman's most astonishing findings is that the account of Jesus' resurrection in the Gospel of Mark was only added many years later." Well, it is Bart rather than Barton (names are not Hitchens's strong point), and scholars generally recognized long before Ehrman was born that the ending of Mark is a later addition.

T. S. Eliot was an Anglican rather than a Roman Catholic. The Talmud is not "the holy book in the longest continuous use." Solipsists are people who doubt the existence of a world outside themselves, not people who are ethically self-centered. The ontological argument is not even close to the silly syllogism described on page 265. Hitchens writes that it is "often said that Islam differs from other monotheisms in not having had a 'reformation,'" then he goes on to correct that claim. But sure enough, 11 pages earlier he himself had said, "Only in Islam has there been no reformation."

And so on and so on.

The errors are particularly disturbing because so much of Hitchens's argument rests on statements that the Catholic Church teaches such and such, the archbishop of Canterbury said this, Muslims believe that. Most of these claims are simply unsupported assertions; when no sources are cited, one cannot help wondering if someone so sloppy with his facts might make up some of his quotations as well.

The second frustration of reading this book, at least for a theologian, is that its author seems not to have read any modern theology, or even to know that it exists. He does cite C. S. Lewis a few times and mentions Bonhoeffer with respect (implying that Bonhoeffer had stopped believing in God by the end), but in general his sources for contemporary Christianity are Pat Robertson, Billy Graham and Tim LaHaye. Of Barth or Tillich or Rahner—or their equivalents in other religious traditions—he has not a clue. When Hitchens wants to discuss modern interpretations of the Bible, he turns to Mel Gibson (really!).

Suppose I watched Bill Nye the Science Guy on TV, read the first three Web sites that popped up when I Googled "quantum mechanics," talked to the junior high science teacher who lives down the street, and then wrote a book about how superficial contemporary physics has become. Readers might reasonably protest that I should have read or interviewed some of today's leading physicists before jumping to such a conclusion.

Similarly, when Hitchens dramatically announces that parts of the Bible are not literally true, one wants to say that Origen figured that out and decided what to do about it roughly 1,800 years ago. Many theologians are thinking in interesting ways about the relation of science and faith. Thoughtful historians try to sort out how much of the inspiration of "religious warfare" has actually come from religion, and how often religion has just been the excuse for people who wanted to fight anyway.

I do not mean that there are always clear answers to the issues Hitchens raises, much less that the religious side would always win the debate. My point is simply that among serious people writing about these matters, the argument has often advanced a good many steps beyond where Hitchens is fighting it—so however good his basic questions are, and however enjoyable his style, it is hard to take his contribution to the conversation seriously.

So here is a puzzle. When I went to buy this book, the first bookstore was sold out, and the second had a rack of God Is Not Great surpassed only by the stacks of Harry Potter. No doubt good writing deserves readership, and Hitchens can certainly write. In the age of talk radio and Fox News, the complaint that he often gets his facts wrong may be an old-fashioned objection. But something more, I think, is at stake. Similar books by Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are selling nearly as well.

Many Americans today are scared of religion. Radical Islamic terrorists threaten the safety of major cities. George W. Bush assures us that God has led him to his Iraq policy. The local schools, under pressure, avoid teaching evolution. The Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles is selling off property to pay victims of priestly sexual abuse. One trembles to think that many people get their picture of faith from the "Christian channels" on television. No wonder religion has, in many quarters, a bad reputation.

I think many of us—I do not mean just trained theologians, but ordinary folks in churches, mosques and synagogues as well—have found ways to be religious without being either stupid or homicidal. We are, as the cover of the Christian Century puts it, "thinking critically, living faithfully." Not enough of our nonreligious neighbors know enough about what we believe. We need to speak up.

Repeatedly Hitchens cites some horrible thing that some religious folks did or said and then notes that mainstream religious leaders did not criticize it. Although I do not always trust his claims, I suspect that in this case he is at least partly right. Too many of us have been too reluctant to denounce religious lunatics, and because of our reluctance we risk arousing the suspicion that we are partly on their side.

Hitchens ends his book with an appeal to his readers to "escape the gnarled hands which reach out to drag us back to the catacombs and the reeking altars, . . . to know the enemy, and to prepare to fight it." Shouldn't one of the lessons of this book have been that comfortable intellectuals should be more careful of using words like fight? Fundamentalists of one sort or another, after all, urge their followers to fight the evils of secularism and atheism. As the battle lines are drawn between the two extremes, it seems to me that folks like those who read the Christian Century need to put aside our obsessively good manners and shout, "Hey! Those aren't the only alternatives! We're here too!"


	William C. Placher is professor of philosophy and religion at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana

sukkot

2007-10-05T12:35:00.001-07:00

I admit it- Sukkot is my favorite holiday. It might seem a bit strange for a white, very Anglo Episcopal priest to love Sukkot but it's true. It is a festival that is marked by joy and is part of the final ingathering of the harvest before winter. There are several customs to observe during the 7 day festival. My favorite part of Sukkot is the sukkah - a temporary structure that we live in for seven days. People eat, study, play, and some people even sleep, in the sukkah. It is meant to remind us of our vulnerability and that our true shelter can only be found in God. The sukkah is a temporary structure to remind us of the type of shelter that the Israelites had as they wandered in the desert for 40 years. It reminds us of the impermanence of our lives.

The walls of the sukkah can be made with anything - canvas, comforters, hung from bamboo poles, - but the roof is supposed to be made of a natural product like tree branches. It is supposed to be cut though - an overhanging tree would not make a kosher roof. You are supposed to be able to see the heavens and stars through the roof. It is to be place that reflects beauty an can be decorated in any way way you can imagine.

There is a custom of inviting seven symbolic guests each day to join us in the sukkah- Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron and David. I also invite their respective wives to join us. Tonight Isaac and Rebecca will be our guests.

The roof of my sukkah is not kosher - it has a canvas top, but there's a hole in it so you can see the sky - if you squint a lot. Last night my 9 year old daughter and I slept in the sukkah. I didn't get much sleep, but as I laid there, outside in the old, listening sounds that only come out in the stillness of night and watched the glow of the full moon wind its way across the sky, I felt a connection to the women who walked through the desert so many, many years before. I imagined their lives, snuggling with their children to keep them warm at night, their feelings of impermanence and gratitude for whatever harvest they might gather.

I didn't quite make it all night though. At at 3:24 am Maria woke up and asked me in a quiet, pathetic sort of voice, "Mom, can we quit being Jewish now and go inside where it's warm?" And we did.