worship notes for christ the king sunday...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for Sunday, November 20, 2016. In the Christian

calendar this is Christ the King Sunday - the close of the year - in recognition that a new journey towards birth begins next week in Advent. In the United Church of Christ Open and Affirming world we also return thanks to God and solidarity with our friends and loved ones in the transgendered community.  We will be singing "This Is Your Land" in their honor and as our vow to live lives of radical hospitality.

Introduction
This has been a HELL of a week: from unimaginable grief and tumult in the lives of dear members in our faith community to the chaos of our political realm and the death of PBS news anchor Gwen Ifill – so many of our loved ones are hurting – myself included. And at the very same time, there has been blessing and tenderness and signs of God’s grace within and among us that fills my soul with joy and renewal. It is almost as if we have been living into the rhythm of this morning’s gospel for Christ the King Sunday:

On one side of the Cross is a crucified criminal shouting insults and threats at Jesus; on the other is a wounded sinner whispering, “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.” I hear both of these broken people all around – and even within – me these days. Abuse, dread, sacrilege and anger are out in the open whether you support or disdain the new regime. Just this week, one of our most active public citizens, the owner and promoter of the Whitney Center for the Arts on Wendell Avenue, was getting out of his car in North Adams when a construction worker asked our brown skinned friend menacingly: have you started to pack up and get out of my country yet? Racial threats also appeared painted on Mt. Tom and in a class-room at Williams College.

At the very same time – and this bears emphasizing – at the VERY same time, cherished friends in this place have baked over 900 pies for this week’s community Thanksgiving feeding ministry. In 24 hours, 21,000 American Jews joined a movement of solidarity to stand with American Muslims should Islamic registration become the law of the land. And our social media invitation on Face Book has been read by over 4,000 people – 200+ of whom took the time to note they LOVED our commitment to radical hospitality – and over 60 people have shared this message with friends and neighbors: As a tender and strong Open and Affirming church, we are committed to standing with the LGBTQ community - and women, refugees, Jews, Muslims and people of color - in this time of fear and uncertainty. If you need a safe haven in this post-election era, or at ANY time, please call or visit us. On Sunday some of you helped me start caring for Bonnie Brace who was taken to Albany Medical Center for emergency surgery. On Monday others gave up time, love and prayers to keep working on an operating budget for our congregation that is simultaneously challenging and sacred. And on Tuesday, my musical friends and family gathered with me for a few hours to pull together and practice songs for the Lord’s community today upon hearing of Carlton, our music director’s, recent injury and broken foot.

And all of this is probably the best experiential explanation of Christ the King Sunday imaginable: the rage of a frightened and confused crowd, the scorn of wounded people demanding quick fixes for their sin alongside the whispered repentance of a condemned and crucified criminal with no illusions about his own abilities but hungry for God’s grace: “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.”

Insights
Now I want you to notice something important here – something greater than our confusion over calling Christ a King – because while most of us have no experience with royalty, we do know what these two competing voices sound like inside ourselves and our society. Our friends in the ecumenical monastery of Taize, France put it like this: Within us all there are often different feelings, experiences and voices that struggle for expression “among them the cries of these two criminals.” Following the first voice leads to an attitude of accusation, to withdrawal into ourselves and to distancing ourselves from God and others. Listening to the second voice and giving it precedence can help us to open our eyes and better accept what we are, recognizing God’s presence where we did not expect to find it and asking God to support us. One is the way of blame, the other the road to liberation. So let me ask you two questions:

+  First: what helps you discern the traps that can be hidden in the voices, feelings and experiences swirling around inside of you? How do you interrupt them and where do you find the courage not to remain fixed on them?

+  Second: have you ever experienced a feeling of being set free by the cross? Have you ever used the criminal’s prayer to help you find inner peace?

So many of us don’t use our best spiritual resources to help us get grounded and saturated in God’s love – and I have to wonder why? Why are we so often ignorant of or reluctant to look upon the Cross, pray the prayers printed for us in the Bible, or simply cast our hearts upon the Lord? It is such a mystery. True confession: I regularly hear about your angst and fears, often I attentively listen to your worries, wounds and heartbreak – and I treat this as a sacred privilege - but I have to wonder aloud right now: why are we so stubborn about using the most simple and basic prayer resources available to Christian people? Do you have any thoughts, insights or wisdom? It makes me think of the aphorism from AA: if you always do what you’ve always done…

Here’s what I think? After 35+ years of being a pastor, my working hypothesis as to why middle class people don’t look to the Cross and surrender themselves to the Lord in our times of anxiety and trouble is a combination of ignorance and arrogance. 

+  Some of us have never been taught how to pray or go inward. Over the past 50 years, our tradition has done a dreadful job of teaching children and adults the basics of prayer, meditation and contemplation – and I mean a truly wretched job. That’s changing, of course, but the well-honed spiritual practices of both the Roman Catholic and Protestant worlds have too often been ignored or forgotten leaving many of us without the tools needed for the journey. Small wonder we’ve been assigned these words from the prophet Jeremiah: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven my people driven away, you have not attended to them… So I myself will gather a remnant of my flock out of all the lands… and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd so that they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any go missing. We have failed to equip you with the tools of prayer so there is ignorance.

+  Second there is also arrogance because some are just too full of themselves – or self-satisfied with their wealth and status in life – to even consider that they can’t figure things out for themselves. It is the intellectual and spiritual curse of the middle class and we’re ALL victim to one degree or another. And before you get your shorts in a knot understand that I include myself in this curse, too. I grew up in Sudbury, MA and Darien, CT for God’s sake – I know from whence I speak – we are take charge, go to it, and pragmatic people who get paid to get results. No wonder we’re terrified at letting go so that God and be God in our lives. It is so counter-cultural. We suffer from ignorance and arrogance.

And living faithfully is the exact opposite: it is trusting and humble. In his most recent collection of essays, my old mentor, Professor Walter Brueggemann, writes: both Jews and Christians have, over time, devised signals and symbols of oddity to help them stand against being assimilated by Empire, culture and the curse of the middle class. For Jews the Sabbath, keeping kosher and circumcision mark them as peculiar people at odds with the status quo of fitting in and going along to get along. “In parallel fashion, for like reasons, the baptismal imagination of the New Testament is to be equally peculiar and particular” by:

Living as odd men and odd women who come together in odd communities and

congregations, always at odds, always at risk, always in the presence of large cultural empires that want to dissolve our oddity for reasons of state, always telling our girls and boys that we are different because we have been with Jesus. We are forever, like our Jewish cousins, reimagining and retelling and reliving our lives through the scandal of Friday and the rumor of Sunday… In our era, the dominant symbol of reality is the swoosh of NIKE – life is for winners – of a private, individualized kind who can make it in the market or in the sports arena… but the subversive and counter-cultural symbol of Christian faith is the Cross, the bread of brokenness, the cup of abundance and the water of cleansing and baptism.

At the foot of the Cross – and upon it – as well as in every Sunday gathering, we find the word: remember – mimnēiskomai in Greek – meaning to both recall with our minds and hearts bit also respond with our bodies in the appropriate manner. When the criminal asked Jesus to remember him, he wasn’t speaking sentimentality, he was pleading for Christ’s loving embrace. To remember as a Christian is to live so that we make God’s grace a flesh and blood part of every day. Six times the gospel of Luke uses the word remember and each time it involves responding to real people in need in the manner of the Lord.

+  In the canticles of Mary and then Zechariah, one of which you heard earlier, we are told that the Lord remembered the holy covenant made with Abraham and Sarah and proclaimed by the prophets and so rescued the vulnerable from the hands of their enemies and brought them to safety (Luke 1: 54 and 1:72)

+  In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16, Father Abraham tells the rich man who has gone to hell to remember how he lived and treated the poor when he was alive; this stands “in contrast to the life of the beggar Lazarus” who suffered but was remembered by God and brought into paradise.

+  After the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday, two men in dazzling clothes tell the women who have come to anoint the dead body to remember what Jesus had promised – and when they do they run back to reassure the men and bring them the joy of Christ’s blessings (Luke 24: 6)

+  In Luke 17, Jesus tells his disciples who are starting to waver in faith, to remember Lot’s wife, who both doubted God and was turned into a pillar of salt as a consequence of her actions, and not to do likewise.

And at the Last Supper, unlike Matthew or Mark, Luke has Jesus telling his disciples to re-member him as they break the bread and as they live in a broken world. (Luke 22) To remember is to put the way of the Messiah into our living – and now more than ever before this is a counter-cultural oddity for North Americans.

Conclusion
The late Elie Wiesel, Jewish sage and teacher, once told a story from Eastern Europe about the counter cultural nature of the Messiah. There was a young follower of the great Rabbi Maggid of Mezertich, who married the daughter of a fierce spiritual opponent: 

And as a condition of marriage, the young Hasid was forced to choose between his new family and his Rebbe. Of course, the son-in-law swore allegiance to his new kin. But after a few months – or maybe a few years – the young spiritual pilgrim could not resist the impulse to join his com-panions who danced and prayed in ecstasy to the Lord. So, when he returned home, his angry father-in-law marched him to the local rabbi and demanded a judgment. The rabbi consulted the wisdom of his tradition and issued this verdict: since the young man had broken his promise, he was to give his wife a divorce at once. Overnight the young man found himself on the street. He had no means of his own, no relations. Inconsolable and refusing all nourishment, the young Hasid fell sick – and with no one to care for him died shortly after. The odd and counter-cultural tradition of the rabbis conclude the story like this: When the Messiah comes, the young Hasid will file a complaint of premature death against both his father-in-law and the local rabbi. The first will say: I obeyed the rabbi. And the rabbi will say: I obeyed the interpretation of our faith according to tradition. To which the Messiah will say: The father-in-law is right, the rabbi is right, and Torah is right, too. Then he will embrace the young plaintiff with a kiss and say: But I, what do I have to do with them? The Messiah has come for those who are not right.

Christ the King Sunday points us to the Cross to learn what living like the Messiah looks like: it is hard to see, but suffering in solidarity with those we love and God loves, risking becoming a loser so that love wins is at the core of our faith. St. Paul writes that the Cross looks foolish to those who are trapped by Empire or addicted to middle class niceties. The Cross looks like the way of failure to those who are too full of themselves. But the Cross is how God sets us free to love and keep loving when everything else urges us to quit. Today marks the close – even the death – of the Christian calendar. Next week we start again with Advent on the road to Christ’s birth.. But today, if we are faithful, we don’t look for the cradle of the Lord; we look at his Cross and make it our own. This is what it means to remember, so let those with ears to hear – hear.

so leon russell has gone home...

So Leon Russell has gone home. For years I loved that cat before I even knew his name from his studio work with the Wrecking Crew. Think Phil Spector's "wall of sound," Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, The Beach Boys and Ventures as well as The Monkees, The Mommas and the Poppas, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, Joe Cocker, George Harrison, Glen Campbell and the Rolling Stones. He was a monster!

I became conscious of his contributions to the music I loved when Joe Cocker released his self-titled first album, Joe Cocker, in 1969.  Playing piano, organ and guitar, Russell gave the English "Grease Band" some down home funk. And his role expanded after Woodstock when visa troubles brought Cocker's US tour to a grinding halt: the Grease Band had to go back to England but Cocker was booked at essential American gigs. So, another musical legend was born as Russell assembled the best and the baddest players in the USA in less than a week's time, and they hit the stage as "Mad Dogs and Englishmen." A riotous collection of top flight musicians rallied to make Cocker's music explode on stage. Under Brother Leon's tutelage - and groove stick as maestro- they took on soul, funk, gospel, a few soul jazz standards and the best of that era's rock and roll.. They covered Traffic and the Stones, the Beatles and the Band, Leonard Cohen and Ray Charles. 

This tour - plus Harrison's "Concert for Bangladesh" and later The Band's "Last Waltz" - became the inspiration for the big Thanksgiving Eve gigs we've done over the years. The original impetus, of course, was Bob Franke's tune of the same name and Pete and Arlo's shows over Thanksgiving weekend in NYC.


Two things about Leon's sound grabbed me where I live:  his white/soul/gospel funk, and, his willingness to collaborate with anyone committed to the groove. He played with Willie Nelson and Elton John as well as Eric Clapton and Amy Winehouse. His commitment was to groove and beauty and he let his light shine everywhere he went.  He NEVER gave up his freak flag. He kept being his big, bad, wildass self for over 50 years - and we are the better for it. The sound he created on Mad Dogs' version of "Feelin' Alright" is sublime. (There are no visual clips of this masterpiece, but do yourselves a favor and turn it up LOUD in gratitude for one of the giants. He beats the crap out of the key board on this and makes even the lame dance!)

didn't anyone ever tell you... this is your land, too?

My loved ones have been weeping since Tuesday's election. Members of my congregation

have been slapped with grief and fear, too. For many in America, it feels like a death has taken place. One person said to me after worship, "It's like after Kennedy was shot." There has been a death:  all illusion of America's underside has been ripped away from our eyes and now loving, gentle, kind and good-hearted white folk can see what has always been true for so many people of color, our LGBTQ friends, women, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, all of every gender who have been sexually abused or exploited, those with physical limitations or intellectual challenges and sadly too many more.

Back in 1935, Langston Hughes wrote, "Let American Be America" for Esquire Magazine. Today unless we are thoroughly blinded by white privilege, the ironic beauty of this poem speaks to our collect grief - and the potential for renewal. Not quickly or in a superficial manner that masks our various wounds. But out of local alliances of the broken, cadres of sober and loving women, men and children ready and capable to live out loud for love and solidarity, a living and humbled Rainbow Coalition for the 21st century.

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be. 

Let it be the pioneer on the plain 

Seeking a home where he himself is free. 

 (America never was America to me.) 

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed— 

Let it be that great strong land of love 

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme 

That any man be crushed by one above. 

 (It never was America to me.) 

O, let my land be a land where 

Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, 

But opportunity is real, and life is free, 

Equality is in the air we breathe. 

 (There’s never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”) 

 Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? 

 And who are you that draws your veil across the stars? 

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, 

I am the black man bearing slavery’s scars. 

I am the red man driven from the land, 

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek— 

And finding only the same old stupid plan 

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. 

 I am the young man, full of strength and hope, 

Tangled in that ancient endless chain 

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! 

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! 

Of work the men! Of take the pay! 

Of owning everything for one’s own greed! 

 I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. 

I am the worker sold to the machine. I

 am the black man, servant to you all. 

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean— 

Hungry yet today despite the dream. 

Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers! 

I am the man who never got ahead, 

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream 

In the Old World while still a serf of kings, 

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, 

That even yet its mighty daring sings 

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned 

That’s made America the land it has become. 

O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas 

In search of what I meant to be my home— 

For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore, 

And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea, 

And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came 

To build a “homeland of the free.”

My people - family and church - have also rallied around one another in all our varied tears in ways so holy as to take your breath away. Life within and among us will become increasingly ugly - and dangerous - and so will the obvious need for our tender but strong love born of Christ Jesus. Dianne keeps reminding me of an old "praise" tune by Nashville's Point of Grace that cries out for a new day:  "This Is Your Land." We once used it back in Tucson for an LGBTQ festival - and I think it is going to resurrected among us in Pittsfield, too.

credit:  ArtParkS Sculpture Park

reflections on veterans day 2016...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for this coming Sunday, November 13, 2016.  My

first draft was completed before the stunning upset in the US race for President.  So after prayerful quiet and deep reflection, I reworked the conclusion to include the call to solidarity and discipline as yet another gift we might learn from our veterans in these divisive times. In the case of those who follow Jesus, of course, our focus must be upon Christ's sacrificial love.

Introduction
Today we gather in the house of the Lord to return thanks to God for the gift of life and the responsibility to use that gift compassionately. Yes, America is mostly honoring our noble veterans this weekend – as well we should – and earlier this week there were the appropriate parades and patriotic speeches. But today, Sunday, is the Lord’s Day, a festival to Christ’s resurrection from the dead and the love of God. So that makes this a unique observance – a sacred event not a secular celebration - and we would do well to honor the distinction.

Too often religious holy days are conflated with patriotic holidays creating blurred allegiances and even confused loyalties. In preparation for today’s message, I read through about 20 Veterans’ Day sermons on line and almost all of them suggested that love of God was akin to love of country. Now there are parallels, to be sure, there are similarities, without a doubt, and people can honestly love both God and country with integrity and valor. But we step into dangerous and potentially destructive territory whenever we insist that love of God is the same as love of nation. Back in the grim days leading up to World War II, the public theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr observed that: “Our tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan values (creates) the source of all religious (and political) fanaticism."

That’s one of the truths I’ve learned from the veterans I’ve loved in the four congregations I’ve served all over this great country. Their faith in the God made flesh in Jesus Christ gave them the strength to do the hard and some-times impossible deeds asked of them on behalf of America. Their commitment to a love greater than self gave them perspective, their experience with grace gave them patience, and the ethical demands of their faith gave them the moral compass necessary to search for the good and holy even as they walked through the valley of the shadow of death for their country. So this morning, as we give glory to God, I want to consider with you why it is also important for contemporary people of Christian faith to return thanks to the Lord for our veterans.

It is NOT, from my vantage point, about sloppy, uncritical patriotism or a spirituality that confuses the will of God with national self-interest. Rather I think it has to do with the paradox that lives at the core of this celebration, a complex truth that our veterans comprehend with existential clarity: they know in their flesh – and honor with their lives – the intricate contradiction that is a part of our quest for freedom, justice and peace.

Once again, Niebuhr got it right when he wrote: Goodness armed with power is always corrupted while pure love without power is destroyed. Do you grasp the nuanced truth in Niebuhr’s insight? Did you hear the brutal honesty of our dilemma? Goodness armed with power is always corrupted while pure love without power is destroyed. Such is at the genius of Christian realism – faithful engagement with the hard issues of the world – informed by humility, love and God’s grace.

Insights
Few people know this truth better than our veterans: we ask them to do things in pursuit of our safety and security that would curdle our blood if we knew the details. And they do it, thanks be to God! We also ask them to keep these hard and often horrible things to themselves – and they do that, too – often at great cost to themselves and their loved ones. Their silence, in addition to their heroic duty, is one of the invisible sacrifices they make on our behalf. And this is the first reason I believe we must honor Veterans Day: America could not survive without this unspoken vow of action saturated in silence. These women and men know that “goodness armed with power is always corrupted while pure love without power is always destroyed.”

When I was a kid growing up in Connecticut – and later Sudbury, MA – I didn’t know anything about the military – and I had no idea the burden our vets carry in silence. I played soldiers with my buddies, watched “Combat” and “The Gallant Men” on TV and knew that most of my uncles had been to Korea while my Poppa Phil had served in France during WWII. But my dad had a student deferment because I was born in 1952, most civilians in our neighborhood wanted to move past the sacrifices of war and nobody who ever saw active duty ever talked about their experiences with non-vets, right?

And that’s still mostly true even today: vets keep a lot bottled up inside and only go public with their feelings and experiences when they feel safe and respected. More often than not this only happens in the company of other vets where judgment is banished. Civilians tend towards either/or thinking with black and white solutions while those who have been on the battlefield know there is no such thing. In combat, you do what you have to do in order to survive – you care for the sister or brother in arms beside you with all your heart and soul – and then you move on and do it all over again for as long as is necessary. One former Marine put it to me like this: few civilians really know what Jesus meant when he said, “Greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

He was right. We don’t know what that means, and that’s the second reason I believe Christians are called to pay their respect to veterans on this national holiday. They conscientiously sacrifice themselves in ways we can never comprehend. And they do so with grace and courage under fire without complaint. Of course, there are always some loose cannons who act like belligerent bullies, but that is true for civilians, too: nobody has a monopoly upon virtue this side of the Cross. And yet, after having been given the privilege of sharing just a bit of the inside world of some veterans lives, I’m convinced we civilians could learn a lot about what it means to love one another sacrificially from these men and women.

Back in the 80s in working class Cleveland, OH was the first time I was welcomed into the hearts of a few vets from WWII. Norman Novotony with a metal plate in half his head after seeing combat in the Pacific. Ernie Huth with body tremors and staggering bouts of depression after combat against the Nazis in Europe. And Al Heimburger, a young airplane mechanic who was sent to India a few weeks after graduating from high school, to repair Allied aircraft challenging Japan’s attacks in that region.

Heimburger was the chair of the search committee that brought my young family to Cleveland. He taught confirmation class with me on and off for 12 years, too. One Sunday afternoon at our annual church picnic we sati nside the club house sipping beer and telling one another stories of our youth. After about an hour he asked if we might take a walk around the small lake – and we did. Away from family and the rest of the congregation he said: “Last summer I was in Hawaii with my wife for our anniversary. And when we got to the Pearl Harbor Memorial it was surrounded by Japanese tourists with all their cameras. They were laughing and snapping pictures and I found myself filled with a rage I didn’t know existed. Eileen and I had to get the hell away from there as fast as we could because even after 40 years, I still hated those bastards.” We were on the far side of the lake and when I looked up at him, he was weeping. Then he said, “I love the Lord, James. I study the Bible. I trust Jesus and confess my sins to him but I still can’t forgive those people for what they did to those I love… is that wrong? Will God ever forgive me for this hatred?”

People of God, most of us haven’t a clue about the hell so many of our veterans have endured on our behalf to preserve our way of life. NOT A CLUE!  So what could I say? I was a conscientious objector during Vietnam, for God’s sake, and Al’s junior by 40 years. And he wanted to know from me if God would ever love him again because he still hated the Japanese after Pearl Harbor? It was in the flash of that moment that I realized I was being given a gift by God and by Al Heimburger if I was quick enough to claim it. So through my own ignorant tears I said something like:

Man, I have no idea what you’re feeling right now, except that it hurts, and that the agony is real. I believe with my whole heart that this pain is one of the reasons why God sent Jesus to us – so that we might know that God isn’t off in heaven but right here with us feeling what we feel – that’s what the Cross says to me. It also says that God wants us to give our pain to him – put it on the Cross – so that God can do for us what we can never do for ourselves. Jesus takes our sin and suffering and makes it his own so that we don’t have to carry it any more. You just confessed your sins to me – put them on the Cross with Christ – so whether you feel it or not I need to tell you now as your pastor that in the love of Jesus Christ, God forgives you, Al Heimburger, forgives you now and forever.

What followed was a long, awkward moment of looking into one another’s eyes before he put his hand on the back of my neck and said, “God, I hope that’s true…” then we walked back to the picnic and never spoke of this again. We honor our vets as Christians because of their sacrifices for our freedom, for their courageous and silent suffering and because more than so many others, they know the worst war brings to the world. That’s the third reason I lift them up to the Lord this day: they are often the wisest and most clear-headed peace-makers we will ever know and Jesus called the peace-makers the true children of God. As a rule, vets are pragmatists when it comes to peace, not naïve or simplistically idealistic, just slow to judge and decisive when necessary.

My brother in faith, Mike Dremmell, taught me how important it can be in keeping the peace to have people of faith serving on active duty. During his first deployment to Iraq, Mike was a communications expert. That is, he was a spy who intercepted and decoded secret, enemy broadcasts. He shared this intelligence with his commanders and helped interpret what action might be taken next. He began by learning Russian and listening in to the former Soviet Union in Korea, Italy and then Okinawa. I knew his family in Tucson when he was at Davis-Monthan Air Force base and I had the privilege to be their pastor. When he was in-country we used to email one another weekly sharing stories and prayers and he once told me how his prayers defused a potentially horrible mistake.

It seems someone thought they had discovered the possibility of a sneak attack against US troops and alerted the commanding officer who was somewhat young and untested in battle. Mike was brought in and sensed that the information might not be authentic – maybe it was a foil to lure young soldiers into an ambush – so he urged patience. The communications airmen below him were certain they were right, the officers above him wanted to act quickly and halt any possible enemy advance. But Dremmell, who had 20 years experience, urged caution and kept bringing up other possibilities to stall. All the while, he told me, he was praying, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they protect me.”

And he kept on praying – and arguing – and urging a more careful read of the so-called intelligence with his superiors for about an hour until they got confirmation that the earlier intel was wrong and no combat action was required. I may have gotten some these specifics wrong, but you get my point: a time-tested warrior who trusted the Lord and knew how to pray made a huge difference. I think it was the Daniel Ellsberg who used to say that one of the unintended sad consequences of an all-volunteer army meant that too many of our civic and political leaders never learned the true costs of going to war or the value of patiently struggling for peace. More than most, our veterans know truths about peace-making we would be wise to honor. Like my ancient Celtic elders used to say: Teach the warrior to dance before sharing the sword.

Conclusion
Today’s scriptures capture exactly this ironic challenge that Niebuhr and so many of our veteran’s confirm: the joy-filled vision of God’s shalom from the prophet Isaiah alongside the sober testimony of wars and rumors of wars in the words of Jesus. Isaiah, writing during the construction of the second Temple in ancient Israel in roughly 500 BCE, articulated God’s desire for human life: longevity and peace, prosperity and hope for the young as well as the old, joy and sharing instead of fear and scarcity. Jesus, standing on that same ground 500 years later as recorded in St. Luke’s gospel, tells his followers that human beings rarely live into the fullness of the Lord’s sacred vision: there have been wars and insurrections, there will continue to be conflicts into the future as well as natural disasters like earthquakes, plagues and even famine. Don’t listen to false prophets or doomsday charlatans in these hard times Jesus advised: Keep your heart fixed on God who is present even in tragedy and pain and refuse to give in to worry.

Our task is to love – and advance the cause of compassion in a broken world – trusting God in all things. And after Tuesday’s election the words of Jesus take on new gravitas for you and me. Fear and trembling has now become the new normal for many of us for different reasons. Tom Friedman writing in the NY Times on Wednesday said: the stark fact that a majority of Americans wanted radical, disruptive change so badly and simply did not care who the change agent was, what sort of role model he could be for our children, whether he really had any ability to execute on his plan — or even really had a plan to execute on — is profoundly disturbing and frightening. To which Jesus challenges us to stand together – especially as an Open and Affirming congregation. The fear and grief of this era compels us to fortify our faith, refuse any and all sloppy religious thinking that minimizes our present danger (because it is real), and then go public every chance we get with actions, words, prayers and symbols that embody God’s explicitly inclusive kingdom of love in this era of hate.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used to remind us that in times such as these we must accept finite disappointments, but never lose infinite hope. And that may be the fourth albeit unanticipated reason I’m asking you as a Christian to honor our veterans today: they show us what focused and disciplined hope can bring to a culture in chaos. Our vets train, they practice, they study and they build a corps of comrades that they know can be trusted. That is something I sense the church as we envision it needs to relearn. American Christians are being called now to stand together and stand up for God’s love – and we can’t be too busy at this hour to deliver. Radical love requires discipline. It takes team work and presence, trust in the Lord and solidarity with sisters and brothers and allies. And right now too many treat faith as an elective – an add-on to an already over-burdened schedule – a nostalgic little extra born of white, middle class privilege.

But I submit to you that this hour is not about casual compassion, random acts of kindness or extracurricular Christian living. Now is the time to reclaim the mantle of dedication after the manner of Christ’s disciples – women, men and children living consciously as the company of the committed – rather than periodic, passive participants in public worship. And I say this because things are going to crack open and break apart all around us in the days to come. What has come to pass is a clash between two very different visions for our land. On one side are those who celebrate a: “diverse America; one where religion or skin color or sexual orientation or place of birth aren’t liabilities or deficiencies or moral defects. It was the banquet table of inclusion and connection and interdependency. It was about building bridges and breaking ceilings. It was about going high.” On the other side are sisters and brothers who embrace, “a very selective vision of America; one that was largely white and straight and fundamentalist with a message born of fear and exclusion and isolation.” 

So what I need you to hear right now - like veterans preparing for duty - is that no matter what

your politics may be, there are now millions of American citizens who emerged from the 2016 presidential campaign wounded and are now feeling very vulnerable. One of my heroes, the Quaker educator Parker Palmer, wrote: I'm thinking of Hispanic and Muslim children who suffer from bullying at school, and are fearful—along with their parents—about whether they'll ever feel safe in the country they rightly call home. I'm thinking of African American children who—along with their parents—are frightened by the fact that racists have been given license to spew hatred in private and in public. I'm thinking of women who've been subjected to speech that's left them re-traumatized by past sexual assaults and fearful that it will happen again. 

Overnight our calling became boldly public because the testimony of Jesus and the essence of his message is love – welcome – a safe embrace for those who are broken – and a tender-hearted, disciplined strength that is ready, willing and able to go the distance of the Cross for those in need. Do you remember how John 3:16 put it? For God so loved the… world… that He gave us his only begotten son so that all might be made whole by love. What about Matthew 11: 28? Come unto me ALL ye who are tired and heavy laden – not some – but ALL. And don’t forget I Corinthians 13: 

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. A If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. For love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrong-doing, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things. We are a people of love – for all people – and right now, to use the words of Jesus, it feels as “if the end is near.” So he reminds us: Don’t fall for any of that… You may think at times that the very sky is falling… they may arrest you, hunt you down, and drag you to court and jail. Make up your mind right now not to worry about it.

Did you hear that: make up your mind right now NOT to worry about it! You can be sad, you can be afraid, you can be angry or confused or grieving, but do NOT worry about advancing the cause of love. It is God’s way and Jesus promises us the strength and the vision to make love flesh in public IF we commit to his discipline and live by his example. This is the way of the Lord: a disciplined vow to active, sacrificial love by the company of Christ’s committed. We have some work to do, sisters and brothers, God’s work – and it starts right NOW!

and now leonard has gone home...

This has been a harsh week for sensitive souls, poets and visionaries of love in the West: the US Presidential election was awarded to a boorish braggart who boasts of caring for the little guy while ripping him off at every chance, the fear and heart-break that continues to rage throughout America's most vulnerable communities, pastoral anguish shared with broken families has taken its toll - and now the passing of Leonard Cohen.  I couldn't help but think of the lyrics to an old country tune, "The Ballad of Hank Williams" that includes the line:  "...he was makin' money hand over fist and you were getting screwed but you wasn't getting kissed!"

In retrospect, however, it feels right that Leonard should let go this week and enter a deeper rest.  He's already given the world so much beauty, truth and wisdom. Like many white folksinger boys in the 60s, I learned of LC through Judy Collins when she recorded "Suzanne" on her In My Life album.. I loved - and continue to love -  Ms. Collins' voice, but I often tire of what still strikes me as over production.  "Suzanne" was a delightful exception that grabbed both head and heart.

There are hints of melancholia and loss in Ms. Collins' interpretation - and that made me curious about the author. Mr. Cohen's treatment of his own composition was darker with more nuance and tension. In fact, the song felt like a prayer to me as he mixed stories of Jesus and lovers wandering through gardens and garbage, tea and oranges by the river. What's more, his rendering of "Suzanne" sometimes hurts to hear - not because of the musicality - but because on the sorrow.  Some later called Cohen the master or "erotic despair" but that, too is over produced. Leonard Cohen knew how to convey the truth of a broken heart in a complex world with beauty.

As I moved towards college, I started to add other Leonard Cohen songs to my working repertoire:  "Sisters of Mercy," "Bird on a Wire" and "Song of Isaac" came first; then "The Partisan" and "Joan of Arc." I fell in love again with Judy Collin's treatment of "Joan of Arc" as she limited the excess, stripped the song bare and saturated the sound with sorrow and solace.

Now the flames they followed Joan of arc
As she came riding through the dark;

No moon to keep her armour bright,

No man to get her through this very smoky night.

She said, I'm tired of the war,

I want the kind of work I had before,

A wedding dress or something white

To wear upon my swollen appetite.

When I arrived at Lakeland College in 1970, and was introduced to the wonder of world literature by my English professor (and later friend) Martha, one book we devoured was Cohen's Beautiful Losers. It, too, was a mystical treatment of love, spirituality, politics and angst.  It isn't an easy read in 2016, but back in the day it was magical and just right for a young man learning to honor both intellect and passion. 

For a season or two, I lost touch with the evolving artist only to be shaken out of my sloth by his 1992 masterpiece: The Future. This was music filled with irony and tenderness albeit mixed with a full-hearted indictment of a world addicted to power, freed and violence. "I've seen the future man... its murder!" This whole album became a new favorite with "Hallelujah" and "Democracy" being stand outs for me.  

I'm sentimental if you know what I mean

I love the country but I can't stand the scene...

And, for my money, Leonard Cohen kept again better and better as time rolled on. Each new song collection was more poignant and sparse than the last. He stayed grounded after returning from five years of training in Zen meditation only to discover his trusted manager and friend has stolen most of the wealth Cohen had created through song-writing royalties. He returned to the road - recouped much of his lost wealth - and took the matter to court where justice finally prevailed. In 2015 he put out Popular Problems with the prophetic "Almost Like the Blues" my stand out favorite.

I saw some people starving

There was murder, there was rape

Their villages were burning

They were trying to escape

I couldn't meet their glances

I was staring at my shoes

It was acid, it was tragic

It was almost like the blues

It was almost like the blues

I have to die a little

Between each murderous thought

And when I'm finished thinking

I have to die a lot

There's torture and there's killing

And there's all my bad reviews

The war, the children missing

Lord, it's almost like the blues

It's almost like a blues

And now, November 2016, less than a month after releasing a thoroughly creative masterpiece, You Want It Darker, Leonard Cohen entered death at his home with his family close by.  On the website dedicated to his music, there was this simple posting:

It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away. We have lost one of music’s most revered and prolific visionaries.

A memorial will take place in Los Angeles at a later date. The family requests privacy during their time of grief.

C’est avec une profonde tristesse que nous vous annonçons que le poète, auteur-compositeur et artiste légendaire, Leonard Cohen est décédé. Le monde de la musique a perdu un de ses visionnaires les plus prolifiques et vénérés.

Une cérémonie aura lieu à Los Angeles dans les prochains jours. La famille souhaite vivre le deuil en toute intimité.

If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game

If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame

If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame

You want it darker

We kill the flame

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name

Vilified, crucified, in the human frame

A million candles burning for the help that never came

You want it darker

Hineni, hineni

I'm ready, my lord

And so it shall be and so it is, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.. I learned somethings about being a man from Leonard Cohen:  how the integration of head and heart is essential, how being passionate - even in my mistakes - is more holy than living uptight and bound by fear, how others can often take my ideas/music/interests and make them even more beautiful, how sharing and generosity are the core of all life, and how loving my spiritual tradition does not disqualify me from being wildly encouraging of all - and no - other traditions. Today I grieve and give thanks at the same time.

solidarity and support for refugees...

NOTE: The following letter is one I have crafted in support of Dianne's commitment to supporting Syrian (and other) refugees. Please prayerfully take a look and see where the Spirit leads you. 

November 10, 2017

Dear friends and allies ~

This fall Dianne was we received word Dianne was accepted into the internationally accredited Cambridge English Language Teach to Adults (CELTA )program. Doing this work has long been one of her deepest goals. And now that I am moving closer to retirement – and a change in ministry – she has claimed the call and is moving to make this a reality. For the past 20+ years, Dianne has been my support in ministry; now I want to do everything I can to honor and support her calling to service and creativity.

There is a staggering need for people with skills to assist refugees fleeing Syria and North Africa in their quest for safety and resettlement. This tragedy will continue to claim innocent lives and haunt our collective future for decades to come. Dianne is now ready to use her gifts and abilities to bring a measure of hope and dignity to our sisters and brothers in need. We have long affirmed the words of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 25: “Whatsoever you do unto one of the least of these, my sisters and brothers, you do unto me.” She puts it like this:

My heart shatters over the massive number of people who have to flee their homes to

escape wars and economic despair. How can I help them? The best, and maybe only, thing I have to contribute is my skill with the English language, as a literature scholar, a writer, an editor, and native speaker. Where can I help the most? The US has sadly been very slow to allow refugees to resettle here. Canada, however, has welcomed some 34,000 refugees since November 2015. So to do the most good in the nearest future, I need to be certified as a teacher of English as a Second Language, with a certificate that is respected both here and in Canada.

The on-line portion of the CELTA training begins in January 2017 with a two-week intensive class in Montreal in May. To date she has raised $730 in donations from a Go Fund Me campaign @ https:// www.gofundme.com/diannedemott. She has also submitted a grant application for financial support to Together Rising @ https:// togetherrising.org/. In support of her calling I have pledged to help raise funds by reaching out to select friends and colleagues. Here is our challenge:

+ Total cost for this training is $3500 (tuition and lodging during the intensive) with $2500 necessary at the end of December. Would you be willing to make a small contribution before January?

+ If yes, please go to the secure donation linke on Dianne’s Go Fund Me account (see above). Any questions or concerns can be sent to Dianne directly at her email: dkdemott@gmail.com. Or if you wish to check in with me, please do so at my email: desertjames@gmail.com.

Our hope is that after her training - and within the next 12-18 months - we will both spend a year of service in Canada upon my full retirement: Dianne helping refugees learn a new language (and acquire social skills in a foreign land) and myself at Jean Vanier’s L’Arche ministry to adults with intellectual disabilities. I will be moving into part-time ministry – and part-time retirement – in Pittsfield as of February 2017, so this is an exciting and faith-filled time for us both. Clearly this work has taken on a new level of urgency for us after the recent US elections. I am grateful for however you might be able to help Di in realizing her new calling in these fear-filled and challenges times.

Grace and peace, 

James

my heart is sick today...

My heart is sick today and my soul is tired, too:  like many Americans of my ilk - over-educated, middle class people of a progressive faith who share a commitment to social justice and bold acts of compassion - I genuinely believed that Hillary Rodham Clinton was going to eek out a victory and become our next President. Her policies continued the trajectory of Barack Obama, her temperament was open to advancing hope for our most vulnerable citizens, and becoming the first woman president of the United States was no small matter, too. That blessing, however, was not to be. Yes, Secretary Clinton narrowly won the majority of the popular vote - 59,834,486 votes to Mr. Trump's 59,618,316 - but a variety of factors conspired to award "the Donald" 279 electoral votes to Mrs. Clinton's 228.  

As is so often the case in these United States in the 21st century, the numbers carry the day. We are a nation addicted to the bottom line and clearly Mr. Trump was the numerical winner. Further, to paraphrase the medieval mystic of Germany, Meister Eckhart, "Reality is the will of God. It can always be better, but we must start with what is real." There is no point trying to change the outcome of this election in my heart with spin control. NY Times columnist, David Brooks, made this case last night on the PBS election TV program stating: "When our person wins, we are certain the people made the right choice and when our candidate loses, we insist the people were deluded and wrong." I suspect the American public theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, would concur given his 1934 Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."  Despite his whining and carping about a rigged system, Mr. Trump is now the legitimate President-Elect and nothing I can say will change that fact.

There are, however, a variety of equal truths beyond his numerical victory that warrant a word of consideration.  First, and for me at this moment most importantly, is the clash of visions for America that exist between those who celebrate Mr. Trump's victory and those who grieve it. In his blog post, "Here's Why We Grieve," John Pavlovitz put it better than most: 

We’re not angry that our candidate lost. We’re angry because our candidate’s losing means this country will be less safe, less kind, and less available to a huge segment of its population, and that’s just the truth. Those who have always felt vulnerable are now left more so. Those whose voices have been silenced will be further quieted. Those who always felt marginalized will be pushed further to the periphery. Those who feared they were seen as inferior now have confirmation in actual percentages.

Those things have essentially been campaign promises of Donald Trump, and so many of our fellow citizens have said this is what they want too.

This has never been about politics.
This is not about one candidate over the other.
It’s not about one’s ideas over another’s.
It is not blue vs. red.
It’s not her emails vs. his bad language.
It’s not her dishonesty vs. his indecency.

It’s about overt racism and hostility toward minorities.
It’s about religion being weaponized.
It’s about crassness and vulgarity and disregard for women.
It’s about a barricaded, militarized, bully nation.
It’s about an unapologetic, open-faced ugliness.

And it is not only that these things have been ratified by our nation that grieve us; all this hatred, fear, racism, bigotry, and intolerance—it’s knowing that these things have been amen-ed by our neighbors, our families, our friends, those we work with and worship alongside. That is the most horrific thing of all. We now know how close this is. It feels like living in enemy territory being here now, and there’s no way around that. We wake up today in a home we no longer recognize. (http://johnpavlovitz.com/2016/11/09/heres-why-we-grieve-today/)

Our grief, fear and anger is just as real, valid and agonizing as that of America's white, working class who experienced a loss of jobs, privilege and opportunity over the past decade. And the rage and terror running through America's most socially vulnerable communities is no less important than the comparable emotions and experiences of those in Coal Country, USA or rural Maryland, Michigan or Wisconsin.  As Mrs. Clinton said in her elegant concession speech this morning: "We woke up to find that America is even more divided than we knew..."

Two other truths need to be mentioned.  First, so much for the sisterhood!  Fifty-three per cent of white women voted for Mr. Trump.  L.V. Anderson cut to the chase at Salon.Com when she wrote:

According to CNN, 53 percent of white female voters voted for Donald Trump. Fifty-three percent. More than half of white women voted for the man who bragged about committing sexual assault on tape, who said he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, who has promised to undo legislation that has afforded health insurance to millions of uninsured Americans, whose parental leave plan is a joke, who has spent his campaign dehumanizing nonwhite people, who has spent 30-plus years in the public eye reducing women to their sexual attributes. More than half of white women looked at the first viable female candidate for the presidency, a wildly competent and overqualified career public servant, and said, “Trump that bitch.”

Of course, the biggest and saddest reason white women chose Trump over Clinton is simple: racism. Trump tried to pit straight white men against everyone else—women, people of color, people in the LGBTQ community, immigrants—and white women decided they didn’t want to vote on the side of “everyone else.” They wanted to vote on the side of white men. White women decided that defending their position of power as white people was more important than defending their reproductive rights, their sexual autonomy, their access to health care, family leave, and child care. White women bought into Trump’s lies about immigrant rapists and decided they’d rather have the respect of their angry white fathers, brothers, and husbands than the respect of literally everyone else in the world. The shocking results of the election prove that most white women don’t consider themselves part of the coalition of nonwhite, nonstraight, nonmale voters who were supposed to carry Clinton to a comfortable victory.

(http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/11/09/white_women_sold_out_the_sisterhood_and_the_world_by_voting_for_trump.html)

This is the truth Black Lives Matters has been proclaiming over and again for the past two years:  white privilege dies hard. Especially among those of us who refuse to acknowledge its poison and excuse it  by saying: "Some of us just aren't politically correct."  And lest you think I overstate the case: consider  that in Wisconsin alone 300,000 voters were turned away from the polls because the US Supreme Court dismantled protections put in place with the Voting Rights law. The result was Mr. Trump won by a mere 20,000 votes. (https://www.thenation.com

/article/the-gops-attack-on-voting-rights-was-the-most-under-covered-story-of-2016/)

Second, while our republic eventually survived the Civil War, we have NEVER had the likes of an unqualified demagogue like Mr. Trump in the office of the presidency with simultaneous control of both the Senate and the House. I believe that age offers a measure of perspective, and old timers like me know that the sun still comes up everyday, but even Tom Friedmann of the NY Times knows that we've never seen anything like this before - and it is terrifying.

I began election night writing a column that started with words from an immigrant, my friend Lesley Goldwasser, who came to America from Zimbabwe in the 1980s. Surveying our political scene a few years ago, Lesley remarked to me: “You Americans kick around your country like it’s a football. But it’s not a football. It’s a Fabergé egg. You can break it.” With Donald Trump now elected president, I have more fear than I’ve ever had in my 63 years that we could do just that — break our country, that we could become so irreparably divided that our national government will not function...As much as I knew that it was a possibility, the stark fact that a majority of Americans wanted radical, disruptive change so badly and simply did not care who the change agent was, what sort of role model he could be for our children, whether he really had any ability to execute on his plan — or even really had a plan to execute on — is profoundly disturbing. The Republican Party and Donald Trump will have control of all the levers of government, from the courts to the Congress to the White House. That is an awesome responsibility, and it is all going to be on them. Do they understand that?

Personally, I will not wish them ill. Too much is at stake for my country and my children. Unlike the Republican Party for the last eight years, I am not going to try to make my president fail. If he fails, we all fail. So yes, I will hope that a better man emerges than we saw in this campaign. But at the moment I am in anguish, frightened for my country and for our unity. And for the first time, I feel homeless in America.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/opinion/were-near-the-breaking-point.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0)

One of my favorite new/old hymns, "Won't You Let Me Be Your Servant" contains the verse: 

I will weep when you are weeping, when you laugh I'll laugh with you

I will share your joys and sorrows till we've seen this journey through.

My vow this night - born of grief, love, resistance and solidarity - is that I will stand in every way possible - in public and in private, in prayer and in print - with ALL my LGBTQ sisters and brothers as we face the fear and madness of this new regime together. I will be an ally for my Muslim, refugee and women friends as well as all who struggle for justice and equality in our communities of color. As one wise salt reminded me today, it is ironic but telling that November 9th 1938 was Kristallnacht in Germany. Joy, hope and love will be severely tested in my beloved USA over the next four years - and probably longer, too.  So let us NEVER forget as we stand united in a non-violent army for love.

what say you...

It comes as no surprise to people who know me - or check in on this blog from time to time

- that I am a Clinton supporter for US President. I found Bernie too acerbic and arrogant for this moment in time - right on some issues and bull-headed on others - and Trump is a belligerent
demagogue who has tapped into White fears and status loss without a vision for caring for the whole nation. This isn't to say that I believe Secretary Clinton to be without fault. Far from it. But not for the ones she has been tarnished with by the media and Right wing hate-mongers for over 30 years. Rather my deepest concern has to do with the breadth of her advisers. She is the smartest person on the block with a long track record of compassion. 

So what I want to see is depth and breadth in her advisers - people beyond the influence of Terry Mcauliffe and Lawrence Sanders - and much more like Robert Reich. This will be a reach for her. As Mayor Michael R. White said to us on the night his slate of school board candidates won a big election in Cleveland:  "Don't make any new friends." That is, trust those who have been loyal and supportive. It was wise and insightful advice for maintaining focus and getting results. But these are not normal times - and the stakes on the national level need new wisdom and creativity - so I pray she goes beyond the tried and true.

She also needs to make good on her promise to reach out to people in coal country and do her damnedest to revitalize rural Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota. These are places that the new economy - and the American culture of diversity - have left behind. I will be prayerful as the day unfolds - and rapt by the unfolding TV story after choir practice concludes - for so much hangs in the balance.  What say you...?

for all the saints...

Today I threw away my prepared worship notes and began my message by saying:  "Many pastors all over our nation will be speaking about Tuesday's election - but not me. (The congregation cheered.) Not because I don't care or think these things don't matter - they do - but because we have been asked to practice and embrace a living that is counter-cultural. And nothing is more counter-cultural that pausing in the heat of things... to remember and honor those souls who have given us love in their day before going before us into eternal life. Today I want to speak with you about how we receive reminders of God's love and how we pass it on."

 I had opened worship with this paraphrase from John Donne: The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too and grafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when [the church] buries a person, that action concerns me. All [of humanity] is of one author, and is one volume; when one [person] dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but [the Lord’s] hand is in every translation, and [God’s] hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all… No [one] is an island entire of itself; every[one] is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any[one’s] death diminishes me, because I am involved in [hu]mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. (from John Donne’s Meditation)

So we talked about our connections to one another. I mentioned the early martyrs of our faith - and how All Souls Day came into being, I shared why the psychedelic imagery of Daniel's apocalypse connects us to God's steadfast love that endures forever. And celebrated that this love is greater than tyrants and bullies, morons and despots of this or any generation. That is why, I concluded, the closing words of today's gospel from St. Luke teach us to live beyond our fears and angers - to overcome the bestial in our lives and our world - by love:

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

We remembered the two saints who have gone home to the Lord from within the church after which people came forward to record the names of those who have brought love into their lives. They lit candles and placed their honored names on a plaque that will remain up for the whole month - and when we were done it looked like this.

Today I am remembering my Mom and Dad (Betty and Jim), my two sisters (Linda and Beth) as well as loved ones from my different churches (Don and Mike in Cleveland, Dolores and Roger in Tucson, Grace and Cora in Pittsfield) as well as St. Lou Reed.  I will hold them all close to my heart when I play tonight's jazz gig and hoist a pint in their honor.