To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every cubic foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every spear of grass--the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all
that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.
To me the sea is a continual miracle;
The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the ships, with
men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Miracles (by W. W.)
...
Saturday, January 19, 2008
ARE YOU HUNGRY?
Yea, I knew you were in the mood for Chicken and Waffles too! And where better to get them than Oakland California, at "The Home of Chicken and Waffles"??
So my friend John agreed to show me one of the Oakland hotspots, in exchange for lunch. We jumped into his GTI and headed down to Jack London Square.
No, not to build a fire, but to eat chicken! Here's John showing you the history of the eatery...
It seems it started way back in 2004.. as part of the Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles chain. But then they went independent and 'upscale'! I think there's now a Roscoe's in New Brunswick, NJ, but I didn't make it there, saving myself for Oakland.
To order, you can just look at the wall: I got a Lord BJ's...
And John got something light... with Mac&Cheese instead of the grits...
It's a great place, if you like trains...
Even if you like passenger trains...
Another wonder of Jack London Square is the Star Wars creatures...
It seems George Lucas lived in Oakland for a while, and his imagination ran wild.
And speaking of imagination... we spotted this futuristic item on the way back to John's VW...
I guess they are now for sale! I better put my order in... if I fit in it. There's a SmartUSA dealer in SF.
John dropped me off back in Berkeley, and then went to shop for diet books. Time to do some serious digesting!
-Charlie
Yea, I knew you were in the mood for Chicken and Waffles too! And where better to get them than Oakland California, at "The Home of Chicken and Waffles"??
So my friend John agreed to show me one of the Oakland hotspots, in exchange for lunch. We jumped into his GTI and headed down to Jack London Square.
No, not to build a fire, but to eat chicken! Here's John showing you the history of the eatery...
It seems it started way back in 2004.. as part of the Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles chain. But then they went independent and 'upscale'! I think there's now a Roscoe's in New Brunswick, NJ, but I didn't make it there, saving myself for Oakland.
To order, you can just look at the wall: I got a Lord BJ's...
And John got something light... with Mac&Cheese instead of the grits...
It's a great place, if you like trains...
Even if you like passenger trains...
Another wonder of Jack London Square is the Star Wars creatures...
It seems George Lucas lived in Oakland for a while, and his imagination ran wild.
And speaking of imagination... we spotted this futuristic item on the way back to John's VW...
I guess they are now for sale! I better put my order in... if I fit in it. There's a SmartUSA dealer in SF.
John dropped me off back in Berkeley, and then went to shop for diet books. Time to do some serious digesting!
-Charlie
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Sermon- Washington Crossing UU Church.
This sermon was composed especially for my home congregation. The three lines that are repeated is the congregations "Chalice Lighting", a sort of centering ritual at the start of the service.
---
Opening words by Margaret Gooding, "Why not a star?"
Reading: Matthew 2:1-12
Children's story: "Fish is Fish"-- Leo Lionni, up to Fish's dream.
Sermon "Preacher Teaching- A Seminary Journey"
Let us open our eyes to see what is beautiful;
Let us open our minds to learn what is true;
Let us open our hearts to love one another.
I'm very glad to be back here and to be back in New Jersey. I love how warm and welcoming the community has been to me.
But today's sermon is about seminaries... specifically about Unitarian Universalist Seminaries, and even more specifically about my experiences at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley California.
I want to talk a bit about what's unique in UU ministry, so I started with something Christian. Most Protestant and Catholic churches are using this Sunday to teach about Epiphany... the reading that Bonnie just gave us is being recited in one form or another at thousands of churches across the USA. For those ministers, the struggle is to find something fresh to say about the Gospel.
Unitarian Universalists, on the other hand, have Margaret Gooding's words "Some bright star shines somewhere in the heavens each time a child is born." which takes the story somewhere else...
And I could have, if I wanted to, ignored the Christian calendar, and looked, perhaps, for other days to celebrate. But, except for the Muslim new year on January 10th, there isn't much happening this week.
So I thought we'd think about today, the day the three Magi arrived to visit the baby Jesus and Mary. I thought it might be interesting to do an exercise I'd learned at seminary.
And the reading from Matthew is perfect for this activity! It's called Biblical Exegesis, and it means 'close reading' of a Biblical pericope.
At Starr King we have several Muslim professors... they use an interesting learning technique. When they are teaching a new word or concept, they have the class to repeat the word whenever they say it...
So here are the two new words
Exegesis -- meaning a close reading, and
PERICOPE -- meaning a snippet... a story, aphorism, parable, event or other unit of narrative in the bible.
Pericopes can be long. One very long one is in John: Jesus talking with a Samaritan Woman for a dozen bible verses. Or they can be very short, Mark 10:46 has on that is only four words "They came to Jericho"-- that's it-- very mysterious!
In seminary I took two courses in the bible, and they taught me to exegete pericopes like the one about the Magi...
The story, it seems, is about a group of 'wise men'. The Greek word is Magoi, and while scholars are not certain about this, it seems most likely to mean men of the Magi caste in Zoroastrian Persia. This priestly caste studied the stars, and would have been able to travel.
Note two things-- first, they are not Kings, they are priests or astrologers. Second, the bible doesn't say how many there are! There might have been three, or four, or maybe even just two. So the song "We Three Kings" is technically a distortion of the BIBLE...
If you were a fundamentalist, you'd be angry that we sang that Hymn! [We 3 Kings]
For close reading we start by defining the narrative:
FIRST, the astrology charts say that "a new king of the Jews is born"
SECOND, the astrologers go to the logical place to find a new king-- the PALACE!
They were thinking logically-- go see the current king and congratulate him on having a new son! But here we have a literary twist!
One lens we can use to view the Bible is to look at their literary structure, and this is the big setup-- the king has no new son!
So, in the next part of the story, you and the king, and all Jerusalem are on a quest to find the meaning of the astrological chart.
You might suddenly be aware that the story's narrator knows many things-- he is privy to happenings in Herod's palace.
He even knows Herod's thoughts and motivations!
You might wonder who recorded those thoughts for Matthew?
You might wonder what part is history and what part is storytelling.
When Herod discovers that this new king is the Anointed one-- the Christ or the Messiah, the story takes a new direction-- The Magi are sent out of town to I D the child, and bring the info back to EVIL KING HEROD.
But then comes the TWIST: two magical things happen-- first, the star guides them to Jesus, and second, they are warned against Herod in a dream.
What role does magic play in the narrative?
Seminary also teaches us to look at what is missing in a story-- who has power, who has privilege.
One thing missing in this pericope is Joseph. I'm not sure why, and scholars don't know why either-- he gets no mention at all. Was this story, perhaps, part of a group of myths that existed before Joseph was 'invented' to make Jesus legitimate? We really don't know.
I could go on and on about this exegesis stuff, but that's not the point of the sermon.
Let us open our eyes to see what is beautiful;
Let us open our minds to learn what is true;
Let us open our hearts to love one another.
This is supposed to be a Unitarian Universalist sermon, so I suppose it should have some Unitarian Universalist history in it-- and I wouldn't want to disappoint. Let me tell you a true story!
Consider Thomas Starr King. It's the 1840s, in Boston Massachusetts. The Reverend Starr King-- that's what he called himself-- is a small fish in a big pond. He was raised Universalist, son of a Universalist minister, and, after his father dies, he takes over his father's ministry.
But then he's called to be the minister at an important Boston Unitarian Church-- even though he's Universalist and doesn't have a Harvard degree. He becomes famous speaking forcefully on the two big issues of the day... Slavery and Temperance.
But Starr King is rather sickly. And to earn enough money in expensive Boston he's had to lecture almost every night in addition to preaching three times on Sundays.
He's wearing himself out, and so he takes a job at the First Unitarian Society of San Francisco-- a place where he doesn't have to lecture to make ends meet... and where it's warmer in the winter, and not so hot in the summer.
Starr King moves to California to relax and recover...
UNFORTUNATELY, by now it's 1860, and the Civil War is about to break out.
Starr King sees that the Californian state Government is pro-Confederacy, and is likely that California is going to declare independence from the Union once the war starts.
So he ignores his health needs, and 'expends all his strength' on the lecture circuit to keep California a part of the United States.
Once the war has begun, and that issue is resolved, he founds a chapter of what would become the Red Cross, raising a million dollars for the US Sanitary Commission.
But all of this, it was said, "Condemned [him] to the slow suicide of overwork" and he was dead before the war was over.
So Thomas Starr King didn't found a seminary in Berkeley California. That was done forty years later by another guy, Earl Morris Wilbur, and for the first few years he was the only professor.
And that school, Starr King School for the Ministry, is still a small school, with only about 60 students.
It is part of a consortium of religious schools-- from Catholic to Buddhist-- called the Graduate Theological Union, and the schools try to offer complimentary courses. For example, I took my Bible classes at the Pacific School of Religion, and my classmates in Introduction to Preaching included Jesuits and Pagans in addition to UUs. I'm taking a course at the Buddhist school this spring.
Each school offers its own degrees. It takes four years at Starr King to get a Masters of Divinity degree-- that's what I'm working for... but there is only one required course.
It's a jumbo sized one called "Educating to Counter Oppressions and Create Just and Sustainable Communities"-- and if you like, you can imagine that it is a sort of survey course covering all four of our Candles of Fellowship. Coming from Washington Crossing, I was pretty much in tune with this course.
Beyond that, we are on our own. I've had courses in Preaching, in Sex-- well, in Comprehensive Sexuality Education-- in Listening and in Death.
I've red Gandhi and Martin Luther King Junior... Les Feinberg and Dorothy Day. I've worked on worship services and gone on a pilgrimage to the Japanese American concentration camp in the California Desert.
But I have come to realize that most of these courses are just eye-openers. They make me a better student because I know the material, and can remember the facts and events.
But they don't make students into ministers.
Let us open our eyes to see what is beautiful;
Let us open our minds to learn what is true;
The next part of the seminary experience is harder to nail down. It is the process of learning what is true.
This is done through what is called "PRAXIS" The practical application of learning.
For example, I wanted to understand teenagers.
So I took a course on Comprehensive Sexuality Education for teens.
But, at the end of that, I still knew nothing about teenagers-- other than perhaps some statistics about pregnancy rates in students who were given Abstinence Based Sex Ed...
So this year I'm teaching Our Whole Lives-- the UUA's Sexuality Education program-- to teens in the Bay Area.
I'm putting my course work knowledge into action... and trust me, through PRAXIS I'm discovering LOTS of THINGS about teens.
For many students, PRAXIS comes during chaplaincy training. This is either a summer, or a year long "Unit" where students go away and are chaplains in Hospitals, Prisons, Hospice Programs or Mental Institutions. Some have arranged to work in Homeless Shelters.
My course in Death, Dying and Bereavement taught me lots of facts and techniques, for dealing with people in need... but it will be during my chaplaincy training-- called CPE-- that I will have to develop an understanding of what is TRUE to me.
Let us open our hearts to love one another.
There is one more step in becoming a minister. And, after all the education on oppression and violence and death and exploitation... students have a good idea how bad the world is.
This step, taken in either the third or fourth year of Starr King's program, is working as an intern minister at a Unitarian Universalist Congregation.
It's here that students change speed, and begin to understand LOVE. Many of my schoolmates have gone off on internship either this year or last year. What I hear is that the congregations show them what it means to be a minister.
The Praxis of working as a ministerial intern changes them. Students don't forget the horror stories that we hear in school, but they realize the sheer quantity of good, of possibility, in the Unitarian Universalist movement-- in the everyday members of our congregations.
That's because the congregants are the professors, are the advisors, and the coaches for these new ministers.
At the same time, the congregation receives from the intern another point of view and new ideas from the broader association of congregations.
I'm talking all romantically about this, but it's something I haven't done yet. The school doesn't assign students... it's a job they have to apply for themselves. The students have to determine when they are ready-- and then get hired.
So either next year--- or the year after, I will be going away for a year, joining another community and learning to LOVE the job.
In Unitarian Universalism, the rules of ordination acknowledge the simple fact that communities, not schools develop leaders.
When the time comes, the only body that can ordain a minister is a congregation.
So Now, a good minister will tie in the reading and end the sermon... But I think the story of the Magi is overdone, so INSTEAD
I'm going to tell you how "Fish Is Fish" ends. We sang the children out at the point where fish was imagining what the world above the water was really like. Of course perception and reality were very different.
On the next page he determines to jump out of the water and see for himself.
As he lies on the shore gasping for oxygen, Frog finds him, and pushes him back into the water. LIONNI continues:
"Still stunned, the fish floated about for an instant. Then he breathed deeply, letting the clean cool water run through his gills. Now he felt weightless again and with an ever-so-slight motion of the tail he could move to and fro, up and down, as before.
"The sunrays reached down within the weeds and gently shifted patches of luminous color. This world was surely the most beautiful of all worlds. He smiled at his friend the frog, who sat watching him from a lily leaf. "You were right," he said. "Fish is fish."
It's a sad version of "happily ever after", isn't it?
Fish fails... if that's the way you want to measure things.
Fish learns... if knowing one's limits is a form of learning.
Fish has a friend in frog... who is now from another world, with stories of fantastic things.
Let us open our eyes to see what is beautiful;
Let us open our minds to learn what is true;
Let us open our hearts to love one another.
amen.
CLOSING HYMN #402 From You I Receive, To You I Give.
---
Opening words by Margaret Gooding, "Why not a star?"
Reading: Matthew 2:1-12
Children's story: "Fish is Fish"-- Leo Lionni, up to Fish's dream.
Sermon "Preacher Teaching- A Seminary Journey"
Let us open our eyes to see what is beautiful;
Let us open our minds to learn what is true;
Let us open our hearts to love one another.
I'm very glad to be back here and to be back in New Jersey. I love how warm and welcoming the community has been to me.
But today's sermon is about seminaries... specifically about Unitarian Universalist Seminaries, and even more specifically about my experiences at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley California.
I want to talk a bit about what's unique in UU ministry, so I started with something Christian. Most Protestant and Catholic churches are using this Sunday to teach about Epiphany... the reading that Bonnie just gave us is being recited in one form or another at thousands of churches across the USA. For those ministers, the struggle is to find something fresh to say about the Gospel.
Unitarian Universalists, on the other hand, have Margaret Gooding's words "Some bright star shines somewhere in the heavens each time a child is born." which takes the story somewhere else...
And I could have, if I wanted to, ignored the Christian calendar, and looked, perhaps, for other days to celebrate. But, except for the Muslim new year on January 10th, there isn't much happening this week.
So I thought we'd think about today, the day the three Magi arrived to visit the baby Jesus and Mary. I thought it might be interesting to do an exercise I'd learned at seminary.
And the reading from Matthew is perfect for this activity! It's called Biblical Exegesis, and it means 'close reading' of a Biblical pericope.
At Starr King we have several Muslim professors... they use an interesting learning technique. When they are teaching a new word or concept, they have the class to repeat the word whenever they say it...
So here are the two new words
Exegesis -- meaning a close reading, and
PERICOPE -- meaning a snippet... a story, aphorism, parable, event or other unit of narrative in the bible.
Pericopes can be long. One very long one is in John: Jesus talking with a Samaritan Woman for a dozen bible verses. Or they can be very short, Mark 10:46 has on that is only four words "They came to Jericho"-- that's it-- very mysterious!
In seminary I took two courses in the bible, and they taught me to exegete pericopes like the one about the Magi...
The story, it seems, is about a group of 'wise men'. The Greek word is Magoi, and while scholars are not certain about this, it seems most likely to mean men of the Magi caste in Zoroastrian Persia. This priestly caste studied the stars, and would have been able to travel.
Note two things-- first, they are not Kings, they are priests or astrologers. Second, the bible doesn't say how many there are! There might have been three, or four, or maybe even just two. So the song "We Three Kings" is technically a distortion of the BIBLE...
If you were a fundamentalist, you'd be angry that we sang that Hymn! [We 3 Kings]
For close reading we start by defining the narrative:
FIRST, the astrology charts say that "a new king of the Jews is born"
SECOND, the astrologers go to the logical place to find a new king-- the PALACE!
They were thinking logically-- go see the current king and congratulate him on having a new son! But here we have a literary twist!
One lens we can use to view the Bible is to look at their literary structure, and this is the big setup-- the king has no new son!
So, in the next part of the story, you and the king, and all Jerusalem are on a quest to find the meaning of the astrological chart.
You might suddenly be aware that the story's narrator knows many things-- he is privy to happenings in Herod's palace.
He even knows Herod's thoughts and motivations!
You might wonder who recorded those thoughts for Matthew?
You might wonder what part is history and what part is storytelling.
When Herod discovers that this new king is the Anointed one-- the Christ or the Messiah, the story takes a new direction-- The Magi are sent out of town to I D the child, and bring the info back to EVIL KING HEROD.
But then comes the TWIST: two magical things happen-- first, the star guides them to Jesus, and second, they are warned against Herod in a dream.
What role does magic play in the narrative?
Seminary also teaches us to look at what is missing in a story-- who has power, who has privilege.
One thing missing in this pericope is Joseph. I'm not sure why, and scholars don't know why either-- he gets no mention at all. Was this story, perhaps, part of a group of myths that existed before Joseph was 'invented' to make Jesus legitimate? We really don't know.
I could go on and on about this exegesis stuff, but that's not the point of the sermon.
Let us open our eyes to see what is beautiful;
Let us open our minds to learn what is true;
Let us open our hearts to love one another.
This is supposed to be a Unitarian Universalist sermon, so I suppose it should have some Unitarian Universalist history in it-- and I wouldn't want to disappoint. Let me tell you a true story!
Consider Thomas Starr King. It's the 1840s, in Boston Massachusetts. The Reverend Starr King-- that's what he called himself-- is a small fish in a big pond. He was raised Universalist, son of a Universalist minister, and, after his father dies, he takes over his father's ministry.
But then he's called to be the minister at an important Boston Unitarian Church-- even though he's Universalist and doesn't have a Harvard degree. He becomes famous speaking forcefully on the two big issues of the day... Slavery and Temperance.
But Starr King is rather sickly. And to earn enough money in expensive Boston he's had to lecture almost every night in addition to preaching three times on Sundays.
He's wearing himself out, and so he takes a job at the First Unitarian Society of San Francisco-- a place where he doesn't have to lecture to make ends meet... and where it's warmer in the winter, and not so hot in the summer.
Starr King moves to California to relax and recover...
UNFORTUNATELY, by now it's 1860, and the Civil War is about to break out.
Starr King sees that the Californian state Government is pro-Confederacy, and is likely that California is going to declare independence from the Union once the war starts.
So he ignores his health needs, and 'expends all his strength' on the lecture circuit to keep California a part of the United States.
Once the war has begun, and that issue is resolved, he founds a chapter of what would become the Red Cross, raising a million dollars for the US Sanitary Commission.
But all of this, it was said, "Condemned [him] to the slow suicide of overwork" and he was dead before the war was over.
So Thomas Starr King didn't found a seminary in Berkeley California. That was done forty years later by another guy, Earl Morris Wilbur, and for the first few years he was the only professor.
And that school, Starr King School for the Ministry, is still a small school, with only about 60 students.
It is part of a consortium of religious schools-- from Catholic to Buddhist-- called the Graduate Theological Union, and the schools try to offer complimentary courses. For example, I took my Bible classes at the Pacific School of Religion, and my classmates in Introduction to Preaching included Jesuits and Pagans in addition to UUs. I'm taking a course at the Buddhist school this spring.
Each school offers its own degrees. It takes four years at Starr King to get a Masters of Divinity degree-- that's what I'm working for... but there is only one required course.
It's a jumbo sized one called "Educating to Counter Oppressions and Create Just and Sustainable Communities"-- and if you like, you can imagine that it is a sort of survey course covering all four of our Candles of Fellowship. Coming from Washington Crossing, I was pretty much in tune with this course.
Beyond that, we are on our own. I've had courses in Preaching, in Sex-- well, in Comprehensive Sexuality Education-- in Listening and in Death.
I've red Gandhi and Martin Luther King Junior... Les Feinberg and Dorothy Day. I've worked on worship services and gone on a pilgrimage to the Japanese American concentration camp in the California Desert.
But I have come to realize that most of these courses are just eye-openers. They make me a better student because I know the material, and can remember the facts and events.
But they don't make students into ministers.
Let us open our eyes to see what is beautiful;
Let us open our minds to learn what is true;
The next part of the seminary experience is harder to nail down. It is the process of learning what is true.
This is done through what is called "PRAXIS" The practical application of learning.
For example, I wanted to understand teenagers.
So I took a course on Comprehensive Sexuality Education for teens.
But, at the end of that, I still knew nothing about teenagers-- other than perhaps some statistics about pregnancy rates in students who were given Abstinence Based Sex Ed...
So this year I'm teaching Our Whole Lives-- the UUA's Sexuality Education program-- to teens in the Bay Area.
I'm putting my course work knowledge into action... and trust me, through PRAXIS I'm discovering LOTS of THINGS about teens.
For many students, PRAXIS comes during chaplaincy training. This is either a summer, or a year long "Unit" where students go away and are chaplains in Hospitals, Prisons, Hospice Programs or Mental Institutions. Some have arranged to work in Homeless Shelters.
My course in Death, Dying and Bereavement taught me lots of facts and techniques, for dealing with people in need... but it will be during my chaplaincy training-- called CPE-- that I will have to develop an understanding of what is TRUE to me.
Let us open our hearts to love one another.
There is one more step in becoming a minister. And, after all the education on oppression and violence and death and exploitation... students have a good idea how bad the world is.
This step, taken in either the third or fourth year of Starr King's program, is working as an intern minister at a Unitarian Universalist Congregation.
It's here that students change speed, and begin to understand LOVE. Many of my schoolmates have gone off on internship either this year or last year. What I hear is that the congregations show them what it means to be a minister.
The Praxis of working as a ministerial intern changes them. Students don't forget the horror stories that we hear in school, but they realize the sheer quantity of good, of possibility, in the Unitarian Universalist movement-- in the everyday members of our congregations.
That's because the congregants are the professors, are the advisors, and the coaches for these new ministers.
At the same time, the congregation receives from the intern another point of view and new ideas from the broader association of congregations.
I'm talking all romantically about this, but it's something I haven't done yet. The school doesn't assign students... it's a job they have to apply for themselves. The students have to determine when they are ready-- and then get hired.
So either next year--- or the year after, I will be going away for a year, joining another community and learning to LOVE the job.
In Unitarian Universalism, the rules of ordination acknowledge the simple fact that communities, not schools develop leaders.
When the time comes, the only body that can ordain a minister is a congregation.
So Now, a good minister will tie in the reading and end the sermon... But I think the story of the Magi is overdone, so INSTEAD
I'm going to tell you how "Fish Is Fish" ends. We sang the children out at the point where fish was imagining what the world above the water was really like. Of course perception and reality were very different.
On the next page he determines to jump out of the water and see for himself.
As he lies on the shore gasping for oxygen, Frog finds him, and pushes him back into the water. LIONNI continues:
"Still stunned, the fish floated about for an instant. Then he breathed deeply, letting the clean cool water run through his gills. Now he felt weightless again and with an ever-so-slight motion of the tail he could move to and fro, up and down, as before.
"The sunrays reached down within the weeds and gently shifted patches of luminous color. This world was surely the most beautiful of all worlds. He smiled at his friend the frog, who sat watching him from a lily leaf. "You were right," he said. "Fish is fish."
It's a sad version of "happily ever after", isn't it?
Fish fails... if that's the way you want to measure things.
Fish learns... if knowing one's limits is a form of learning.
Fish has a friend in frog... who is now from another world, with stories of fantastic things.
Let us open our eyes to see what is beautiful;
Let us open our minds to learn what is true;
Let us open our hearts to love one another.
amen.
CLOSING HYMN #402 From You I Receive, To You I Give.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Dilution of Madonna...
Hey you.
This post may be disturbing, especially if you have been involved with a traumatic situation in your life.
This is the story of a song, a song a schoolmate is using in a set of dramatic monologues... in fact, I should be memorizing my monologue at this very moment.
But back to him... he liked the song "American Life", and how it asked "This type of modern life, is it for me?"
Madonna's music video of this is pretty brutal and gruesome.
But this American Life includes both what we see at the mall AND what we are doing with our government's policies and what modern life does to people, so why not show them all?
(You need Flash to see videos on YouTube. Click to open up another window)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R55xDxaXw5E
Here is a bizarrely different version, cleaned up, with a somewhat different effect. What is shown, what is now hidden? How is the focus changed from society to be personal?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN_vQIYuXdA
Did you notice how all non-fantasy images of soldiers and blood are removed from the second one.
And, it seems Warner released a third version... if you just want to hear the song, look at this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3Z_Z899kPA
This post may be disturbing, especially if you have been involved with a traumatic situation in your life.
This is the story of a song, a song a schoolmate is using in a set of dramatic monologues... in fact, I should be memorizing my monologue at this very moment.
But back to him... he liked the song "American Life", and how it asked "This type of modern life, is it for me?"
Madonna's music video of this is pretty brutal and gruesome.
But this American Life includes both what we see at the mall AND what we are doing with our government's policies and what modern life does to people, so why not show them all?
(You need Flash to see videos on YouTube. Click to open up another window)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R55xDxaX
Here is a bizarrely different version, cleaned up, with a somewhat different effect. What is shown, what is now hidden? How is the focus changed from society to be personal?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN_vQIYu
Did you notice how all non-fantasy images of soldiers and blood are removed from the second one.
And, it seems Warner released a third version... if you just want to hear the song, look at this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3Z_Z899
Monday, October 29, 2007
Pumpkin Carving
Pumpkin Carving!
I thought you might want to see what I was up to yesterday. I had some friends from school over, and attacked some vegetables.
Here's a shot of Luke... he is working with a special scraping tool
These two guys are Kent and James. Kent is asking "do you feel what I feel?"
Never try this at home...
James again...
My creation complete with acne:
So we put them on display...
Turned out the lights...
And took a picture...
Happy Halloween!
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Student Sermon...
Last spring I composed this sermon for a class in Homiletics. It isn't perfect, there was some good feedback on things I could improve, but I thought I'd post it, in hopes that someone read it and comment on it here. The proposed audience was those at my seminary, though I suspect it applies to your church or social group as well.
So, without further ado:
Eyes Right
HM - 4002 Introduction To Preaching, Sermon #2
Our reading this morning is one of the most violent, most cruel passages in the Hebrew Bible.
It's an odd passage, in that it was not in the King James Version of the Bible-- it was only discovered in the 1940s, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.
Perhaps some copyist accidentally deleted it, or perhaps some ancient scholars decided it was too violent. Whatever the reason, we now have it in modern translations and it fits with today's sermon.
It is from the Book Of First Samuel, Chapter 10 verse 27 following
Now NA-hash, king of the AM-mo-nites, had been grievously oppressing the GAD-ites and the REU-ben-ites.
He would gouge out the right eye of each of them and would not grant Israel a deliverer.
No one was left of the Israelites across the Jordan whose right eye NA-hash, king of the AM-mon-ites, had not gouged out.
That's all I'm going to read. You get the idea.
------
Eyes Right
I'm very sorry to have selected such a cruel reading for today. But when I red it, I saw us. I saw myself. I saw a message that needs saying.
There are several ways to use this reading. The blind leading the blind might have worked--- but the people of GAD and REUBEN aren't completely blind.
I could have talked about the way that people have blinded themselves with sorrow, or with love, or with drugs-- that might have been an interesting angle--- but they would be situations where individuals blind themselves, rather than having blindness inflicted on them.
In the reading, the Gadites and Reubenites lost a battle against NA-hash, and chose a life of semi-blindness over the alternative, which probably would have been death.
So, I am thinking of a situation where a nation loses a battle, and chooses blindness. Can you imagine what I'm thinking of?
----
Sadly, you are right.
Let's take a straw poll... How many of you have thought about this statement today: "our nation is at war"? ...
How many of you have made the war an important part of your day?
"America At War" is the headline... or was four years ago.
The United States of America is at war, in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Forgive me, I'm going to use a popular shorthand, and I'm going to call the USA "America"-- as millions of us Americans do.
Sadly, these are real wars. Real people are fighting them. Real people are going half way around the globe, serving, and either returning or dying... and WE put them there.
Do you notice?
Every morning, as you shower and load your iPod with the day's music, a completely invisible part of our nation awakes to war. The war is the first thing on their minds, and every night, as they try to sleep, the war is the last.
But for us here at our seminary, where is the war? Like the tribes of Reuben and Gad, we have lost our vision in that eye. We don't see the war, we don't taste the war, we don't pay the bills of the war.
Indeed, I lament our current situation. I lament my own blindness, I lament our school's blindness, I lament our community's blindness.
Laments are important, but eventually weeping must change to resolve.
So I think the answer lies in this morning's reading.
Or maybe it lies in your heart.
Here's how I see it.
Plenty of people will tell you that we need to OPPOSE this war.
I'm here to tell you that we need to BECOME A PART of this war.
Let me repeat this point.
Plenty of people will tell you that we need to oppose this war.
I'm here to tell you that we need to become a part of this war.
And opposing something isn't the same as being a part of it.
I'm not going to say if the war is right or wrong. I'm saying it's ours.
-----
Now there are three foolish things in how the American public engages with the war, and there are three remedies.
-----
Let's go back to the reading to help frame this.
The reading described a time when Israel had no single leader. Instead each tribe lived for itself.
The story involves the tribes of Gad and Reuben. Most of the twelve tribes of Israel were west of the Jordan River, but Gad and Reuben were out there, EAST of it, in what is now the Kingdom of Jordan.
Now [NA-hash], the king of the [AM-mon-Ites] had defeated the two tribes, probably in battle, nobody knows whose fault it was... nobody knows if the tribes attacked NA-hash or if NA-hash attacked them first, but we do know that NA-hash won.
Now King NA-hash just wants peace, and he wants the income from the farms. To get the income, NA-hash wants the Reubenites and Gadites to be passive vassals.
To make sure they don't rise up and object, he has them all blinded in the right eyes. This is actually better than earlier battles, when victors simply killed all the losers-- you can read about the battle of Jericho, if you want a real bloodbath. So we could say that NA-hash is a compassionate innovator.
Think about it for a moment. If you hold your sword in your right hand, and you don't have a right eye, can you see to fight? Nope. You will be blindsided.
You can't do anything but submit to those in power. Sure you can still plow fields, you can still milk cows... but you have been effectively passified.
I'm sure you are all wondering about how the story turns out... do the good guys win?
Not really. The other tribes of Nation of Israel come to help. In the end there are tens of thousands of bodies rotting on the face of the earth. And after a generation or two, they have another war, and more are killed.
YOU KNOW THE OLD SAYING: There are only three types of people in a war: The living, the injured and the dead.
OK, enough physical violence for one morning. End of lament.
Let's talk about the three foolish things I mentioned.
The first one is obvious. It is the myth of separation. People talk about this being a "red state war" or a "blue state war". People claim that because they elected a Congresswoman or Congressman or Senator who voted in the minority on some authorization bill once upon a time...
That this somehow makes it somebody else's war. It is foolish. The war in Iraq and in Afghanistan is everyone's war.
I'll bet you've figured out what the second one is... It is that we are blinded. Some of you will assign blame for the blindness, but I don't want to go there.
Suffice it to say that somehow, and I don't care about why, we have been blinded, become passified milkers of cows, passified plowers of fields unable to raise an effective sword, or even an effective pen. Our number has been are disconnected. We don't see the soldiers. We don't see the families. We don't see the coffins, or injured, or abandoned.
The third foolishness is that we think we are doing something.
Sorry to seem so down, but protests come and go... vigils burn lots of candles, contributing in their own small way, to global warming.
Do you think that last week's protest rallies changed the course of history?
Sad to say, I doubt it.
But that's not true of all the protests. Let's think of why some are different.
In the summer of 2005, a mother named Cindy Sheehan and members of the "Gold Star Families for Peace"-- they are families of those who had died in the war-- began a protest.
The protest, outside President Bush's ranch in Texas, was effective because the people protesting weren't Berkeley college students-- they were people involved in the war.
They were worthy of attention because it was, and still is, their war.
Without participation we are powerless. If we don't make the war our war, we can neither support it nor oppose it.
I don't care if you think the war is a crime, or if you think declaring war was right. I just want you to turn your remaining good eye and see the situation for what it is. I want our whole nation to do that.
For the past four years we have been dis-involved... intentionally.
- We pay no taxes for the war,
- We attend no funerals, and see no caskets,
- We knit no woolen caps for the sailors.
That's a story worth remembering. It was a big thing in WWII... my Grandmother and all of the ladies of South Orange, New Jersey did that... They would each spend four hours a day knitting... they get together weekly, turning in knit woolen hats for the war effort.
To knit a cap for a merchant seaman on a freighter going across the North Atlantic was to have a personal interest in the cargo.
And when you had knit the cap as an act of love, that sailor was your cargo.
Each Nazi torpedo was aimed at you.
You know, this war has been sold to us as free, fought by volunteers-- volunteers who see signing up as a way out of poverty, or gangs or dead-end living.
Volunteers who bought the dream of civics class,
Volunteers who answered GOD'S call to defend the country.
Whatever the reason, we sold it to them. WE, our government, our nation.
These wonderful volunteers keep our war out of our sight, out of our mind.
-------------
They say that if there were a draft, if it were our brothers, and perhaps our sisters, in a literal sense, who were fighting in the desert, our vision would be restored.
------
I think it's time we hear the words "One Nation" and understand that it really is "Indivisible"... and start thinking of those being killed or injured as OUR brothers and sisters.
Only by opening OUR eyes and embracing OUR responsibility can we BE a part of the solution.
----
And I'm proposing three remedies.
----
To me they don't involve forming committees or public policy study groups. They don't involve pointing fingers and assigning blame.
The solution is in the word "Indivisible." The solution is in becoming one nation again.
The solution is to re-engage, with voice, hands and hearts with those who are part of the war.
The men and women fighting under the American flag in Iraq and Afghanistan have the same blood types as we do. Their brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers and children cry in the same way we do. The broke and broken soldiers worry about the rent, and face fear just like us too.
To be engaged with them, they get our respect, our support, our love and prayers.
Our principles speak of worth and dignity.
How might we show them that they have worth? Perhaps by insisting that persons in harms way be well paid, be well cared for if injured and that they have guaranteed, professional emotional support after return to the routine of life.
Ya know, they did their duty for us. We need to show them that they are worth-ful. This is going to cost us money. It should. The Veterans Administration hospitals should provide the best care, not the worst care in the nation, and
Playing economic politics with those who are disabled is simply unconscionable.
It's time we taxed ourselves to pay for this war.
----
But the men and women fighting under the American flag in Iraq and Afghanistan need more than the promise of care when they return. They also need support.
Our hymnal speaks of mutual support-- we need one another.
Here's where America is divided. In conservative circles it is seen as a religious duty to support our troops.
The men and women fighting under the American flag in Iraq and Afghanistan can have all their support from conservative Christian groups, OR they can have support from all of our nation. Which should they have?
How might we show support for those in uniform?
Now being in the US Army in Baghdad is very different from being a kid at sleep-away summer camp, but a friend who is just back from there reports that "Care Package Day" was always special for his unit. School kids, church groups sent a taste of home, and for an hour or two, it was like they were family.
But back home, there are fewer care packages. Their families are often strapped for cash, strapped for time, struggling for resources. Do we contribute to relief organizations? Do we know how to offer personal help?
This needs work... we need to better learn how to support our troops... our web of mutuality needs to include them.
But beyond support, the awareness of love is the greatest gift.
Our Judeo-Christian tradition speaks of LOVE
And this is most important, the men and women fighting under the American flag in Iraq and Afghanistan need to know that they are loved.
They certainly have heard the stories of LIBERALS spitting on soldiers returning from Viet Nam. I know, none of you actually spat. But that's word on the street.
They have been prepared to be hated. Can we change their perceptions?
They already have prayers from those who believe in vengeance, why can't they have love and prayers from those who know that God is Love? Why can't they know that the entire nation sees them as worthy and loved?
AND How could we express love? I have a few ideas...
If each day we here at the seminary stopped our routine. If, for the duration of the war, we stood for one minute, our thoughts and love inclined to them, how could we stay blind?
What if, for the duration of the war, we honored the dead of the week in our chapel service, as if they were our fellow students, how could our hearts not go out to the families and those they loved?
These are both wonderful practices (if I do say so myself), but they don't invite the rest of the community to see... to fight their blindness.
What about if we erected public prayer stations, so that as we walk to classes we could pause along le Conte, or Ridge Road. For the duration of the war, we might pause to pray for, or simply remember people in the many different groups involved in the war: Army soldiers, Navy Sailors, Marines, members of the Air Force, Families, Contractors, affected civilians, families of the dead, the injured. If we could erect simple wooden signs-- each with a name of a group on it-- as public prayer stations, placed around the GTU like stations of the cross. Then every day we could draw our hearts to the many facets, the many human faces, the scope and scale of this war, would that be love?
Would these things involve us in the war?
Would being involved like this teach us, as individuals, help us grow in understanding? Would it get us away from the variety of opinions we hold AND INTO a different place, a place INDIVISIBLE?
In spite of the way this war has been orchestrated,
and blinded as we are, can we learn new ways to see?
Can we learn new ways to go beyond milking cows and become a nation again?
Could this restore our nation's ability to see the war? Could our actions spark others to put up prayer stations across the country. Could they give focus and help the general public becomes aware, aware of the many human dimensions of the conflict?
I don't know, but I can't see another way to do it. And I don't see anybody trying.
Only with our respect,
Only with our support,
Only with our love and prayers... do we have a chance to influence the future.---- Though we may only see the problem with one good eye, the answer has to be with us.
This must become our war.
So, without further ado:
Eyes Right
HM - 4002 Introduction To Preaching, Sermon #2
Our reading this morning is one of the most violent, most cruel passages in the Hebrew Bible.
It's an odd passage, in that it was not in the King James Version of the Bible-- it was only discovered in the 1940s, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.
Perhaps some copyist accidentally deleted it, or perhaps some ancient scholars decided it was too violent. Whatever the reason, we now have it in modern translations and it fits with today's sermon.
It is from the Book Of First Samuel, Chapter 10 verse 27 following
Now NA-hash, king of the AM-mo-nites, had been grievously oppressing the GAD-ites and the REU-ben-ites.
He would gouge out the right eye of each of them and would not grant Israel a deliverer.
No one was left of the Israelites across the Jordan whose right eye NA-hash, king of the AM-mon-ites, had not gouged out.
That's all I'm going to read. You get the idea.
------
Eyes Right
I'm very sorry to have selected such a cruel reading for today. But when I red it, I saw us. I saw myself. I saw a message that needs saying.
There are several ways to use this reading. The blind leading the blind might have worked--- but the people of GAD and REUBEN aren't completely blind.
I could have talked about the way that people have blinded themselves with sorrow, or with love, or with drugs-- that might have been an interesting angle--- but they would be situations where individuals blind themselves, rather than having blindness inflicted on them.
In the reading, the Gadites and Reubenites lost a battle against NA-hash, and chose a life of semi-blindness over the alternative, which probably would have been death.
So, I am thinking of a situation where a nation loses a battle, and chooses blindness. Can you imagine what I'm thinking of?
----
Sadly, you are right.
Let's take a straw poll... How many of you have thought about this statement today: "our nation is at war"? ...
How many of you have made the war an important part of your day?
"America At War" is the headline... or was four years ago.
The United States of America is at war, in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Forgive me, I'm going to use a popular shorthand, and I'm going to call the USA "America"-- as millions of us Americans do.
Sadly, these are real wars. Real people are fighting them. Real people are going half way around the globe, serving, and either returning or dying... and WE put them there.
Do you notice?
Every morning, as you shower and load your iPod with the day's music, a completely invisible part of our nation awakes to war. The war is the first thing on their minds, and every night, as they try to sleep, the war is the last.
But for us here at our seminary, where is the war? Like the tribes of Reuben and Gad, we have lost our vision in that eye. We don't see the war, we don't taste the war, we don't pay the bills of the war.
Indeed, I lament our current situation. I lament my own blindness, I lament our school's blindness, I lament our community's blindness.
Laments are important, but eventually weeping must change to resolve.
So I think the answer lies in this morning's reading.
Or maybe it lies in your heart.
Here's how I see it.
Plenty of people will tell you that we need to OPPOSE this war.
I'm here to tell you that we need to BECOME A PART of this war.
Let me repeat this point.
Plenty of people will tell you that we need to oppose this war.
I'm here to tell you that we need to become a part of this war.
And opposing something isn't the same as being a part of it.
I'm not going to say if the war is right or wrong. I'm saying it's ours.
-----
Now there are three foolish things in how the American public engages with the war, and there are three remedies.
-----
Let's go back to the reading to help frame this.
The reading described a time when Israel had no single leader. Instead each tribe lived for itself.
The story involves the tribes of Gad and Reuben. Most of the twelve tribes of Israel were west of the Jordan River, but Gad and Reuben were out there, EAST of it, in what is now the Kingdom of Jordan.
Now [NA-hash], the king of the [AM-mon-Ites] had defeated the two tribes, probably in battle, nobody knows whose fault it was... nobody knows if the tribes attacked NA-hash or if NA-hash attacked them first, but we do know that NA-hash won.
Now King NA-hash just wants peace, and he wants the income from the farms. To get the income, NA-hash wants the Reubenites and Gadites to be passive vassals.
To make sure they don't rise up and object, he has them all blinded in the right eyes. This is actually better than earlier battles, when victors simply killed all the losers-- you can read about the battle of Jericho, if you want a real bloodbath. So we could say that NA-hash is a compassionate innovator.
Think about it for a moment. If you hold your sword in your right hand, and you don't have a right eye, can you see to fight? Nope. You will be blindsided.
You can't do anything but submit to those in power. Sure you can still plow fields, you can still milk cows... but you have been effectively passified.
I'm sure you are all wondering about how the story turns out... do the good guys win?
Not really. The other tribes of Nation of Israel come to help. In the end there are tens of thousands of bodies rotting on the face of the earth. And after a generation or two, they have another war, and more are killed.
YOU KNOW THE OLD SAYING: There are only three types of people in a war: The living, the injured and the dead.
OK, enough physical violence for one morning. End of lament.
Let's talk about the three foolish things I mentioned.
The first one is obvious. It is the myth of separation. People talk about this being a "red state war" or a "blue state war". People claim that because they elected a Congresswoman or Congressman or Senator who voted in the minority on some authorization bill once upon a time...
That this somehow makes it somebody else's war. It is foolish. The war in Iraq and in Afghanistan is everyone's war.
I'll bet you've figured out what the second one is... It is that we are blinded. Some of you will assign blame for the blindness, but I don't want to go there.
Suffice it to say that somehow, and I don't care about why, we have been blinded, become passified milkers of cows, passified plowers of fields unable to raise an effective sword, or even an effective pen. Our number has been are disconnected. We don't see the soldiers. We don't see the families. We don't see the coffins, or injured, or abandoned.
The third foolishness is that we think we are doing something.
Sorry to seem so down, but protests come and go... vigils burn lots of candles, contributing in their own small way, to global warming.
Do you think that last week's protest rallies changed the course of history?
Sad to say, I doubt it.
But that's not true of all the protests. Let's think of why some are different.
In the summer of 2005, a mother named Cindy Sheehan and members of the "Gold Star Families for Peace"-- they are families of those who had died in the war-- began a protest.
The protest, outside President Bush's ranch in Texas, was effective because the people protesting weren't Berkeley college students-- they were people involved in the war.
They were worthy of attention because it was, and still is, their war.
Without participation we are powerless. If we don't make the war our war, we can neither support it nor oppose it.
I don't care if you think the war is a crime, or if you think declaring war was right. I just want you to turn your remaining good eye and see the situation for what it is. I want our whole nation to do that.
For the past four years we have been dis-involved... intentionally.
- We pay no taxes for the war,
- We attend no funerals, and see no caskets,
- We knit no woolen caps for the sailors.
That's a story worth remembering. It was a big thing in WWII... my Grandmother and all of the ladies of South Orange, New Jersey did that... They would each spend four hours a day knitting... they get together weekly, turning in knit woolen hats for the war effort.
To knit a cap for a merchant seaman on a freighter going across the North Atlantic was to have a personal interest in the cargo.
And when you had knit the cap as an act of love, that sailor was your cargo.
Each Nazi torpedo was aimed at you.
You know, this war has been sold to us as free, fought by volunteers-- volunteers who see signing up as a way out of poverty, or gangs or dead-end living.
Volunteers who bought the dream of civics class,
Volunteers who answered GOD'S call to defend the country.
Whatever the reason, we sold it to them. WE, our government, our nation.
These wonderful volunteers keep our war out of our sight, out of our mind.
-------------
They say that if there were a draft, if it were our brothers, and perhaps our sisters, in a literal sense, who were fighting in the desert, our vision would be restored.
------
I think it's time we hear the words "One Nation" and understand that it really is "Indivisible"... and start thinking of those being killed or injured as OUR brothers and sisters.
Only by opening OUR eyes and embracing OUR responsibility can we BE a part of the solution.
----
And I'm proposing three remedies.
----
To me they don't involve forming committees or public policy study groups. They don't involve pointing fingers and assigning blame.
The solution is in the word "Indivisible." The solution is in becoming one nation again.
The solution is to re-engage, with voice, hands and hearts with those who are part of the war.
The men and women fighting under the American flag in Iraq and Afghanistan have the same blood types as we do. Their brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers and children cry in the same way we do. The broke and broken soldiers worry about the rent, and face fear just like us too.
To be engaged with them, they get our respect, our support, our love and prayers.
Our principles speak of worth and dignity.
How might we show them that they have worth? Perhaps by insisting that persons in harms way be well paid, be well cared for if injured and that they have guaranteed, professional emotional support after return to the routine of life.
Ya know, they did their duty for us. We need to show them that they are worth-ful. This is going to cost us money. It should. The Veterans Administration hospitals should provide the best care, not the worst care in the nation, and
Playing economic politics with those who are disabled is simply unconscionable.
It's time we taxed ourselves to pay for this war.
----
But the men and women fighting under the American flag in Iraq and Afghanistan need more than the promise of care when they return. They also need support.
Our hymnal speaks of mutual support-- we need one another.
Here's where America is divided. In conservative circles it is seen as a religious duty to support our troops.
The men and women fighting under the American flag in Iraq and Afghanistan can have all their support from conservative Christian groups, OR they can have support from all of our nation. Which should they have?
How might we show support for those in uniform?
Now being in the US Army in Baghdad is very different from being a kid at sleep-away summer camp, but a friend who is just back from there reports that "Care Package Day" was always special for his unit. School kids, church groups sent a taste of home, and for an hour or two, it was like they were family.
But back home, there are fewer care packages. Their families are often strapped for cash, strapped for time, struggling for resources. Do we contribute to relief organizations? Do we know how to offer personal help?
This needs work... we need to better learn how to support our troops... our web of mutuality needs to include them.
But beyond support, the awareness of love is the greatest gift.
Our Judeo-Christian tradition speaks of LOVE
And this is most important, the men and women fighting under the American flag in Iraq and Afghanistan need to know that they are loved.
They certainly have heard the stories of LIBERALS spitting on soldiers returning from Viet Nam. I know, none of you actually spat. But that's word on the street.
They have been prepared to be hated. Can we change their perceptions?
They already have prayers from those who believe in vengeance, why can't they have love and prayers from those who know that God is Love? Why can't they know that the entire nation sees them as worthy and loved?
AND How could we express love? I have a few ideas...
If each day we here at the seminary stopped our routine. If, for the duration of the war, we stood for one minute, our thoughts and love inclined to them, how could we stay blind?
What if, for the duration of the war, we honored the dead of the week in our chapel service, as if they were our fellow students, how could our hearts not go out to the families and those they loved?
These are both wonderful practices (if I do say so myself), but they don't invite the rest of the community to see... to fight their blindness.
What about if we erected public prayer stations, so that as we walk to classes we could pause along le Conte, or Ridge Road. For the duration of the war, we might pause to pray for, or simply remember people in the many different groups involved in the war: Army soldiers, Navy Sailors, Marines, members of the Air Force, Families, Contractors, affected civilians, families of the dead, the injured. If we could erect simple wooden signs-- each with a name of a group on it-- as public prayer stations, placed around the GTU like stations of the cross. Then every day we could draw our hearts to the many facets, the many human faces, the scope and scale of this war, would that be love?
Would these things involve us in the war?
Would being involved like this teach us, as individuals, help us grow in understanding? Would it get us away from the variety of opinions we hold AND INTO a different place, a place INDIVISIBLE?
In spite of the way this war has been orchestrated,
and blinded as we are, can we learn new ways to see?
Can we learn new ways to go beyond milking cows and become a nation again?
Could this restore our nation's ability to see the war? Could our actions spark others to put up prayer stations across the country. Could they give focus and help the general public becomes aware, aware of the many human dimensions of the conflict?
I don't know, but I can't see another way to do it. And I don't see anybody trying.
Only with our respect,
Only with our support,
Only with our love and prayers... do we have a chance to influence the future.---- Though we may only see the problem with one good eye, the answer has to be with us.
This must become our war.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Well, not quite PKs...
The soon-to-be-released movie "Preacher's Sons" (http://preacherssons.com/) is going to be interesting, and, I think, wonderful.
The name is a play on the term "PK", meaning "preacher's kids". Perhaps you know some of them... I knew one or two when I was growing up. They have two lives they must live, the public one related to their parent, and then, there is their life. It's a heavy burden. I knew one who was perfection itself-- football, public speaking-- but to look in his eyes was the only way to see the him that was inside. Another PK was wild, played electric guitar, etc.
So now we have Stillman and Greg's kids-- all adopted-- all former foster kids. What's inspiring to me is that being a PK is a step up for them.
So I am looking forward to seeing it this autumn.
The name is a play on the term "PK", meaning "preacher's kids". Perhaps you know some of them... I knew one or two when I was growing up. They have two lives they must live, the public one related to their parent, and then, there is their life. It's a heavy burden. I knew one who was perfection itself-- football, public speaking-- but to look in his eyes was the only way to see the him that was inside. Another PK was wild, played electric guitar, etc.
So now we have Stillman and Greg's kids-- all adopted-- all former foster kids. What's inspiring to me is that being a PK is a step up for them.
So I am looking forward to seeing it this autumn.
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