I have described this Advent as having the color of turbulent indigo. The world has felt unsettled as we enter this third week with the collect that calls on God to "Stir up your power...and with great might come among us." This is the week in which I always wonder, "Do we really know what we're asking for when we say that?"
In Morning Prayer today, I got what seems to be a glimpse into what is stirring in me these days:
"For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For anyone who lacks these things is short-sighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble."--2 Peter 1: 7-10
Sometimes, I think I stumble on a regular basis. Am I always supporting my faith with goodness? Or increasing faith through endurance with godliness? I can't always say that I am. Sometimes, I think I fall off that horse pretty regularly.
Besides Morning Prayer, I am committed to a practice of centering prayer. Some days, centering, in its blocked off time-slot, doesn't happen. Like so many people, I can find lots of other things that I need to do instead of taking the time to sit in contemplative prayer. When I do get myself to stop, I find it peculiar, yet important, part of my day. It's pecularity comes in that there is no grand outcome, no big revelation. Quite often, once I'm passed the monkey-mind antics of my brain, it is something of a blank. If there is a revelation, it will come in its own way, and its own time, later in the day. But this will only happen if I am willing to take the time on the front end to sit still in silence.
As a society, I wish we'd all engage in a contemplative prayer practice. I wish we would consider the steps the Second Letter of Peter puts out there for increasing faith in the direction of Love. Please understand, I'm not advocating for a Christian theocracy or the exclusion of those who don't believe in God. Rather, I'm thinking of his steps as taking us through a transcendence into a new consciousness. For me, that is a Christ-like consciousness; for others, there are other names. Ultimately it brings us to the place where light will overcome the shadows of doubt, despair and fear that have been the anchor in this country for too long. Pull that weight out of the water, and let's set sail for somewhere new!
Monday, December 17, 2012
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Christ Coming into the Chaos
Some of the best time of reflection and discussion for me happen on Sunday mornings as I walk around Tallahassee's Lake Ella with my partner. Satisfied with having had a good cup of coffee in the form of a mocha, we stroll along, in conversation. As you might expect, today's topic was the shooting in Connecticut, and all the violence that has occurred in recent days.
We kicked around the issue of gun control. I am adamant that we need to end the easy access to assault weapons. She says this is not the answer. So we touched on the mental health care issue and the need to fund services and not wait until the mentally ill "do something," which then often results in the ill person going to prison where they may, or may not, get help. But mental health care reform is a tricky issue given that "mental illness" takes in a broad range of things, and it would be expensive. So, what then?
She says we have to look at the root cause of what's happening. We are a nation that is very afraid. And fear is driving a lot of the craziness that is out there.
She has a point. The reason so many seem to feel the need to own a gun comes down to fear. We are scared because we are single women who don't feel safe in our homes. We are scared because we've seen our finances shrinking. We are frightened by what we see on the news. We need to have a gun because if we don't have a gun, the criminals will have a gun.
We are afraid of gays getting married. We are afraid of immigrants without papers getting jobs. We are afraid that anyone else might get access to affordable health care.
As NH Bishop Gene Robinson notes, "The opposite of Love is not hate; it's fear." And Fear seems to be spreading.
Here enters the recessional hymn from this morning's service:
Rejoice! rejoice, believers, and let your lights appear!
The evening is advancing, and darker night is near.
The Bridegroom is arising, and soon he will draw nigh;
up, watch in expectation! at midnight comes the cry.
In the face of fear, the answer is not to respond with more fear, but to act out of Love. During times such as these, Love seems to be a scarcisty in the world. But that is the very thing that needs to be growing in us if we are going to overcome the violence in our world. And it is from this place of Love that we need to act in order to change our world.
When we say we own a gun because we are afraid of (fill in the blank of any number of scary things), where is that fear coming from? Some will say it is from the endless stream of violent TV shows. I hate "CSI:Name-of-City," and really can't stand "Criminal Minds". The premise of many of these shows is a horrible, torturous crime against white women or children that now must be solved by a team of forensic experts. But are TV dramas to blame for our heightened fear? Perhaps.
Or, after the violent TV show, we stay tuned to the local news, where guns are used to settle disputes at gas stations over the loudness of the music that the teenagers are playing in their car. The shooter will say, "I was standing my ground. I thought they had a weapon." But there is no other weapon; just the one he had concealed, legally, in his car and then he used in a fit of fear of black teenagers with their loud music. Are reporters not to tell us when this sort of thing happens? No, we don't want that. Then we'd be afraid of censorship.
So where is this fear coming from? Loss of control? Certainly, there are a lot of things that feel like they are beyond our control. I think that's what a lot of people are feeling in the wake of this shooting in Connecticut, and the one in the mall in Oregon, or even the one in the Birmingham hospital last night. It's what we felt when two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center, and another slammed into the Pentagon, while a fourth went down in a field in Pennsylvania. We don't expect first graders to get gunned down in small New England towns, or that airplanes will get highjacked and used as weapons of mass destruction. And the shocking and unexpeceted leave us feeling out-of-control.
I don't know that there is anything the President, the Congress or the local city council can do to make us not be afraid. Gun control, mental health funding restoration: yes, they can do something there. And perhaps this will address some of the anxiety level.
Scripture tells us repeatedly that we are not to be afraid, and yet we always seem to fall into fear. And I am reminded of the words based on Psalm 42 that were in our sequence hymn:
Comfort, comfort ye my people,
speak ye peace, thus saith our God;
comfort those who sit in darkness
mourning 'neath their sorrows' load.
Speak ye to Jerusalem
of the peace that waits for them;
tell her that her sins I cover,
and her warfare now is over.
Even now, as things appear so bleak and dark, we who are awaiting the arrival of Christ into this chaos must keep lighting the candles on the Advent wreath and bringing more light to the darkness in the world. Christ came into the world at a time of fear and chaos, and has come many, many times before to meet the world in its depths of despair. It will happen again this time.
We must not only keep the flames burning on the Advent wreath, but we must bring that fire within and kindle the spark of Love that lives in us to become the light outside our homes and in the world. We can't restore any of the lives in this country that have been cut short because of gun violence. We can resolve not to let that violence define our lives, lessen our Love, or extinguish the light of Christ in each of us. We must continue to extend our hands in Love. This is the only defense against fear.
We kicked around the issue of gun control. I am adamant that we need to end the easy access to assault weapons. She says this is not the answer. So we touched on the mental health care issue and the need to fund services and not wait until the mentally ill "do something," which then often results in the ill person going to prison where they may, or may not, get help. But mental health care reform is a tricky issue given that "mental illness" takes in a broad range of things, and it would be expensive. So, what then?
She says we have to look at the root cause of what's happening. We are a nation that is very afraid. And fear is driving a lot of the craziness that is out there.
She has a point. The reason so many seem to feel the need to own a gun comes down to fear. We are scared because we are single women who don't feel safe in our homes. We are scared because we've seen our finances shrinking. We are frightened by what we see on the news. We need to have a gun because if we don't have a gun, the criminals will have a gun.
We are afraid of gays getting married. We are afraid of immigrants without papers getting jobs. We are afraid that anyone else might get access to affordable health care.
As NH Bishop Gene Robinson notes, "The opposite of Love is not hate; it's fear." And Fear seems to be spreading.
Here enters the recessional hymn from this morning's service:
Rejoice! rejoice, believers, and let your lights appear!
The evening is advancing, and darker night is near.
The Bridegroom is arising, and soon he will draw nigh;
up, watch in expectation! at midnight comes the cry.
In the face of fear, the answer is not to respond with more fear, but to act out of Love. During times such as these, Love seems to be a scarcisty in the world. But that is the very thing that needs to be growing in us if we are going to overcome the violence in our world. And it is from this place of Love that we need to act in order to change our world.
When we say we own a gun because we are afraid of (fill in the blank of any number of scary things), where is that fear coming from? Some will say it is from the endless stream of violent TV shows. I hate "CSI:Name-of-City," and really can't stand "Criminal Minds". The premise of many of these shows is a horrible, torturous crime against white women or children that now must be solved by a team of forensic experts. But are TV dramas to blame for our heightened fear? Perhaps.
Or, after the violent TV show, we stay tuned to the local news, where guns are used to settle disputes at gas stations over the loudness of the music that the teenagers are playing in their car. The shooter will say, "I was standing my ground. I thought they had a weapon." But there is no other weapon; just the one he had concealed, legally, in his car and then he used in a fit of fear of black teenagers with their loud music. Are reporters not to tell us when this sort of thing happens? No, we don't want that. Then we'd be afraid of censorship.
So where is this fear coming from? Loss of control? Certainly, there are a lot of things that feel like they are beyond our control. I think that's what a lot of people are feeling in the wake of this shooting in Connecticut, and the one in the mall in Oregon, or even the one in the Birmingham hospital last night. It's what we felt when two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center, and another slammed into the Pentagon, while a fourth went down in a field in Pennsylvania. We don't expect first graders to get gunned down in small New England towns, or that airplanes will get highjacked and used as weapons of mass destruction. And the shocking and unexpeceted leave us feeling out-of-control.
I don't know that there is anything the President, the Congress or the local city council can do to make us not be afraid. Gun control, mental health funding restoration: yes, they can do something there. And perhaps this will address some of the anxiety level.
Scripture tells us repeatedly that we are not to be afraid, and yet we always seem to fall into fear. And I am reminded of the words based on Psalm 42 that were in our sequence hymn:
Comfort, comfort ye my people,
speak ye peace, thus saith our God;
comfort those who sit in darkness
mourning 'neath their sorrows' load.
Speak ye to Jerusalem
of the peace that waits for them;
tell her that her sins I cover,
and her warfare now is over.
Even now, as things appear so bleak and dark, we who are awaiting the arrival of Christ into this chaos must keep lighting the candles on the Advent wreath and bringing more light to the darkness in the world. Christ came into the world at a time of fear and chaos, and has come many, many times before to meet the world in its depths of despair. It will happen again this time.
We must not only keep the flames burning on the Advent wreath, but we must bring that fire within and kindle the spark of Love that lives in us to become the light outside our homes and in the world. We can't restore any of the lives in this country that have been cut short because of gun violence. We can resolve not to let that violence define our lives, lessen our Love, or extinguish the light of Christ in each of us. We must continue to extend our hands in Love. This is the only defense against fear.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
A Nation Weeps, Again
The shooting today in Newtown, Connecticut, has left the nation shocked, stunned, and, in some cases, speechless. What do the parents of the surviving children in Adam Lanza's rampage at an elementary school say to the parents who have lost a child to a bullet fired from a semi-automatic weapon? It is all too horrible. An entire small town in New England is scarred from this. And the only thing most of us know to do now is to offer up prayers for the parents, children, community and the Lanza family, as they enter into this new version of reality.
But once we have turned our minds to God, and made our petitions for healing for those affected by this tragedy, we must, as a nation, turn the mirror and look at ourselves to that burning question, "Why did this happen?"
We are country obsessed with our guns, and we have been told by the National Rifle Association that our second amendment grants us the right to have as many guns of whatever fire power we want. Some places may have waiting periods, but what's that to someone who is plotting to murder his mother and then shoot the children in her class? (BTW, I don't know if CT has a waiting period for purchasing guns.) In this case, Adam Lanza didn't have to wait. The guns, all three semi-automatic weapons, were readily available in his home that he shared with his mother. And all three were registered to his mom, who then fell victim in her own home to her own gun. Which begs the question, "Why did a kindergarten teacher own two semi-automatic, multiple-shooter, pistols and a semi-automatic assault rifle?" These are weapons that are used by the Secret Service and SWAT teams. Where is the need for this kind of in-the-home weaponry?
We look to our leaders to do something at times like these, but they are often silent, or preferring to label this sort of thing a "random act of a deranged person." This is a convenient side-step of the burning issue of gun obsession: say that the shooter was mentally ill, and make much noise about how now is not the time for gun control. Well, pardon me, but I believe now is the time. Actually, the time was at the shooting of Lincoln. Or perhaps it was the assassination of John F. Kennedy, or Bobby Kennedy, or Martin Luther King, Jr., or the kids at Columbine High School, or the Luby's massacre in Texas, or the Virginia Tech shooting, or at the Gabrielle Giffords event in Tuscon, or the mosque in Milwaukee, or the movie theater in Aurora, or the mall in Portland, Oregon, and the list can go on and on.
Here in this city, a group called "Leadership Tallahassee", which seems aimed at the up-and-coming and well-connected in our community, does an outing to the Leon County Sheriff's Department. There, the group gets to go to the shooting range and do target practice. One friend I knew who participated in this program was delighted with the opportunity and the feeling of firing a gun. It was "exciting". In Hawaii, there are several shooting galleries on the main streets in Honolulu, catering to Japanese tourists, so that they, too, can experience that thrill of being like an American and taking aim at targets. Nothing says America like a gun, right.
It's because of all of these things that I somehow doubt anything is really going to change in the wake of this horror show in Newtown, CT. There is no will to change. There is no desire to restrict who may own a semi-automatic weapon. People will continue to point to mental illness as the real culprit, but strangely, it's the same folks who oppose stricter regulation of guns that also don't want to spend money on any health care reform, let alone mental health care. The statistics that show that other industrial countries with stricter gun laws have less gun violence will be ignored. And the tired mantra of the NRA ("Guns don't kill people; people kill people") will get trotted out to protect that endangered species, the firearm, from extinction in the United States.
In order for us to get a handle on this kind of mass shooting violence, our political leaders must turn down the campaign contributions from the NRA, and get serious about re-enacting the ban on assault weapons, and no longer allowing ordinary citizens to have access to semi-automatic pistols and rifles. Nobody needs a gun like that to go hunting for duck and deer. There needs to be stricter regulations on licenses as to who may have a gun. And there should be a mechanism to prevent people from stockpiling weapons like what happened in Aurora.
These are the should happens. What will happen? I'm afraid it will simply be more tears, more funerals, and more expressions of outrage at a senseless tragedy. I hope I'm proven wrong.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Scalia Should Shut Up
No doubt some of you have seen the story about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's remarks this week at Princeton University in which he compared homosexuality to murder. It was in answer to a student's question about his anti-LGBT comments. Scalia referred to his position as "the reduction to the absurd.":
He said he wasn't drawing a comparison between "sodomy" and "murder," but was showing the parallels between the bans on both. And he further stated that while he doesn't think it's necessary for state legislatures to enact laws against behavior they consider to be immoral, he does think it's "effective." And he apparently doesn't think much of the Bill of Rights saying that, "Every tinhorned dictator has a Bill of Rights."
It has never been a secret that Justice Scalia is a right-wing ideologue. That was clear when he was nominated by the late President Ronald Reagan in 1986. I remember being floored that the Democrats were willing to go along with the chuckling Scalia when it seemed clear that Reagan's intent was to stack the high court with people who might overturn the Roe v. Wade decision which made abortion safe and legal. For me, it was more evidence that the Democratic Party would be willing to throw anyone under the bus to appear that they weren't obstructionists (like a certain Tea Party-infused other group...).
Now, here we are a few months away from the high court hearing cases on marriage equality and the senior most justice is spouting off about what he thinks is "moral" and equating support of homosexuality being the same moral equivalent as advocating for murder. I don't really care what he personally believes. But as a sitting justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, it grates on me that he would make such statements in advance of hearing a case that is of tremendous importance to me and thousands of other LGBT Americans. And he likely will not recuse himself. It further upsets me how many people are shrugging this off as a, "We all knew where he stood, so what's new?"
When a person takes an oath to serve as a judge or a justice, their moral beliefs must not be the basis from which they make decisions that affect the lives of others. Furthermore, when one is a judge or a justice, one knows that it is proper judicial conduct to refuse to comment in any way on a topic that is due to come before them lest they be seen as impartial.
Obviously, Justice Scalia doesn't care about that, and too many of my friends seem to think that's OK. It is not, was not, and never will be OK. This is the kind of behavior that undermines public confidence in the judicial branch, not just at the national level, but down to your local judge hearing cases on traffic infractions. Nominations such as Scalia's helped to politicize what should be a process free from undo influence from political parties, or the Roman Catholic Church, or anyone else.
I thought I couldn't trust Scalia to hear the marriage equality cases. Now I know I can't.
He should have just kept his mouth shut.
"If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have moral feelings against murder? Can we have them against other things?"
He said he wasn't drawing a comparison between "sodomy" and "murder," but was showing the parallels between the bans on both. And he further stated that while he doesn't think it's necessary for state legislatures to enact laws against behavior they consider to be immoral, he does think it's "effective." And he apparently doesn't think much of the Bill of Rights saying that, "Every tinhorned dictator has a Bill of Rights."
It has never been a secret that Justice Scalia is a right-wing ideologue. That was clear when he was nominated by the late President Ronald Reagan in 1986. I remember being floored that the Democrats were willing to go along with the chuckling Scalia when it seemed clear that Reagan's intent was to stack the high court with people who might overturn the Roe v. Wade decision which made abortion safe and legal. For me, it was more evidence that the Democratic Party would be willing to throw anyone under the bus to appear that they weren't obstructionists (like a certain Tea Party-infused other group...).
Now, here we are a few months away from the high court hearing cases on marriage equality and the senior most justice is spouting off about what he thinks is "moral" and equating support of homosexuality being the same moral equivalent as advocating for murder. I don't really care what he personally believes. But as a sitting justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, it grates on me that he would make such statements in advance of hearing a case that is of tremendous importance to me and thousands of other LGBT Americans. And he likely will not recuse himself. It further upsets me how many people are shrugging this off as a, "We all knew where he stood, so what's new?"
When a person takes an oath to serve as a judge or a justice, their moral beliefs must not be the basis from which they make decisions that affect the lives of others. Furthermore, when one is a judge or a justice, one knows that it is proper judicial conduct to refuse to comment in any way on a topic that is due to come before them lest they be seen as impartial.
Obviously, Justice Scalia doesn't care about that, and too many of my friends seem to think that's OK. It is not, was not, and never will be OK. This is the kind of behavior that undermines public confidence in the judicial branch, not just at the national level, but down to your local judge hearing cases on traffic infractions. Nominations such as Scalia's helped to politicize what should be a process free from undo influence from political parties, or the Roman Catholic Church, or anyone else.
I thought I couldn't trust Scalia to hear the marriage equality cases. Now I know I can't.
He should have just kept his mouth shut.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Advent: Turbulent Indigo
When I was growing up in the church, the seasonal color for Advent was purple, the same color for the season of Lent. I suppose that was a way to recognize the yin and yang nature of those two seasons. In one, we are preparing for the arrival of Christ into our lives. The other is the slow march toward his death culminating in his resurrection.
Now, we light blue candles at Advent, a nod to the Virgin Mary, and to give it its own, distinctive color in our color-coded church calendar.
Thus far, for me, this Advent has felt more like a melding of blue and purple into an indigo. A turbulent indigo at that. I've been restless, and sensing a certain restlessness around me.
So, it was only appropriate that I was listening to that particular Joni Mitchell CD as I drove home along the backroads of rural southwest Georgia after meeting with my spiritual director. The lyrics to some of the songs are such an important commentary on our times, and in many ways, to the darkness and brokenness of the world: border lines, within families and communities, that divide people; the gas leaks and the oil spills; and the discarding of women who are victims of violence. There is plenty of hurt to go around as the stores play their hopped-up version of the season: "Hark! The many merchants shout, 'Buy it now before we're out!'"
As part of my session with my SD, we discussed Advent and how I wasn't feeling like I was in a happy-happy, joy-joy space. She noted this isn't necessarily a joyful season if we're paying attention. There is a birth about to happen, not only in our story of Christ, but in our own lives as well. We are preparing to give birth to a new self. And with that, there will be death of the old self, old habits, old ways that no longer serve a purpose. Birth, she said, changes everything.
And that might be the thing that is at the root of my turbulent indigo. I'm not pregnant, not physically at least, but in a sense I am moving through a kind of pregnancy of Spirit. All the work I've been doing with my SD...coupled with the everything that I have done with others and my practice of daily prayer, centering, and reading has been like the refiner's fire and the fuller's soap. And that process doesn't come without some pain as I go through another round of change. Perhaps this is why I am suffering with a head cold that is leading to laryngitis. Perhaps I need to silent my voice and listen more closely to another's?
And I think of the first line of one of the songs on Turbulent Indigo:
Let me speak
Let me spit out my bitterness...
But first, let me get my voice back.
Now, we light blue candles at Advent, a nod to the Virgin Mary, and to give it its own, distinctive color in our color-coded church calendar.
Thus far, for me, this Advent has felt more like a melding of blue and purple into an indigo. A turbulent indigo at that. I've been restless, and sensing a certain restlessness around me.
So, it was only appropriate that I was listening to that particular Joni Mitchell CD as I drove home along the backroads of rural southwest Georgia after meeting with my spiritual director. The lyrics to some of the songs are such an important commentary on our times, and in many ways, to the darkness and brokenness of the world: border lines, within families and communities, that divide people; the gas leaks and the oil spills; and the discarding of women who are victims of violence. There is plenty of hurt to go around as the stores play their hopped-up version of the season: "Hark! The many merchants shout, 'Buy it now before we're out!'"
As part of my session with my SD, we discussed Advent and how I wasn't feeling like I was in a happy-happy, joy-joy space. She noted this isn't necessarily a joyful season if we're paying attention. There is a birth about to happen, not only in our story of Christ, but in our own lives as well. We are preparing to give birth to a new self. And with that, there will be death of the old self, old habits, old ways that no longer serve a purpose. Birth, she said, changes everything.
And that might be the thing that is at the root of my turbulent indigo. I'm not pregnant, not physically at least, but in a sense I am moving through a kind of pregnancy of Spirit. All the work I've been doing with my SD...coupled with the everything that I have done with others and my practice of daily prayer, centering, and reading has been like the refiner's fire and the fuller's soap. And that process doesn't come without some pain as I go through another round of change. Perhaps this is why I am suffering with a head cold that is leading to laryngitis. Perhaps I need to silent my voice and listen more closely to another's?
And I think of the first line of one of the songs on Turbulent Indigo:
Let me speak
Let me spit out my bitterness...
But first, let me get my voice back.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
On the Ride... Five Years and Counting...
My first Spiritual Director recently posted this time-lapsed video of her new hometown, Asheville, North Carolina.
When I watched it on my iPad, the music track didn't play, so I was forced to look at the video in silence.
The funkiness of technology apparently was an accident that was meant to happen. Without the distraction of music, I looked at this video and imagined that I was viewing the world through God's eyes. Looking at this hyper-speed of creation in change made me reflect on the movement of time, and how time, as I think of it for God, happens in an instant whereas we see it crawling along month-by-month-by-month.
So, that means that this blog, born five years ago as a response to my "Wake Up Call," must have just happened in the last second in God's time!
I have changed, too, in five years, molded and shaped, as I have remained on the ride with God. Many times, I have wanted to get off and go hide. I have felt the river rapid accelerating the movement of this boat, and then slowing it down to a lazy drift. I have looked longingly toward this river's tree-lined banks, and thought, "Maybe I can jump out of the boat and swim over there and hang out in the woods," only to realize that I am terrified of getting my head underwater, and so swimming to "safety" isn't an option.
Amazingly, for every time that I have thought about jumping ship, I haven't longed to go back to the place where this began. Perhaps because I know that I can not. Once inside the boat and on this river, I realized there is no ability to revisit the past and live there because there is no life there. I simply have changed too much.
As I sat in church this past Sunday, I pulled out the hymnal and randomly let the page fall open. It landed on a tune I didn't know with lyrics by Philip Doddridge and music by Handel. Just like with the video, the tune wasn't as important or necessary as I read and contemplated the words:
Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve
and press with vigor on;
a heavenly race demands thy zeal,
and an immortal crown, and an immortal crown.
A cloud of witnesses around
hold thee in full survey;
forget the steps already trod,
onward urge thy way, and onward urge thy way.
'Tis God's all-animating voice
that calls thee from on high;
'tis his own hand presents thy prize
to thine aspiring eye, to thine aspiring eye.
Then wake, my soul, stretch every nerve,
and press with vigor on;
a heavenly race demands thy zeal,
and an immortal crown, and an immortal crown.
All aboard...and all hands on deck... and press with vigor on as this journey continues. Slow and rough, smooth and swift; for God, this boat ride that has been five years for me is only the beginning. The purpose is still being worked out as year succeeds to year.
When I watched it on my iPad, the music track didn't play, so I was forced to look at the video in silence.
The funkiness of technology apparently was an accident that was meant to happen. Without the distraction of music, I looked at this video and imagined that I was viewing the world through God's eyes. Looking at this hyper-speed of creation in change made me reflect on the movement of time, and how time, as I think of it for God, happens in an instant whereas we see it crawling along month-by-month-by-month.
So, that means that this blog, born five years ago as a response to my "Wake Up Call," must have just happened in the last second in God's time!
I have changed, too, in five years, molded and shaped, as I have remained on the ride with God. Many times, I have wanted to get off and go hide. I have felt the river rapid accelerating the movement of this boat, and then slowing it down to a lazy drift. I have looked longingly toward this river's tree-lined banks, and thought, "Maybe I can jump out of the boat and swim over there and hang out in the woods," only to realize that I am terrified of getting my head underwater, and so swimming to "safety" isn't an option.
Amazingly, for every time that I have thought about jumping ship, I haven't longed to go back to the place where this began. Perhaps because I know that I can not. Once inside the boat and on this river, I realized there is no ability to revisit the past and live there because there is no life there. I simply have changed too much.
As I sat in church this past Sunday, I pulled out the hymnal and randomly let the page fall open. It landed on a tune I didn't know with lyrics by Philip Doddridge and music by Handel. Just like with the video, the tune wasn't as important or necessary as I read and contemplated the words:
Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve
and press with vigor on;
a heavenly race demands thy zeal,
and an immortal crown, and an immortal crown.
A cloud of witnesses around
hold thee in full survey;
forget the steps already trod,
onward urge thy way, and onward urge thy way.
'Tis God's all-animating voice
that calls thee from on high;
'tis his own hand presents thy prize
to thine aspiring eye, to thine aspiring eye.
Then wake, my soul, stretch every nerve,
and press with vigor on;
a heavenly race demands thy zeal,
and an immortal crown, and an immortal crown.
All aboard...and all hands on deck... and press with vigor on as this journey continues. Slow and rough, smooth and swift; for God, this boat ride that has been five years for me is only the beginning. The purpose is still being worked out as year succeeds to year.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
World AIDS Day: Getting to Zero Means Ending All-Discrimintation
Criminalization of same-sex relationships in Africa as well as widespread discrimination and stigmatization of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people often fuels HIV infections among our communities. African governments must come to terms with the fact that no meaningful progress can be made in the fight against the HIV and AIDS pandemic in Africa without the decriminalization of homosexuality and protection of LGBT human rights.--Damian Ugwu, Program Co-ordinator for Africa, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
This is the truth, and this is the reality of what helps to keep an epidemic spreading on continents such as Africa. And this statement comes at a time when, yet again, the government officials in Uganda are attempting to pass a law that would institute criminal penalties for LGBT people, and their allies. Even though Ugandan parliament member David Bahati says he has removed the death penalty provision from the legislation, he hasn't produced his amended version. And frankly, I don't trust him or any of those associated with this hateful measure. The international pressure is out there to stop the bill. But until it is withdrawn, and Bahati is no longer in office, I will not be convinced that my LGBT brothers and sisters in Uganda are safe.
The fears of people who are HIV positive and people living with AIDS, the misconception that this is somehow "God's will" to "punish" people for sexual behavior you would think is something we've moved beyond. But we haven't. Not in Africa, not in Asia, and not even in the United States of America. There is an excellent and heartfelt peace by Bruce Garner at the Integrity blog site that captures some of the frustration that is still out there, particularly in the southeastern United States. I highly recommend it.
In order for us to "Get to Zero" rate of infection, and finally have an AIDS-free generation by 2015, many things are going to have to change. The old fears, and the old ways of telling everyone that abstinence is the only way to prevent infection needs to end. We need to get real about talking to kids... and adults... about sex, and it needs to stop being such a taboo topic. We need to stop accepting discrimination as a given for not only gay people, but all people (I heard a report on NPR that said that immigrants are among the high-risk groups because they don't seek medical care until it is too late). I go back to a theme I've been writing on recently, that final statement of our baptismal covenant in the Episcopal Church:
"Will you strive for justice and peace and will you respect the dignity of every human being?"
Besides responding, "We will, with God's help," we must commit that we will.
I will. God's help or not.
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