Brian's Take on the World, Faith, and Religion

2008-03-10T07:12:00.001-07:00

From Brian: (March 10, 2008)

NOTE: My Reflections are now posted on a new Blog: http://briansalmostdailyreflections.blogspot.com/

(The blog http://brianstakeontheworldfaithandreligion.blogspot.com/ will be used for other thoughts.)

2008-03-07T06:56:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, March 07, 2008

I've never felt a pain that didn't bear a blessing.

- Gene K. Hoffman

Not so fast! I think Hoffman is correct about this in essence. But. I’ve known some people who never got to the Blessing part. This has to become part of the way you look at Life, I think, for it to be a really helpful working principle.

Pain is a given of human existence. Perhaps of the Universe. I’ve gotten hurt, in body, mind, spirit, heart. Often it feels like it won’t go away. But, after just a couple of days of pain after my heart surgery and many other physical insults, the pain subsided; the Blessing was how the body can be quite amazing. (Though it’s interesting how a cold sore can be more aggravating than a 7” incision! Is there a wisdom here?).

I thought I would be a monk all my life. Nope: 15 years. But the Blessing was discovering my innate contemplative soul, to realize we all have one, and how critical it is to nurture it. My mind, over the years, has been pained to come up against hard concepts that challenged my assumptions about “truth”, especially about the Mystery of God, Faith, Happiness. The Blessing has been to understand that change and learning is Life itself. My Spirit has often been assaulted by discouragement and a panic of aloneness. The Blessing has been the gift of Friendship, holding me up in felt and unfelt ways. My heart has often felt rejection. The Blessing has been the knowledge and conviction of the “God of Unconditional Love”, the certainty that I (and all people) am loved and valued and delighted in - from that I learned both independence and generosity.

The Pain and the Blessing roll on. If your way of Life doesn’t support Blessing rising out of Pain, can it. You are worth much, much better!

Brian+

2008-03-06T06:49:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, March 06, 2008

All is change in the world of the senses,
But changeless is the supreme Lord of Love,
Meditate on him, be absorbed in him,
Wake up from this dream of separateness.

-Shvetashvatara Upanishad (Hindu)

I am with a group of folk from my congregations. We are on a retreat at Mt. Calvary Retreat House in Santa Barbara CA (not too shabby, right! trust monks to grab the best locations). We are sitting on top of a mountain, - the ocean and city lights below us, the flowering mountains around us, the clear star-filled skies above us, healing Silence enveloping us.

Last night, one of the monks gave us a talk on the Heavens. Once a science teacher, he became fascinated with astronomy when he came to live at this house 20 years ago. He reflected on several passages of the Bible that talk about how the Heavens “proclaim the glory of God”. Then he took us outside, where he had set up his 8” telescope. He showed us soft-white Saturn with its sweeping rings, and its moon Titan, 850 million miles from us. He showed us the Orion nebula, giving birth to new stars. He showed us the Andromeda galaxy, 2.5 million light years away but visible to the naked eye from our own Milky Way galaxy.

One has a slight sense, gazing out there, of panic. How tiny and insignificant we seem – and maybe “alone” in this vastness. But not last night. I felt the connection, the “being-part-of”. The Oneness with the change and reshaping and growing. “We” are all in it together.

But we have also “found” the Unchanging Heart of it all. We have intuited, plucked out of the vastness of the Unknown, the Known. Love. Our religion, many peoples’ religions, has made a determination about what the ultimate character of Existence is. It is Unchanging Love, anchoring us all in the wonder of Creation and sustaining without fear us in the constant flow of change.

Such is the “God” we have found. So we step out with a smile and trust. All is well.

Brian+

2008-03-05T06:29:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Any kind of expectation creates a problem.
We should accept, but not expect. Whatever
comes, accept it. Whatever goes, accept it.
The immediate benefit is that your mind
is always peaceful.

- Sri Satchidananda

As I think about it, “expectation” is a great tyranny. Expectation by nature creates distance between two people, between a person and one’s ability to be open to the World and to Life, between our heart and another. It creates fear. It blocks love. I have always appreciated the story of Jesus talking with the rich young man. Jesus loved him, offered His answer to the young man’s questions about how to attain Eternal Life, but had no expectation that the young man should do what He said. Wise.

I “expect”, but without prejudice or a need to control (when I’m functioning properly!). I expect things, “good” or “bad”, to happen. But I try not to control it. I “accept” – and I think that’s what the author means. “Accept” doesn’t mean we agree or like. It just means we know that Life is going to come at us. It’s best to be agile in our ability to respond. Recently, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I had had the biopsy. While I was waiting for the results, I went through the process of letting my natural expectation of “bad news” be replaced by “acceptance”, so I could be resilient, accept, and not be controlled by fear. It worked! When the doc told me the results, I was ready to “get on with it”.

The swami is right. It helps to have a peaceful mind. Life takes on a deeper wonder, mystery, excitement.

Brian+

2008-03-03T05:36:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, March 3, 2008

I don't want to get to the end of my life
and find that I lived just the length of it.
I want to have lived the width of it as well.

- Diane Ackerman

Work! That’s the problem! Oh, there are a few people (hopefully more than I know of) who absolutely love what they do as work and find that it is part of living the “width” of their lives. I suspect most people don’t have that connection. Now I understand more why the Biblical Creation story has God cursing human beings with having to work hard to eke out a painful existence from an uncooperative land - since the story was written by hard-working people who were worn out with never ending work to stay alive!

However, even putting work aside, my observation is that people choose paths in life that work against living the width of life. I have been “criticized” all my life by friends and parishioners griping about the fact that I travel to fun places and take a lot of opportunities to have fun, whether it’s birding in Madagascar or eating long lunches in Tuscan hill towns. I know that bottom-line they are just expressing the fact that they would like to be doing some version of what I’m doing. But I have gently pointed out that I have made choices that allow me to do these things, including rejecting some possibilities in order to enjoy others. Some people would rather have a $35,000 Lexus; I’m happy with a $10,000 pre-owned car and two trips to Italy!

Anyway: Diane is just nudging us. Think about how we spend our lives. It doesn’t have to be a trudging though the hours and days. There is “width”. We can orchestrate the side-trips out to the various edges, which will be different for each of us. If we’re either lucky of determined, work can be a part of it!

Brian+

2008-02-29T20:25:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, March 1, 2008

God judges persons differently than humans do.
Men and women look at the face;
God looks into the heart.

- from the Book of the Prophet Samuel

“God “is always what we human beings hope we can be. And for every human being who wants to be Hitler, there are incalculably more who want to be ….. insert the name of the loveliest, kindest, most intelligent, most loving person you know of.

The words from Samuel come from the passage where the prophet is sent to find a king for Israel to replace Saul. All of Jesse’s sons are rejected. Then David appears, and we are told that he was very handsome. He’s the “runt” of the litter. But God is looking beyond external handsome - and one can be handsome or ugly (both relative terms, of course), since to God the exterior is irrelevant - to a handsome heart. David is chosen, despite the fact that he committed adultery and treachery and murder. God is interesting, isn’t She!!

One of the things I like about God is that God transcends our petty human categories. Skin colour, place of origin, gender, sexual orientation, etc. This gives me some hope about the human community! We may be capable of wretched discrimination and hate of “the other”, yet we can conceive of an Ideal that transcends all this nonsense - and we admire this!

So, within the human heart there are contending realities. We can look at “the face”, or we can look “into the heart”. Well, despite the sad state of human relations worldwide at the moment, I’m betting on “into the heart” coming out on top, and will try consciously to abet it.

Brian+

2008-02-28T08:19:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, February 28, 2008

No [person] is exempt from saying silly things;
the mischief is to say them deliberately.

- Michel de Montaigne, philosopher, born
on this day, 1533, in Perigord, Bordeaux

Which gets me to the fascinating subject of Love. I seem to spend my life trying to understand the nature and character of Love - and I suppose that is OK, being in my “line of work”. But I actually think it “should” be everybody’s life-work. Certainly Christianity is essentially about Love/Compassion. I have that sense about Judaism, and Buddhism. Regrettably, through my own inexcusable lack of knowledge of Islam, I don’t know if a Muslim would say that Islam was essentially about Love. Must ask an Imam sometime soon.

I keep distinct Romance and Love. For me, Romance is lovely, but it’s a sub-set to Love. Romance, to me, has primarily to do with feelings - and feelings are notoriously slippery. On again, off again. People tend to bring flowers to their beloved when they feel good; I think it would be better to bring flowers when you don’t feel good about the relationship. You can extrapolate.

I also have come to think that Love is 95% an act of the will. One chooses, makes a conscious choice, to love, regardless of how one feels. In my own religious culture, I take this from Jesus, and other experiences in Life. One does not die for Love because it “feels” good - unless one is warped in some fashion! Chosen willful Love is clear and sharp and brilliant, not flabby and soft. Hence I can live with Dennis; I have no fear that transient feelings will take command of the choice to love.

I am very careful about using the word “love” in conversation or correspondence. As per Montaigne, I do not want to use it in a silly way. I want to be deliberate, to know that when I say “Love”, or “I love you”, or “Love to you”, I mean it.

It would be extremely detrimental not to be deliberate about Love.

Brian+

2008-02-27T08:19:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done
what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have
crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow
is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too
high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I wonder, can one do this today?? I know when I get to the end of a day, I’m not at all sure that I have “done what you could”. In fact, I know I usually haven’t. Is this because I am a life-long procrastinator? Or because it’s impossible? Or, perhaps my expectations are too high? And, I find it rather hard to forget the “some absurdities and blunders” that have crept in. I beat myself up about it relentlessly - how in the world could I have forgotten this or that!! And: it’s bad enough to get over one’s own blunders and absurdities, but how can one make amends before the day ends for everyone else who’s been affected?

Or - oh dear - does one just have to work at it! Make it a conscious plan of how to live Life, understanding that it’s sensible and appropriate, knowing you’ll feel better, etc. Would everyone else just go with the flow when I appear at the beginning of the new day serene and in high spirit, unencumbered? Somehow I rather doubt it!

Again, I suppose it’s the “examined life” thing. Barbara Crafton said in a recent eMo about Life, “he builds a self. Then he spends the second half of his life learning how to take it down again, how to take it apart and examine the pieces of it, when to surrender a part of it that no longer makes sense.”

OK. At Compline, we pray for a “perfect end”. I’m now allergic to “perfect”, at least in theory. But I guess we do have to think about what Life will be for us, don’t overdo, try to tie up some loose ends at day’s end (or slightly before), let it go, and meet the new day with a little bit of acceptable amnesia.

About 5pm, have a glass of wine and be glad that things haven’t gone totally awry!

Brian+

2008-02-26T07:09:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Great compassion is the root of all forms of worship.

- The Dalai Lama

Well, Dennis and I are headed off to the hospital for his back surgery.

What is worship? The root of the word is “acknowledging the worth (and I would say, wonder, loveliness, beauty) of”. When we “go to worship”, we are going to lift up a grand cheer! “Worship” in our modern usage has come to be directed only towards God – and I can understand the desire to want to acknowledge the uniqueness of God. (“You shall have no other God besides me” – worshipping only God avoids idolatry.)

But remember the Elizabethan English marriage rite? One phrase in it was, “With my body I thee worship”, the husband speaking to the wife. That rite didn’t think it was bordering on idolatry to “worship” another human being, if I haven’t misunderstood the intent.

And at the bottom of worship? The Dalai Lama is right, I believe. Great Compassion. We can – must – only worship that which has Great Compassion at it’s heart. And the God we know in Jesus Christ (at least as I understand it) is definitely such Heart of Compassion. Great Compassion is what shines forth from the Cross. It defines Christianity.

We cannot authentically worship unless it rises from the Great Compassion in our hearts.

Brian+

2008-02-23T07:19:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, February 23, 2008

To Sleep

O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me, or the passèd day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards,
And seal the hushèd casket of my soul.

- John Keats, poet, who died on this day, 1821, in Rome

I didn’t sleep through the night for a week after my latest surgery. Woke up after a couple of hours, then awake for five, before a bit of restless dozing. So I know what Keats is talking about. How healing Sleep is.

I know now, when I wake up in the night and can sense that I’m not going to return to sleep, to reach for a book. Two nights ago it was “Love in the Time of Cholera”; last night, “Birds of North America”. Informative, entertaining.

But I do often remember what Fr. Huntington, OHC said, “When you awake in the middle of the night, assume that God wishes to speak with you”. (I may be paraphrasing a bit.) A “curious conscience” is usually part of the “still midnight”. I have found that it’s a good time for scattering fantasy and resting in Reality, getting comfortable with it. And I find that Reality is a good antidote for anxiety. “Resting in God” is another way to put it since, for me, God is the Healer and Friend, Who often indeed does away with “many woes”.

Brian+

2008-02-22T10:03:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, February 22, 2008

I had forgotten how the frogs must sound
After a year of silence, else I think
I should not so have ventured forth alone
At dusk upon this unfrequented road.

I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk
Between me and the crying of the frogs?
Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass,
That am a timid woman, on her way
From one house to another!

- Edna St. Vincent Millay, poet, born on this day,
1892, in Rockville, Maine

“I am waylaid by Beauty”. For me, whatever else “God” is, It is a kind of irresistible Beauty that is at the heart of Life which has the seductive power to draw us out of our symbolic “years” of Silence. It seems to me that we human beings spend a great deal of time in the Silences. Maybe this is “normal”? We get to one “house”, and there we stay for whatever time, short or long. Life goes on, at different levels of contentment or discontent.

But Life is, I think, always a growing, a becoming. That process can be gentle or tumultuous or somewhere in between. We are always a becoming-human-being - that’s what makes Life so fascinating and that’s what makes Death so intriguing. What’s to be found when we move “from one house to another”?

I’ve lived with the frogs of dusk on and off again in different parts of the World. Especially Liberia and the Caribbean, where they are loud. They can be scary and ominous – until you know what it is making all that racket.

The “savage Beauty” of discovering Life - Self, Others, Mystery - is necessary. What or who one loves is the best companion to walk between us and the “crying of the frogs”. When another house beckons, take Love’s arm and set out.

Brian+

2008-02-20T20:33:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, February 21, 2008

Each contact with a human being is so rare,
so precious, one should preserve it.

- Anais Nin, author, poet, born on this day, 1903

I confess that I am not a very helpful priest when people ask me how to “do” certain liturgical rituals. Should the corporal be placed on the altar with the cross to the front or back? Should the candles be put out left to right, or right to left? When and where and how should one bow or genuflect at the altar, or at the Blessed Sacrament? What should one do if wine is spilled on the altarcloth, or the Host drops to the floor? There are a thousand such questions. And every parish, probably every priest or acolyte mistress, has a different way of doing things.

I guess it irritates me that people think there is a “right” way and a “wrong” way to do things, mechanically speaking. My experience has taught me that when you start thinking that way, the heart or core has been lost. As an example, I remember a brother in religion who did not believe in the “Real Presence” in the Sacrament. So, when it came time to deal with the crumbs on the corporal (my apologies, you non-religious types!), he would ostentatiously pick it up at two ends and flap it in the air, rather than simply fold it or carefully funnel the crumbs to the paten.

My standard answer is, “Whatever you do, do it quietly, unfussily, and above all reverently”. My assumption is that people know what this is. I seem to be wrong. This may indicate a problem in the World!

We Catholic Christians treat the Blessed Sacrament, and “holy places” and things, reverently. We believe that the Sacrament is a vivid sign of God’s Presence among us.

Reverence to “holy things” in worship is, however, a pointer. A pointer to what Nin alludes to. God is in each of us, in every human being. Or, every human being is an icon of God. Or, every human being is god(ess)-like. The encounter is rare and precious. Think how different interpersonal relationships would be if every person saw the Holy in the other - always!

Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious. What a superb way to approach life together.

Brian+

2008-02-19T20:35:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, February 20, 2008

[ Picture of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, died 1790 ]

- Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II,
died on this day, 1790

Who would have thought that a Holy Roman Empire existed in 1790!!! The only Holy Roman Emperor I am “familiar” with is Charles V (1519-56). He was the uncle (have I got this right?) of Catherine of Aragon, who was married to Henry VIII of England. Henry wanted to divorce her, but the Pope – who normally granted annulments to royals - refused. Why? The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was at that time besieging Rome (I’m not sure why) - and the Pope knew that if he granted the annulment, Rome and he would be destroyed. So goes History. And so goes the eventual “founding” of the Anglican Church and the Anglican Communion. To me, it’s more hilarious than anything else!

What a dude is Joseph II! Look at that outfit. Can you imagine any American man dressing like that? Well you should because they did at that time. Powdered wigs, silk, etc. Sometimes I think it would be fun if we could get “there” again. However, they can keep the wigs. I have always loved the idea of things on my head (hats), but I can’t stand it practically.

So. Am I going to say anything useful?

No. Today is Useless Day. A moment to contemplate the silliness of Life and History. Is it not amazing how things develop??!! It is said of Joseph II: “He was a friend to religious toleration, anxious to reduce the power of the church, to relieve the peasantry of feudal burdens, and to remove restrictions on trade and knowledge”. Alas. Good ideas, but failure. Too many other men (yes, men) who had other ideas.

Joseph II was the titular King of Jerusalem. Whoa!

I remember words that end, something about “wind, signifying nothing”.

We need “signifying nothing” every now and then.

Brian+

2008-02-18T19:31:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, February 19, 2008

It's a luxury being a writer, because all you ever think about is life.

- Amy Tan, author, born on this day, 1952

Well, I have two basic reactions to this. One: I wish I could have been a writer of the Great Myths of Life. OK, ok, so it sounds pretentious, but I would like to have had my chance at shaping the human community. I have thought about what Life is for decades. I’ve chosen a faith path ….. well, only in part, since I was born into a Christian ethos, I was somewhat indoctrinated, but I did make a choice along the way for a style of Christianity I hoped would pattern my hopes. That has only been so only in very disappointing part.

Two: I am willing to accept that the “people” who ended up writing, or shaping as editors, the great myths of humanity, were originally thinking about Life. I have come to see that even such minds are, like everyone’s, easily seduced by self-interest. “Death”, in all of its symbolic power, intervenes.

When I “retire”, and before I die, I am going to write my own Myth. I should be kept busy, but I think it will be exciting!

I have preached for 40 years as a Christian priest. I have been a “writer” in a sense. I’m not at all sure that I’ve been faithful to Life. I have always thought the Gospel, as I understand it, was about Life. It has been deeply deeply depressing to me that the Gospel has been used as an instrument of death and of demeaning and of debasement and of discrimination and of oppression and of violence and of lies and of cruelty. Particularly in the American ethos as I have experienced it.

I recently, when I decided to “retire in protest”, made a decision to be a “writer” who thinks of Life. I intend to make my life a witness to Life as I have come to understand it in the God I came to know in Jesus, and in the superb charity of Jesus that I have experienced in many many fine people and faiths. These are the paths and people I intend to spend my life with and in support of.

“All you ever think about is Life.” Would that were so in the World today. What a sad dark place we are in. I take hope in John’s vision that the Dark cannot overcome.

Brian+

2008-02-15T17:58:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, February 16, 2008

You cannot be too gentle, too kind.
Shun even to appear harsh in your
treatment of each other. Joy, radiant
joy, streams from the face of one who
gives and kindles joy in the heart of
one who receives.

- St. Seraphim of Sarov

I have begun to be able to see that harshness does indeed come from an unhappiness within the human heart. Most of us would like to think it comes from righteousness, or from an awareness of the misfortune or mistreatment of others. But really it comes from our own sense of mistreatment.

Gentleness and kindness are the gifts of at least two things. Of someone who has let go, even in the face of mistreatment. And of a gift received of self-acceptance and self-worth. The latter we must grant ourselves, even if it is held out to us by Another.

I am wondering. Can behaving gently, and being kind, be a “sacrament”? In their visibility, will they bring about their invisible grace? I think so – as long as one is being genuine. And how does one get there? Can it be by an act of the will? Someone, I think not.

I think one has to be surprised by Joy. It is a gift that we human beings give to each other.

Brian+

2008-02-14T19:25:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, February 15, 2008

Every law is an infraction of liberty.

- Jeremy Bentham, English philosopher.
born on this day, 1748

Short and sweet today. Bentham must have got this from contemplating many things, including Jesus and Paul of Tarsus. The words probably make Americans shudder. We hear our politicians going on these days about our needing to be a people of “Law and Order”. Not just for “us”, but for the World.

But it doesn’t work, clearly. Not unless “law” rests on Charity. On Honour. On Respect. On Humility.

This is, I think, why Jesus said simply, “Love one another as I have loved you”. A “new” commandment. But of course it isn’t “new”. Every now and then in history we human beings have the “aha” moment. “Ordering” doesn’t produce what we desire. You can’t order anyone to love or care, including yourself. There has to be a deep understanding of the human heart, and of our connection with one another.

Bentham, bottom line, is absolutely correct. Liberty is a gift. It cannot be “ordered”. It is why the Christian life is all about Grace – the freely offered, unconditional acceptance of each other, based on the nature of God. Only from there can we reject revenge and embrace the glory of human transformation which rests on gratitude.

Remember: I just start the process. It’s up to you to think it through.

Brian+

2008-02-12T19:56:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, February 13, 2008

When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating
and realized what she would get out of it—she'd know everything!
—she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband,
and he ate. Immediately the two of them did "see what's really
going on"—saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together
as makeshift clothes for themselves.

- from Genesis 2 (a reading for Lent 1)

Well gang. I’m off to the hospital very early. The surgeon took one look at my abdominal hernia(s) and said, “Bad; repair ASAP. How about Wednesday morning?” So, what’s a guy to do. Go with the flow, right!

So: just a comment on this portion of Gen 2. What wretched prude, at whatever stage of things, decided that the sewed-together-fig-leaves had to do with Sex???? Utter nonsense. This is a perfect example of human avoidance getting a hold on things. Think of all the ridiculous – and anti-human – clap-trap that has been perpetrated by hypocritical males interpreting this Myth!

God thinks Sex is a very good thing or She wouldn’t have organized us they way She did. Like everything, Sex can be demeaned by us crazy humans. But. Bottom line, Sex is one of the loveliest “tools” that can be used to enhance human relationships. Yes we have a lot to learn, but hey, we humans are intelligent!

The Myth has NOTHING to do with sex, good or bad. Fig Leaves are a metaphor for “a cover-up”. In the Myth, recognition of nakedness is a metaphor for the dawning awareness that we are cowards who refuse to accept our capacity for unhuman , unholy behaviour. Clothes have practical value, of course. But symbolically, they represent our unease at our inability to face the truth of who we are - great lovers or failed lovers.

Perhaps we might think about the “fig leaves” we could wear to express our courage to be our true selves?

Brian+

2008-02-10T18:59:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, February 11, 2008

……………. as in many other things connected with the
formation of character, people in general begin outside,
when they should begin inside; instead of beginning
with the heart, and trusting that to form the manners, they
begin with the manners, and trust the heart to chance influences.

- Lydia Maria Child, author, poet, born on this day, 1802, in Medford (?) MA

Yes, you do know Lydia Maria Child! She wrote the words to a song that even we Verdun Quebec kids knew (or I did anyway) - “Over the river and through the woods to grandfather’s house we go / the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh / through the white and drifted snow” - though I remember “grandmother, not father. And, if you lived in Massachusetts, as I did for a bit, you might know her family because of Medford Crackers – her father made them. She was one of the first women to make a living by writing.

Mrs. Child’s words make me wonder - what would a person turn out like if there were no other influences, and they were left alone to let the heart form their character? Interesting thought. I think it would be OK! Despite all the other influences in my life, I know what my heart really wants. To be respected, cared about, appreciated, treated gently, valued for myself. Have I just come to this after 60-odd years, or is the human heart indeed created in loveliness and to be trusted? I don’t know about other faiths, but Christian mystical theology has always felt that the heart was the home of God.

These days, I don’t think that we are careful enough about the human heart. Anywhere in the world. In any religion. Certainly not in any educational system. Religion has become a system of controlling behaviour from the “outside” - and manifestly it doesn’t work, in my opinion. And education [from the Latin “e ducare”, to lead out] has become not something that leads to the development of the human character (alas!) but vocational training – much to the detriment of the human community. What education gives us these days is soulless malcontents.

Well, enough of my “old man” bitching. I’m rooting for the heart. I intend to pay attention to not trusting the heart to “chance influences”. I intend to feed my heart with “good things”. Positive people and friends. Beauty. Laughter. Generosity. Wonder. Delight. Appreciation.

Come to think of it, “Grandfather’s house” is a metaphor for the heart’s abode.

Brian+

2008-02-10T16:56:00.000-08:00

Sermon for: Feb 10, 2008_Lent I_A_RCL Brian McHugh, priest & vicar
[Gen 2:15-17; 3:1-7][Ps 32][Rom 5:12-19][Matt 4:1-11]

Some musings on the Genesis Myth:

We human beings are “afraid” of Mortality – often called Death. Or we are affronted by it. It is not an accident that the holy season of Lent begins by starkly confronting us with the reality that we “are dust”, and to dust” we shall return. We wonder why we die – were we once immortal, and did we do something that brought on Death? Death has been interpreted by some as being the consequence of sin, or of whatever we did to insult God.

We wonder what’s beyond that boundary called Death. Is it “good”or “bad”, delightful or horrible? We wonder, is there anything we can do to avoid punishment? This has often led to the demeaning of religion to a legalistic keeping of rules rather than a path to becoming fully human. It has often made religion a system of controlling others, of having power over their lives.

We wonder if it’s worth striving for things – material, spiritual, emotional – if it all gets taken away from us sooner or later, but inevitably. We wonder if we can avoid it, and how: freeze-drying, or making a Faustian pact with “the Devil” or with some being who holds out the possibility of escape. We listen metaphorically to “serpents” who tell us, No, you won’t die! Note the serpent in the Genesis story today, who promises Adam and Adama that they can be like God. Or the Devil in the Matthew story who promises Jesus escape from death from a fall that would kill anyone.

This story from Genesis is an age-old attempt to understand ourselves. Every human culture has equivalent stories, equivalent “myths” – what I call “truth tales”, though I wish I could think of a classier name! Our Jewish ancestors developed this story over centuries, rethinking and refining, different generations adding to the inquiry. It tackles the profound questions every human being has. Where did we “come from”? Is our human nature essentially good or essentially bad? Why do we live with the conflict of good and evil in our lives, which causes us such suffering and confusion? Where can we find the answers to these nagging questions we have? Do we have the courage to look at our selves honestly and accept responsibility, or do we have to blame someone else? We still live in a patriarchal culture where women are blamed for much of the world’s problems, and blamed for mens’ “problems”, removing responsibility from men and permitting them to indulge their often selfish desires - all this justified on a male interpretation of the Genesis story.

And of course, the age-old question/hope: Is there an “Eden”? “Eden” is not a physical place; it is an emotional or spiritual or philosophical “place” where we can find peace and understanding and where we can be in harmony with one another and with the creative forces of the Universe. Are we going to learn how to create it, or do we live in the fantasy that God is going to hand it to us on a silver platter? I’m glad that the myth has us being expelled from Eden. It seems wisely to indicate that we understand our predicament, and know we have work to do.

Many interpret the Genesis myth to say that we human beings were once sinless and then “fell” into sin. I don’t believe in the widespread particular interpretation of what is called “The Fall” I believe it is and always has been human nature to be capable of Good and of Evil. “Eden” is a metaphor, a symbol, for the human longing and hope that we can choose love, be happy, overcome our penchant for fouling our own nest. In my view, if we are spiritually and emotionally healthy, the being we call God is an ally - one who will help us and lift us up. The God who punishes is the creation of a spiritually and intellectually unhealthy mind. The Christian God is essentially a God of Grace, as is the God of the Jews. The overlaying of an angry or condemning God is of human origin, and more specifically, the creation of a human mind which does not believe in humanity’s own essential glory and worth. I do. So does Jesus.

So. What does the Gospel for this first Sunday in the holy season of Lent ask us to confront if we would place our feet on the path of “return to Eden”? Jesus is baptized. He is immediately “led by the Spirit” into the wilderness, where he fasts for 40 days and 40 nights in preparation. This, like all such undertakings, is to help Him to see with the inner eye more clearly. At this moment of extreme hunger and weakness, He is tempted by Satan, known as the “father of lies”.

We all remember what happens. First, Satan offers Jesus life on the basis of His own power and physical needs; Jesus says No; that Life is infinitely more than that. Second: Satan offers Jesus the tempting thought that Life can be maintained by manipulating God. Jesus says No; God and we are One; we find Life together. Third: Satan offers Jesus personal power from worldly riches and glory. Jesus says No; Life is found in the godly path of loving service, compassion, mercy, justice.

My colleague Barbara Crafton put it beautifully: “Jesus sits in the wilderness and wants the things we all want. He sits there until he knows he can live life without any of them, because he knows, as we all must know, that we all will lose everything. And then he arises and returns to his world, as we return daily to ours. But we know more about what we can do with the power we have been given than we knew when we began.”

I said that the theme of this Lent was going to be Finding the Glory. Whatever we do this Lent, it will be helpful if we learn that we can receive the power to tell ourselves “No”sometimes. We need to have the power to say “No” to the many lies we are told or that we tell yourselves. To say No to things we are tempted to think will bring us joy and peace but which we know to be lies.

In the Collect today we pray: as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save. This is the true nature of the God we know in the Christ: She is there with us, in us, every step of the way on the path of transfiguration as a child of God.

2008-02-09T08:50:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, February 09, 2008

Whoever does not see God in every place
does not see God in any place.

- Rabbi Elimelech (of Lizhensk, I assume –
1717-86)

I can be pretty questioning and, well, often “weird” in my inquiry. (I don’t think I’m weird; I’m just giving you a chance to nod your heads knowingly. And by the way: whatever happened to “i before e except after c”?? Why is weird weird??) I find it helps me grow to “think outside the box”, as is said these days. I have a passion for appreciating that so much is hidden, that so much is a Mystery, that really we “know” so little. And the older I get, the more true this is. Anyway, I figure that if my Reflections were too disturbing, you’ve unsubscribed by now!

The good rabbi’s thought is challenging! For example, I believe that “God”, whether “God” exists existentially or because the human mind has created God for very good reasons, is Good. Period. I don’t believe in a God who does evil. It makes no sense. I don’t believe, therefore, in a God who punishes, in this earthly life or in Eternity. Life has its own natural consequences in terms of our behaviour and what we suffer.

So here is this morning’s take on Elimelech. “God” is always on our side, on everyone’s “side”. Which is not to say, of course, that God can be co-opted for our own personal manipulation. As an example, God loves the soldiers of all armies or the members of all football teams or all politicians equally. God only desires ( re the Bible) that we “should repent and be saved”, meaning that we be transfigured into Love. God wants us to be happy - and we won’t be as long as we wander from the path of Transfiguration. To be transfigured is our destiny.

God is never absent. So the Psalmist (and the good rabbi) understood. Remember the lovely phrases of Psalm 139: “If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand hold me fast.” If we don’t believe that God and we are inseparable, journeying together in power and grace towards the wonder of Being, through both the suffering and the ecstasy, then God will be seen in no place.

Which is why Jesus said, “Love your enemy”. If we can’t see God there, there is no God to be seen.

Brian+

2008-02-08T08:13:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, February 8, 2008

All journeys have secret destinations of which
the traveler is unaware.

For sin is just this, what man cannot by its very nature
do with his whole being; it is possible to silence the conflict
in the soul, but it is not possible to uproot it.

There are three principles in a man's being and life,
the principle of thought, the principle of speech, and
the principle of action. The origin of all conflict between
me and my fellow-men is that I do not say what I mean
and I don't do what I say.

- Martin Buber, thinker, philosopher, theologian,
born on this day, 1878

I’m being “lazy” today. Three quotes from Martin Buber for you to ponder. The third is self-evident, I think. The question it raises for me is, WHY do I not say what I mean? Mostly, I think, because I am not willing to defend my thoughts or beliefs, or they are in flux. (The latter is certainly true for me on most things!)

The second is a new way to think about “sin” for me! - the failure to be fully who I “am”. I assume that Buber has a definition of “who we fully are” as human beings.

The first I love because I want to believe it’s true. Life is recognizing and enjoying the surprises that hive over the horizon! Do we, I wonder, determine the destinations, but keep them secret from ourselves?

Blessings on your day.

Brian+

2008-02-07T07:03:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, February 7, 2008

There is a law that man should love his neighbor as himself.
In a few hundred years it should be as natural to mankind
as breathing or the upright gait; but if he does not learn it
he must perish.

- Alfred Adler, doctor & psychologist, born on this day, 1870

Well, I’m glad that Dr. Adler and Jesus (and the Jewish scriptures) are in agreement. And I appreciate Dr. Adler’s optimism! It has been at least three to four millennia or so, and we don’t seem to have learned it yet. But! We are still here. Maybe the pressure to learn it is getting more intense?

Is the underlying problem that we hate ourselves? I tend to think that this is a huge part of it. Lying, or avoiding the truth, is a sign of self-hate, I think. It’s like the process we go through in the Episcopal Church to find a new pastor. Both sides lie. The Parish Profile is most often a huge fantasy. And the clergyperson basically says what they think the Search Committee wants to hear. No surprise that a year later, many parishes and priests are parting company or in terrible conflict, wondering what happened. We seem to forget that, if we did love ourselves, we would be honest and realistic. (This happens in most other areas of Life, in business, etc. Religion isn’t alone.)

The Gospel has a lot of Wisdom it would do well to pay attention to, no matter who we are or what, if any, religious path. Jesus finally said (in, I think, a kind of frustrated simplicity), Look: just love one another as I have loved you”. He loved/loves humankind as His God did/does. Unconditionally. Accepting our frailty and weakness. Finding countless ways to affirm and encourage us towards love and goodness and reality, without violating our freedom. As I understand the Gospel, we are to love ourselves as God loves us, all warts showing. And that’s how we are to love our neighbours.

Bottom line: we are loveable. Our “neighbour” is loveable.

Let’s get with the program. Breathe; stand upright; love self and neighbour. Personally, I won’t start with Peter Akinola, Jack Iker, or George Bush. I’ll set my sites a little lower (myself) and work up!

We could keep the opposite going for probably more than a few centuries. But who really wants or needs all that hell?

Brian+

2008-02-04T17:39:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, February 5, 2008

The only possible ethic is to do what one wants to do.

- William Burroughs, author, born on this day, 1914

Ah. A fascinating character. A “bad boy” – like so many artists. Many people seem to be willing to “make allowances” for artists. I find that interesting ….. and a little ray of hope for the repressed and judgmentally pious of the World.

Maybe there are some philosophers out there who can critique this statement from a formal philosophical basis. I can’t. Philosophy always confuses me, alas. But then again, so do maps.

Theologically speaking (loosely, of course, since I am in the ballpark but can hardly claim expertise!), I think Burroughs is correct. “Ethic” means a system of moral standards or principles. Interestingly enough, “ethic” in English usage is a 19th century word, but deriving ultimately from the Greek “ethos”. And here’s what strikes me as important. “Ethos” means “of one’s character or nature”.

An ethic, to be one, has to be part of our character or nature. But that doesn’t mean, theologically, that we can have a fundamental ethic of evil. “Theology” means “study of divine things”. In Christianity, at least, we believe God is Good. And that we, created in God’s image, are ultimately Good, despite the fact of our freedom to choose to be “bad”. The Christian Ethic, which is part of our nature and character as a Child of God, requires that we be “good as God is good”.

Therefore, ultimately, Christians want to do good - regardless of how often we aren’t. No matter how much we fail, our ethic doesn’t change. It’s “what one wants to do”. As Burroughs says, it’s the only possible ethic for a human being. Do what you want – this will always tell us at least where we stand.

Confused? Me too!

Anyway, do what you want to do today. How does it make you feel? More - or less - the human being you want to be, in your own eyes, or in the eyes of those you love and respect?

Hmmmm. (Don’t worry; I won’t do this too often!)

Brian+

2008-02-04T05:45:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, February 4, 2008

Aging is not lost youth but a new
stage of opportunity and strength.

- Betty Friedan, feisty and smart woman, born
and died on this day, 1921 & 2006, age 85

Every day of aging is! That’s what it’s all about. We can either coast along, picking up a thing here or there, or we can make as many days as possible a “stage of opportunity and strength”. Oh, no doubt that no matter how good our intentions are, there will always be those gaps. God knows there simply are just lapses, intentional or not. But we need to hear voices like Betty’s resounding in our ears as often as possible.

A lot of “religion”, of the Life of Faith, or, hell, just being alive and aware as a human being that says, Today is all you really know you have; pay attention and Live It! It’s pretty intense if we do, which is why times of “wilderness” are necessary. Friends and I just saw the movie “The Bucket List” tonight. I really didn’t want to see it; I thought it would be sappy. But I should have known that with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, it wouldn’t be. And it wasn’t. Good to be reminded that if we do get towards the “end” and have been trapped, there is still an opportunity to make a stab at it! (Though, if it involves world travel and high living, having pots of cash does help!)

Youth, as someone once said, is wasted on the young. Think of all we older folk know and have experienced! Every day is exponentially a possible new stage for opportunity and growth. Betty did it and so can we all.

A lift of the glass to Betty Friedan.

Brian+

2008-02-04T05:42:00.000-08:00

Sermon for: Feb 3, 2008 [Epiphany Last A Brian McHugh, priest & vicar
[Ex 24:12-18][Ps 2][2 Peter 1:16-21][Matt 17:1-9]

"God’s Glory-Haunted World"

A priest colleague of mine recently wrote:[1]

"Episcopalians get it about glory; that the glory of God is the hidden flesh-and-blood truth about everybody, everywhere. Therefore proclaiming the glory of the incarnation is the business we are in. Which is to say that we – every parish, diocese, province, person – are in the business of healing, and feeding, and serving, and loving, and respecting the dignity of every human being in God’s glory-haunted world. [Isn’t that a great phrase! I don’t normally title my sermons; but this one is called ”God’s Glory-Haunted World.]

Anglicans have always gotten it about glory, at least on our better days. This is our charism[2]: to know that glory is the deepest truth for everyone, everywhere. Glory is the wonder-filled transfiguring end of all people and all creation, not just a platitude to sing about or an unimportant side product of a guilt-ridden religion. We live into that transfiguring, glorious truth one particular person and place at a time. "

Glory is the wonder-filled transfiguring end of all people and all creation … That, of course, is what the image of the transfigured Jesus is all about. It isn’t just about Jesus. Jesus represents all of us, all human beings. Glory has always been God’s purpose for all Creation. Handel understood it, and expressed it in that grand chorus in The Messiah - (sing) And the glory, the glory of the Lord ….shall be reveal-ed!. Simply understood, “glory” is the manifestation, the shining out, of Divine Love.

The Advent season has been about it - the shining royal image of Christ the Eternal Lord reigning over all Creation. The Christmas season has been about it - the glory of God manifested in the human figure of a little child in a manger, a figure reminding us that we are all offspring of God. The Epiphany season has been all about it; we’ve heard the words of the Proper Preface for Epiphany at every Liturgy - “for in the mystery of the Word made flesh, You have caused a new light to shine in our hearts, that we may know Your glory in the face of your son Jesus Christ Our Lord …”

Moses is seen with Jesus on the Mountain of Transfiguration. That same Moses who climbed up into the Mountain of God, Mount Sinai. The storyteller of Exodus says, “The Cloud covered the mountain. The Glory of God settled over Mount Sinai ….. In the view of the Israelites below, the Glory of God looked like a raging fire on the top of the mountain.” And later we will be told that when Moses came down from the Mountain, his face shone with the glory of the Lord, so much so that he had to put a veil over his face so as not to terrify the people. Moses brings down from Mount Sinai the two tablets containing the Law of God, the Ten Commandments. It is this Moses who is pictured with Jesus on the mountain.

The story of the Transfiguration was written many decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Christian community had pondered the relationship of Jesus to their illustrious ancestors and leaders. Moses represents the Jewish Law, the heart of Jewish ethical conduct flowing out of their covenant relationship with God. The prophet Elijah is also pictured with Jesus. Elijah represents the call to that justice that was so characteristic of God, demanded by the Law. Jesus, in His Gospel, called people to a way of life that summed up the Law and the Prophets - a radical love that embraced both friend and enemy, affirmed the Golden Rule, and required unceasing forgiveness so that brokenness would be healed and people be enabled to dwell together in peace - in family, in nation, in the Kingdom.

Christians worship and follow the Saviour God Who is alive. What Jesus preached, and lived; what the Mosaic Law represents; what the prophetic message of Justice demands, are not things of the past. They are things of the present. This is the message of the image of the Mount of Transfiguration - the image that leads us into Lent and tells us what the goal of our Lent must be.

We are a people of God, filled with Divine Glory. We are meant to “live into that transfiguring, glorious truth one particular person and place at a time”. We are meant, we are created, to see that Glory face to face in ourselves and in each other just as powerfully as that Glory is seen in the face and person and Word and loving acts of Jesus. Everything we do in Lent as we accept the invitation of Ash Wednesday is to unleash the Glory.

We may not be “notorious sinners”, but we are often unloving, dimming that glory in our lives. We need to be “put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Saviour, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith[3]” ….. not so we can grovel in guilt but be freed to shine in Glory. We need to be free of fear and suspicion so we can see and respond to and draw out the innate glory of every person, indeed the whole Creation.

Jesus and Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration is a picture, a holy icon, of us as we are meant to be, and as we have been freed by divine grace to be. Lent is a time for us, as Moses did for forty days and forty nights, to climb up the Mountain of God, to meet God in the light. Where we can, as Psalm 2 says,

Worship God in adoring embrace,
Celebrate in trembling awe.
Kiss Messiah![4]

And as the Psalm says: If you make a run for God - you won’t regret it.

As we approach Lent, may we hear and recognize our experience in the words of Peter: “We couldn't be more sure of what we saw and heard—God's glory, God's voice. The prophetic Word was confirmed to us. You'll do well to keep focusing on it. It's the one light you have in a dark time as you wait for daybreak and the rising of the Morning Star in your hearts.”[5]

[1] The Rev. Martha P. Sterne
[2] means “gift”, from God
[3] The Liturgy of Ash Wednesday
[4] Psalm 2, The Message
[5] 2 Peter 1:21 ff

2008-02-01T19:03:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, February 2, 2008

I AM AWAKENED TO LOVE
I HAVE FORGOTTEN THE FEAR
I WILL REMEMBER THE JOY
FOR I AM AWAKENED, I AM AWAKENED,
I AM AWAKENED TO LOVE.

- Louise Hay, therapist, teacher

For some reason, today has been filled with thoughts of all of my friends who died from the complications of AIDS. One, Art, will be remembered in the planting of a tree tomorrow at St. Benedict’s, Los Osos, CA. One, Mike, a priest, had a great gift of healing. One was a beautiful dancer. One had been a Marine. Sara, a wonderful, in-your-face Hispanic woman, borrowed a beautiful dress to be baptized in at my parish. At Paul’s funeral, his partner, an American Indian, pushed his casket down the aisle chanting the lament for a lost warrior. When Earl died, a great bowler, I began my homily by rolling his bowling ball down the aisle. In San Francisco, I went to see the lovely memorial his parish had installed for Father Bob, a seminary classmate. So many more.

It was a challenging, exhausting time, caring for them all. But far greater was the outpouring of love and affection and laughter and service.

And we would sing. I remember Louise Hay’s chant, the one I’ve quoted.

And many is the morning I awaken and the words are going through my mind.

Awaken to Love.
Forget the fear.
Remember the Joy.

It is a fine simple plan for each day.

Brian+

2008-01-31T16:51:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, February 1, 2008

"There is no sound reason why women, if they have the time
and ability, shouldn't sit with men on city councils, in state
legislatures, and on Capitol Hill. Particularly if they have ability!"

- Hattie Ophelia Wyatt Carraway, born on this day, 1878, near
Bakersville, Tennessee

Do you know who Hattie was? She was the first women to be duly elected as a U.S. senator, from Arkansas. She had been appointed to fill out her husband’s term and later, to the astonishment of the men (who campaigned under the slogan, “Arkansas needs another man in the Senate”), was elected to her own term.

So of course this gives me the opportunity to slam the men (and I’m sure it was men) who demeaned God by interpreting the Genesis creation/Eden story in order to meet their sexist patriarchal prejudices. It is perfectly clear that Adam ate the apple by choice; Eve didn’t force him. The point of the story/myth was to show that human beings have the freedom to sin - or not. But oh no; men had to blame someone else – those “weak women” who led them astray. Oh give me a break! And think what horror those men bequeathed to us - and what horror continues to be visited upon us by this travesty of blame.

This is what I understand from Scripture and from the Gospel: Every human being is equal in the “sight of God”. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts. And it’s about time we, especially the Christian Church, started acting on this truth. Until we do, men and women will continue to suffer in countless ways. As will children, as a distorted and ungodly interpretation of the Bible continues to demean women and excuse men for their inhuman behaviour.

Remember Hattie.

Brian+

2008-01-31T07:53:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, January 31, 2008

He was like a seed buried too deep in the soil to which the light had never penetrated, and which, therefore, has never forced its way upward to the open air, never experienced the resurrection of the dead. But seeds will grow ages after they have fallen into the earth; and indeed, with many kinds, and within some limits, the older the seed before it germinates, the more plentiful the fruit. And may it not be believed of many human beings, that, the great Husbandman having sown them like seeds in the soil of human affairs, there they lie buried a life long; and only after the upturning of the soil by death, reach a position in which the awakening of their aspiration and the consequent growth become possible. Surely {God} has made nothing in vain.

- George MacDonald, poet, theologian

So. Whadda ya think?? Is George being “metaphorical”? Or “literal”? Is “death” a moment when you suddenly realize that you were “dead” and now must wake up and live?? Or can?

Or. You actually die physically. And THEN you find that there is still time to LIVE. Come alive. Germinate?

I think both. Heretical??

Ponder!!

Brian+

2008-01-30T07:46:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, January 30, 2008

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

- Rabindranath Tagore

On good days, this is exactly how I feel! I was watching the large dark gray clouds scudding across the sky this morning, sailing along among large blur patches as I made my way from Chino Valley to Prescott for our annual clergy conference. (This morning, a presentation on fundamentalism – should be interesting!!). Snow was on the mountains, glittering in the morning sun. My head is stuffed up with allergies (??). My abdominal hernia is bulging and hurts a bit. I’m waiting for a prostate biopsy report. But you know what? I feel that then stream of life runs through the World – and that it runs through me!

I don’t always feel this. So I’m grateful today that I do. I feel my spouse attending lovingly to his clients in California. I feel my friends all over the World living their lives. I feel the morning sun in Jamaica and the toucans calling in Costa Rica and the strange feeling of the charcoal burning in the market in Nicaragua.

May the wonder of it all fill you today!

Brian+

2008-01-28T19:42:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, January 29, 2008

I believe that every single event in life happens
in an opportunity to choose love over fear.

- Oprah Winfrey, amazing woman, born
on this day, 1954, in Kosciusko, Mississippi

A friend of mine, a deacon in the Episcopal Church, lives in Kosciusko MS. So I got to see Oprah’s birthplace on the occasion of my friend’s ordination. Hmmm ………. interesting. Whatever you think about Oprah, or what she does, she is an amazing person and an amazing phenomenon.

I guess I have preached Oprah’s quote for decades now. I hope that it has been helpful now and then. I have found it so in my life – but I also have to confess that I don’t listen to my own advice as much as I want to. This past Sunday, the Gospel at the Eucharist was the story of Jesus calling James, John, Peter and Andrew; they immediately leave their jobs and family and follow. This is a parable of Oprah’s words. The four disciples [i.e., students, learners] saw Love in the Flesh, and let go of the fears. Oprah said, “We can't become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” We need to fly, not just crawl. To fly we have to leap.

I’m heading into another adventure. I’ve had many in my life. But I admit that I haven’t approached them as primarily an opportunity to choose Love. I’m going to try to remember.

If you want to ponder some other things that Oprah has said:

Surround yourself with only people
who are going to lift you higher. [and be a Lifter!]

The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the
complete person you were intended to be.

Brian+

2008-01-27T20:01:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, January 28, 2008

It's really clear to me that you can't hang
onto something longer than its time. Ideas
lose certain freshness, ideas have a shelf life,
and sometimes they have to be replaced by
other ideas.

- Alphonso D'Abruzzo, born on this day, 1936

Yep yep yep. It always changes. That’s how God teaches us “by sending us the Holy Spirit”. That’s how Life draws us on the journey of knowing why we are here. Ideas do have a shelf life. After their due date, they just become millstones around our necks, dragging us down, drowning us in the mire of a miserable status quo which can only produce stagnation.

Think about this today. Evolving is the only way to become human. Life is about being taught, about learning. Life is about developing from an infant brain that has to be completely taken care of to becoming a person who can make her/his own observations and decisions. Who contributes to the wonder of the human community by contributing her/his own wisdom to the common good.

Alphonso D’Abruzzo???

Alan Alda - Hawkeye on M.A.S.H.

Brian+

2008-01-24T19:07:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, January 25, 2008

Here's A Bottle

Here's a bottle and an honest friend !
What wad ye wish for mair, man ?
Wha kens, before his life may end,
What his share may be o' care, man ?

Then catch the moments as they fly,
And use them as ye ought, man :
Believe me, happiness is shy,
And comes not aye when sought, man.

- Robbie Burns, Scottish poet, born on this day, 1759

Ah! My friends Marty and Gilly will be lifting a glass to Burns on this Burns Night – and maybe eating haggis! Marty is wonderful at “declaring” Burns’ Address to the Haggis! Don’t turn up your nose until you’ve tried it – I love haggis. Though I was once giggled at by a B&B hostess on Loch Awe, who was a little taken aback that I wanted it for ….. breakfast. (With blood pudding and eggs etc – yum!)

A bottle and an honest friend. How important conviviality and friendship to help us through Life and “what [our] share may be o’care”.

Burns says, Live in the moment. That’s what I am going to try and do more in the future. So much of our Life goes by unnoticed and unappreciated and unengaged. And yet Life offers so much.

Simple. That’s one of the great delights of Burn’s poetry and song.

Hail to the Haggis!!

Brian+

2008-01-23T16:18:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, January 24, 2008

Listen to the sound of water.
Listen to the water running through the chasms and rocks.
It is the minor streams that make a loud noise;
the great waters flow silently.

The hollow resounds and the full is still.
Foolishness is like a half-filled pot;
the wise person is a lake full of water.

- Sutta Nipata 720-721

“The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” We most all know that little proverb, yes? And of course, it might be true that the squeaky wheel needs the grease! I suspect that the “squeaky wheel” – the complainer, the whiner, the legalist, etc – is like the “minor stream” making a “loud noise”. They - or we, when we are squeaking - are a “resounding hollow”, empty in some or many ways like a “half-full pot”. Something important is missing.

I wonder if, when we are being a squeaky wheel making our way through the chasms and rocks of Life, we can ever hear ourselves the loud noise we are making, and know that there is a problem we have to deal with. Or, can we learn? Just a thought. I would think that if we are taking our Journey seriously, especially the inner one, we ought to be able to learn to listen to our inner streams. But, I guess we often need help!

A lake can either be “natural” or it can be created. Could it be that sometimes we need to build strategic dams in the right inner places? Dams of “spiritual” practice that allow the full still silent “lake” to be created at our centre, holding in wisdom? This makes for Unsqueaky Wheels. And when needed, the sluices can be opened and healing waters judiciously poured out on whatever needs renewing.

Resounding hollow, or still lake?

Brian+

2008-01-23T08:30:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

- Derek Walcott, poet, playwright, born on this
day, 1930, in St. Lucia, Windward Islands,
Lesser Antilles (Nobel Prize in Literature 1992)

I remember the first and only time I went to St. Lucia. I was on a launch. Like so many of my travels in the Caribbean, and especially while I lived in Nicaragua, I felt as if I were in a living National Geographic tableau. Or a Hemingway novel. This was in the 70’s. St. Lucia was lovely then, quiet and simple. I’m not sure I would like it so much now, from what I hear about the tourist trade.

I remember reading Walcott when I was there. And I seem to remember a plaque on some building or in some government museum about Derek Walcott.

“Sit. Feast on your life.” This is such a poignant poem, such a touching captured feeling. The end of a love affair – though I wonder if, no, I think they never “end”. Good or bad, they become part of our being, our experience, our makeup. Certainly they influence how we respond later to Life and Love.

I think any true love affair has to be “self-effacing”, perhaps “self-forgetful”. One has to give oneself to the other person. But, self-effacing is not – and never should be – self-denying or self-negating. One always has to have something to give. Neither person can get “lost” in the relationship. Or there isn’t one – not an authentic one. True with people, and true with the Mystery we call God.

If Love doesn’t last, perhaps it is because one did not first love oneself. One’s amazing gift of Life.

Interesting Walcott would say, “Give bread. Give wine.” - to oneself. Just as Christians offer bread and wine to God, and God gives Herself back in it. Yes, God and we, like all lovers, are in a sense One.

Brian+

2008-01-21T20:04:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, January 22, 2008

“All is Vanity”, Saith the Preacher

Fame, wisdom, love, and power were mine,
And health and youth possessed me;
My goblets blushed from every vine,
And lovely forms caressed me;
I sunned my heart in beauty’ eyes,
And felt my soul grow tender;
All earth can give, or mortal prize,
Was mine of regal splendour.

I strive to number o’er what days
Remembrance can discover,
Which all that life or earth displays
Would lure me to live over.
There rose no day, there rolled no hour
Of pleasure unembittered;
And not a trapping decked my power
That galled not while it glittered.

The serpent of the field, by art
And spells, is won from harming;
But that which soils around the heart,
Oh! who hath power of charming?
It will not list to wisdom’s lore,
Nor music’s voice can lure it;
But there it stings for evermore
The soul that must endure it.

- George Gordon, Lord Byron
born on this day, 1788

“But that which soils around the heart.” I know what mine is, that “that which soils”. Do you know yours? The World is full of tempters and temptresses, charming, delightful. I have nothing against the delights of earthly life – except perhaps that some hoard them and deny them to others. But they, those things, are as ephemeral as the mist. The pleasure they offer is fantasy. My, don’t I sound old fashioned! But it’s true.

I do not agree with Byron, charmer though he was, that the usurper cannot be dislodged; that it does not yield to any wisdom or music or power. It yields to Charity – to that sweet caring for others which delights the soul more than any other false idol, and lifts us to Bliss.

Go on! Believe!

Brian+

2008-01-21T06:21:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, January 21, 2008
Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money
on military defense than on programs of social uplift is
approaching spiritual doom.

I think we’ve arrived. What do you think?

Almost always, the creative dedicated
minority has made the world better.

And it cost a lot, often their lives.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

I/we need to remember this.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor;
it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Alas; true. Think how this dehumanizes the oppressor.

Human salvation lies in the hands of
the creatively maladjusted.

“Fools for Christ” ??

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted,
every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places
will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed
and all flesh shall see it together.

May we all be dreamers.

- Quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.

Brian+

2008-01-20T13:37:00.001-08:00

Sermon for: January 20, 2008 [Epiphany II A Brian McHugh, priest & vicar
[Is 49:1-7][Ps 40:1-12][I Cor 1:1-9][Jn 1:29-42]

“Here He is, God’s Passover Lamb!” These are the words of John the Baptizer the day after he had baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. And the day after that, the same words: “Here He is, God’s Passover Lamb”. This time, two of John’s disciples leave him and go after Jesus. They spend the evening with Him. And after that short time, Andrew goes to find his brother Peter and says to him, “We have found the Messiah!” That day, Simon becomes Peter, the rock. He becomes a symbol – of what? That God’s Kingdom of Love and Salvation will be built on those, no matter how weak, denying or even betraying, who are open to being cleansed from sin and who say “yes” to the call from God.

“Here He is, God’s Passover Lamb! What would the people around John have thought when they heard these words and their odd association? What should come to our minds if we know the Scriptures well enough? What should come to mind are these words from Exodus[1]:

“Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family … your lamb shall be without blemish … You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the lamb that same night ….. This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand ….. It is the passover of the Lord ….. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you …”

By the early 2nd century, John’s Gospel finally went from aural to written form. It’s writers had come to see a connection between what God had done at the time of the flight of the people of Israel from Egypt and what God had done in Jesus. Think about it. God’s people are yet again in bondage, not just to the Romans but, more critically, to their sins. God sends John the Baptist, like Moses, to prepare them for liberation. As John says[2], “my task has been to get Israel ready to recognize him as the God-Revealer. That is why I came here baptizing with water, giving you a good bath and scrubbing sins from your life so you can get a fresh start with God.”

And then comes Jesus. He preached the Kingdom of God and the Gospel of Salvation. He, like the Passover lamb, was killed and His blood was shed. I can see these followers of Jesus making connections as they think and pray and talk. What is the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection? A light, flowing from their ancient experience as God’s people, illumines their minds and hearts. Somehow, His death or shedding of blood on the cross, in some mysterious way, protects them from the judgment they might be under at having disappointed God[3], just as the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts protected the Israelites from the plagues.

No wonder that the followers of Jesus would develop, at the centre of their life, a shared meal – as the Passover meal had first been and continued to be - in which they ate the “flesh” and drank the “blood” of Jesus. They ate this spiritual food, remembering how God had always saved them. They remembered how Jesus had associated the Passover unleavened bread and the cup with His Body and Blood. Even the Gentiles later were able to see and understand the glorious work of salvation that God was always doing. Still today, when Christians gather to share the Eucharistic meal, we give thanks that God keeps breaking the bonds of the power of sin and death. God keeps freeing us to live and to grow into the fullness of our humanity and into the fullness of the Christ Who dwells within each of us.

I remember an old hymn: “Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power / Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb / Are your garments spotless, are they white as snow / Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb/ Are you washed, are you washed / In the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb / Are your garments spotless, are they white as snow / Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb.”

It’s a gory and not very Episcopalian image! But in a very graphic, symbolic way, it goes right to the heart of the fact that God is constantly calling us to get a fresh start with Him. To be free. To escape every bondage, every slavery, every oppressor.

But there’s another part. The People of Israel were told, “This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand ….. “. Having been prepared for freedom, we are to be ready to move quickly towards whatever Promised Land God points to. The “Promised Land” is not a physical place. It is somewhere we are called to build God’s Kingdom. It may be our own heart. It may be our own family or community or country. It may be Darfur, or Iran, or the United States Congress or the Pinal County Jail or anywhere that the compassion and justice of God is needed. And, having blessed us, God has called us to go as ambassadors of that Love.

Paul calls the Corinthians “believers cleaned up by Jesus and set apart for a God-filled life”. He assures them that “God is right alongside to keep you steady and on the track”. The same is true of us. God is there to help us overcome all prejudices that separate us from each other, especially through willful choices that only pander to our fears. God is right alongside, inviting everyone into the fold. Paul says to them that the “evidence of Christ has been clearly verified in your lives”; so it must be in ours if we want to claim or be worthy of the name “Christian”.

The Collect reminds us of our call and destiny: to “shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory”. That light is the light of seeing in every human being the image of our loving God. And treating them as such.

[1] Ex 12:1-14, read on Maundy Thursday
[2] The Message, John 1
[3] Expressed as “Christ died for our sins”, or “Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the World”.

2008-01-18T18:18:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, January 19, 2008

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

- Edgar Allen Poe, born on this day, 1809
(and died when he was 40)

I have a little book. In it, I write down phrases I find that would make good titles for a book or a chapter of a book or a Reflection. I have written down tonight, “the summer dream beneath the tamarind tree”. And, “treasure in the jeweled sky”. Lovely. Up till now, I have about 85 books to write.

How many young people today would know what Diana and her car were all about? Or what/who a Hamadryad or a Naiad was?? I don’t want to sound pissy, but I knew what they were before I left my regular old public High School in Verdun. When I listen to young people today ………. well, anyway, forget it, I don’t want to sound like “older adults” just yet! But I do think most public education stinks.

Is this poem a lament? I rather hope that Poe was poking fun. Poking fun at the silly people who thought that Lady Science had somehow killed the Muse of Poetry. I’ll tell you who killed the Muse of Poetry and the World of Summer Dreams under the Tamarind Tree.

Literalists. They’ve become the serial killers of countless victims, of which Poe names only a few. God is among them. And fairies. And wizards. And dragons that talk. And even the magical worlds under the tamarind trees. Against which modern Literalists rant and rave, often disguised as religionists.

Not for me, laddies! I exalt Lady Science. She has shown me What Is – and so freed my mind and spirit to see the wonders that flit and dance among the atoms and inhabit the parallel World of Mysteries.

Lady Science has not stolen my summer dream beneath the tamarind trees. She made me a gift of them!

Brian+

2008-01-17T20:27:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, January 18, 2008

An opening in the storming sea,
Gold deposited on bones.
Once accumulation has begun,
Take care not to interfere.

- Deng Ming Dao

This quote relates to a story of a pious man whose father died. A geomancer told him to bury the casket at a place in the sea which was only accessible once in a hundred years. A family who did this would experience great fortune. The son threw the casket there. Then he regretted it. Encouraged by a rival geomancer, he soon retrieved it. Opening the casket, he saw that his father’s bones were very thinly covered with gold. Realizing the potential, he wanted to throw it back.

Too late.

A parable of Life, yes?

I read this story years ago. We don’t know how much time we have. Or where we will be. Or what we will be doing. These things are likely, especially these days, to change. But Life is a work in progress. Something you have to keep working on, fine-tuning. I remember thinking - Whatever the tools I have to work with, in whatever setting, my goal is to keep working on my Life and to keep at it until, to use a Biblical image, the dross has been refined into pure gold. (I forget; so I need to be reminded!)

We may see little happening on a daily basis. But keep at it. Be patient, and trusting. Especially in seeking “holy wisdom”.

“Once accumulation has begun / Take care not to interfere.”

Brian+

2008-01-16T20:16:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, January 17, 2008

Dedicate some of your life to others.
Your dedication will not be a sacrifice.
It will be an exhilarating experience
because it is an intense effort applied
toward a meaningful end.

- Dr. Thomas Dooley, author, born
on this day, 1927, in St. Louis MO

A controversial figure. He was a dedicated doctor in Laos. There was an attempt to “make him a saint” in the Roman Catholic Church. It failed. He was reported to have betrayed people in Laos to the CIA. Sigh. People are complicated.

However. Tom Dooley is right. Jesus said it another way: “If you seek to keep your life, you will lose it; if you are willing to lose your life, you will keep it to eternity”. I’m a very “self-sufficient“ private” person. I could spend my life alone in a cabin in the woods. But fortunately I was drawn to a life that involved me with people – and a Christian life that called me to minister to others, to reach out to others. It’s been a challenge, but it definitely has been exhilarating. I know that my humanity has been completed by “the other”.

One has to remember though: we will never have the courage or the freedom to dedicate some of our life to others if we don’t respect our own self. Jesus could give Himself for others because He knew how deeply He was loved.

Feed your own soul. There will be much to give.

Brian+

2008-01-15T16:46:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Go and wake up your cook.

- Arab proverb

I love proverbs. I have always found the [Biblical] Book of Proverbs one of the most interesting things to read. Proverbs are a distillation of a people’s wisdom and experience.

Well I remember hearing about a Scottish neighbor of mine when I was a boy. Someone mentioned to her the proverb, “If you can’t remember what you were going to say, it must have been a lie.” She responded, in a strong Scots accent, backed by good Presbyterian upbringing, “Oh no; if it had been a lie, the devil would have helped you with it.”

“Go and wake up your cook.” Wonderful proverb. Life. We lie awake at night worrying. We procrastinate. We invent all kinds of scenarios about the outcome of things that make us afraid. We wonder if we are capable, or creative enough, or smart enough, or brave enough. Etc. Meanwhile becoming more and more paralyzed.

“Divine Grace” is an antidote for all this self-doubt. As is the proposition that we are “made in the image of God”. Whether you look without or within, Wisdom tells us to open ourselves to the Mystery, to trust, to take the first step along the path of whatever journey we long to make. We’ll get where we want to go.

Don’t hang back in doubt.

“Go and wake up your cook.”

Brian+

2008-01-14T20:13:00.002-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Drought burns basins to dust,
Light rain is a dew of mockery.
Receive without complaint,
Work with fate.

- Taoist thought

Before writing this Reflection, I am standing at the stove waiting for my wonderful espresso stove-top pot to do its thing. I love this pot! It was a gift from a dear friend, bought on the day that several of us friends sat in the Café FIorian in Venice and drank wonderful coffee and ate “sinfully” good pastries (at ridiculously sinful prices!). I’m dreading the day that I accidently drop it in the sink and the top part, which is porcelain, embossed with the crest of the Café Florian, smashes.

One tries to be careful. But. Things happen. Even being too careful can be counter-productive. A pot gripped too tightly can go flying off. It’s the same with Life gripped too tightly – one’s own or another’s.

Where did the phrase “Go with the flow” come from? Oh, I know that one has to take some responsibility for making appropriate decisions. Including not making certain decisions.

I think I am going to take a stab, on regular intervals, at Living in the Flow. It seems to me that there is a great Mystery in the “Flow”. An antidote to the stresses of control, which is, for the most part, a fool’s hope.

No – there has to be an art in Going with the Flow. Like flow-blue china, it makes for very interesting non-perfection.

Hey, you know, I feel better already!

Time for demi-tasse #2. With maybe an Italian biscuit.

Brian+

2008-01-14T20:13:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, January 14, 32006

By respect for life we become religious in a
way that is elementary, profound and alive.

Impart as much as you can of your spiritual
being to those who are on the road with you,
and accept as something precious what comes
back to you from them.

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire
goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter
with another human being. We should all be thankful
for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

- Albert Schweitzer, born on this day, 1875

Well, a few quotes from Dr. Schweitzer on this his 133rd birthday. (Irrelevantly, my maternal grandmother celebrates her 133rd earthly birthday this year – though she is ….. elsewhere!)

“Religious” means to be bound to something, something hopefully positively nurturing towards humanity, ours and others’. “Respect for Life” is a good start. The point to remember here is that it all has to be balanced. Abortion, for example. Abortion is a very sad thing in the human community. Everyone wants (I think) to respect the developing life of a fetus. But the problem around abortion is not, I think, going to be solved until respect for the life and rights of women is also addressed with some of the same passion.

We think that we can’t “give away” ourselves to others, especially strangers. The history of “spiritual” life shows that “imparting as much of your spiritual being” only helps the giver grow.

And thank God for all those wonderful people, friends and strangers, who come often unexpected into our lives and give us new life.

I’ve had a life that has allowed me to walk these paths. I’m grateful.

May today be filled with respect for life, outpouring of yourself, and kindling spirits!

Brian+

2008-01-13T13:27:00.000-08:00

Sermon for: January 13, 2008 [Epiphany 1_Baptism of Christ
Brian McHugh, priest & vicar
[Is 42:1-9][Ps 29][Acts 10:34-43][Matt 3:13-17]

I often hear human beings begging God to help them. And I often hear people complaining that God doesn’t help them. Yet it seems to me that one of the major problems in our relationship with God is that we reject God and what God wants to do, will do, or can do for us. Given what a relationship with God can mean for our lives, I am not surprised.

What happens to Jesus when he comes to John in the wilderness to be baptized happens to Him a lot. [1] Matthew presents Jesus as someone Who knows that God has sent Him to bring the message of salvation to God’s people. In a very public setting where many will see it, Jesus comes to John to be baptized with John’s baptism of water for repentance so that He can publically begin His ministry and preach His Gospel. But John says No. John says, “I need to be baptized by You; why would You be coming to me?”[2] Jesus has to tell John to do it. Jesus has to make it clear that John must allow Jesus to, in a sense, serve him if God’s purpose is to be fulfilled.

This will happen again and again. Jesus comes to His friends Mary and Martha because their brother Lazarus had died. When Jesus is told that His friend Lazarus is deathly ill, He doesn’t go directly to him. He knows what He will do and the effect it will have. When Jesus arrives at Martha and Mary’s, He says He will go to Lazarus’s grave. By their reactions, the sisters gently show that they are not ready to accept what Jesus can offer. One says that she knows that if Jesus had come earlier her brother would not have died – and that he will rise again on the last day. The other reminds Him that Lazarus has been dead for days. Dead is dead. They wonder how Jesus can help, but perhaps because they have been friends they have some hope.

And Peter of course. I think there is a telling reason why Peter is the chief of the apostles. He is so very human, so very like us. At the last meal that they share together, Jesus washes the disciples’ feet. He has something very important to teach them by doing so. But you remember Peter’s answer: “No, Lord”, You will never wash my feet!” Pushing Jesus away. The hesitancy of those close to Jesus not to allow Him to minister to them is heightened by the fact that so many strangers in real need do let Him touch them and heal them and give them new life though both His acts and His teachings.

What about you and me? Are we open to the ways in which God-in-Christ can serve us, help us? My experience is that often we are not. Is it because we think we are unworthy, consciously or unconsciously? This could be one reason. Lots of people in Scripture thought so. And many of the ones who thought they were worthy, like the religious establishment, are pretty unpleasant.

This is where the Mystery of the Incarnation comes in. Its mythical-message is that God chooses to come and live among us and share in our humanity. This is a pretty improbable message, especially if we think that we are not worth it. We are fallible, often uncaring, unloving, selfish, thoughtless people. Why would the God of Unconditional Love want to share in our humanity? But the Mystery of The Incarnation says that God does. And our liturgy teaches us this too. There is that lovely line in our present Book of Common Prayer, in Eucharistic Prayer B: “In Him You have delivered us from evil, and made us worthy to stand before You”. This is the amazing message of “Christ-in-Us”.

But maybe there’s a second reason we don’t really want to embrace the message, worthy or not. Baptism is a sacrament that plunges us into the waters of Incarnation. Baptism requires of us that we accept the God Who shares our Life, and that we live our lives accordingly. Baptism requires of us that we accept our worthiness, and let God minister to us, pronounce us worthy. But the problem is - this will change us. This will ask us to strive, each in our own unique way, by our own determination and aided by grace, to be the person God created us to be - like Him, like His Christ. This is scary. Most of the time most of us prefer the devil we know to the devil we don’t. And so we put up with a World that can get pretty messy and discouraging. We make do with muddling along. It’s too challenging to think about being healed or changed or given new life. Like John, like Peter, like Mary & Martha, we often reach out for, but at the same time push God away. When Jesus asked John to baptize Him, the people would see that this was a serious issue. Baptism was not just something to do because everyone was doing it; not just something to do to hedge our bets about staying on God’s good side while living the same old way.

If we let God serve us, if we let God be our Saviour and Liberator and Messiah, it’s a serious business. We must grow and change. We must let go of old ideas which limit our own personal lives and our understanding of family, community and culture. We will embrace new ideas about neighbor, family, friendship, male & female, dignity, respect, poverty, war, mortality, gender roles, success, greatness - all those things that Jesus’ teachings are full of.

Jesus says to John about the baptism: "Do it. God's work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism." Oh yes: the baptism of Jesus is the opening salvo of Jesus’ Gospel and Messiahship. It’s going to be a bumpy ride if we choose to take up our Cross and follow Him and become fully human. But I know what I want. And believe me, we all would have more glorious lives and a more blessed human community is we really opened our hearts and lives to the God Who serves us in Love.

Remember what Gandhi said when asked what he thought of Christianity. He said, “I think is a wonderful thing; I hope someone tries it sometime.” I hope we/you all know from coming to worship how much we are loved. Let’s us “try it”, take the next steps towards letting God serve us, heal us, give us Life.

[1] As the Rev. Barbara Crafton says
[2] Matt 3:13

2008-01-11T18:37:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, January 12, 2008

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.

- Jack London, author, born Jack Griffith on
this day in San Francisco, 1876

The issue of when to die – and, by corollary, the issue of what is Life and how to live it - is becoming, I think, the issue of the age. At least in countries that have the whatever that allows such questions to come to the fore. I suspect that if you are scrabbling for potato peels in Darfur, there are other things to think about.

As a priest, I often ask people what they want to do when Life becomes difficult, or when the “quality of Life” becomes unacceptable. No one, no one, has ever said to me, “I am going to do everything I can to stay alive, no matter how horrible or painful Life is”. Never. Almost everyone I ask says, “When there is no quality to my life as I determine it, I am out of here”. Some have ways they are planning, others have no clue. Only a couple of people have ever said that they are dealing with the issue of whether or not it is wrong to end one’s life – and they were both former Roman Catholics, who were clearly taught that “suicide” was a sin that would merit Hell.

When people ask me the question, I say – with a smile, and with humour, and with a hint of slyness, and a hint of avoidance, “It’s a huge pitcher of Black Russians and the hot tub for me!” Indeed, my friend Sheldon and I have a giddy pact.

I’m not going to pontificate on this. Simply, it is an issue we are all going to have to deal with, at a stage when “modern medicine” can keep us biologically alive for years in a coma.

How as a boy I loved “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London, first serialized in the Saturday Evening Post” in 1903!! I think I read it several times. I am in agreement with Mr. London. When I will die, or how, is not a primary worry of my life. Agatha Christie, who died on this day in 1976, once said, I live now on borrowed time, waiting in the anteroom for the summons that will inevitably come. And then - I go on to the next thing, whatever it is. One doesn't, luckily, have to bother about that. I’m with her too; all I really know about the Afterlife is that it resides in the presence of a good and loving Creator – so who’s to worry. Things will get gently and justly sorted out then.

As London says, the point – especially in our times with all out technology – is not to exist but to live. And to live honestly. “Retirement”, for me, will be not about “length of days” in unemployed bliss. It will be about recklessly spending my life being myself and doing what I believe to be important. Like Dom Odo Cassel, I hope to drop dead at the altar having just proclaimed the Easter Gospel.

So who wouldn’t want to retire?! You can do just as much “using your time” poor or rich or with whatever resources you have.

Brian+

2008-01-10T21:15:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, January 11, 2008

The god whom science recognizes must be a God of
universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale,
not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his
processes to the convenience of individuals.

- William James, philosopher, born on this day, 1842

“Whom science recognizes”? Oh no. Whom theology recognizes. Whom common sense recognizes. Whom Justice recognizes. Whom Compassion recognizes.

There are few things more repugnant to me than a concept or understanding of God which says that God gives or refrains from giving things to people by arbitrary choice. Like health, or illness. If I ever did believe it – and I doubt it – I certainly do not believe it now. Nor do I believe that God is in the “retail” business of rewarding the Good and punishing the Bad.

“God” does only one thing. Offer the light of truth and reality to our lives. Another way to say it: Be with us in whatever Valley of the Shadow of Death or Valley of Delights we walk. Why? To show us the way to Charity and to Wholeness. The choice is ours. God does not force anything on us. God is never about force or coercion. In the end, where we end up is our own choice, our own acceptance or rejection.

There are a lot of expressions of “religion” these days which promulgate a “retail” God.

I just laugh, if ruefully.

Brian+

2008-01-09T17:51:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, January 10, 2008

But when he came to the side of the table where the bread and wine were, he bowed himself seven times, and then, after the reading of many prayers by himself ….. he himself came near the bread ….. and then bowed very low three times towards it and the table ….. Then he laid his hand upon the gilt cup, which was full of wine, with a cover open it. So soon as he had pulled the cup a little nearer to him, he let the cup go, flew back and bowed again three times towards it.

- William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, on his feast day (died 1645)

Well, one should always have a little amusement now and then! Here in all his finery is William Laud, who was Archbishop of Canterbury under King Charles II. In a virulently (my adjective! – does this expose my leanings???) Puritan age, he was strongly “catholic” in his devotional and theological leanings. The description above was, of course, written by one of his most virulent Puritan foes. Anyway, Laud managed to become bishop of three dioceses and then of Canterbury. He had several Puritans who “vilified” either him or his ideas horribly mutilated (ears chopped off and noses split) and imprisoned. And now he is a “saint” in the Anglican and Episcopal Kalendar. “Saint” means, to “us”, someone striving to live their faith with commitment and devotion. Shows you how irenic we Anglicans are – or were, until the Episcopal Church-bashing Third-Worlders ….. well, never mind. Laud was eventually clapped into the Tower and executed. Hence a “martyr” - though I think he would have shuddered at the thought of many virgins as a reward, being in essence a prig.

Laud, by the way, is the man who gave us either the gift or the curse of the altar rail. He put one up in Canterbury Cathedral to keep the wandering livestock and their imprudent manners away from the altar. (So the story goes.)

What about those ecclesiastical duds of his! Especially the hat – known as a “Canterbury Cap”. I was contemplating whether or not I should affect this style. On reflection ….. no. However, it is reported that Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury under Queen Elizabeth, was installed to his office wearing a “cassock of light black wool and a floor-length tippet (preaching scarf) of sable fur”. More my style.

Have a laugh. What a bunch we are!

Brian+

2008-01-08T17:23:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, January 9, 2008

The best index to a person's character is(a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and(b) how he treats people who can't fight back.

- “Dear Abby” (Abigail Van Buren), whose
column began on this day, 1956

Hang on gang. This will be a little ….. brusque.

“The poor” are a good example of those who meet both categories. Which is why Jesus had so much to say about how “the poor” are treated. He wasn’t just saying it was “nice” to be concerned about the poor. Or optional. He was saying that we are judged by it on the scale of integrity, character, humanity.

The “Poor” includes a lot of categories.

Which is why torture is so profoundly, shockingly disgusting. In my view as a Christian, anyone who tortures – for whatever reason or justification or rationalization - automatically becomes sub-human. Apparently many people, including in America, seem willing to justify it. Or to accept their sub-humanity in the face of terrorism.

Now. Can you imagine Jesus saying, “This woman doesn’t believe in my religion, and if she doesn’t she is going to hell, so we had better put her on the rack until she accepts me as Lord and Saviour” ?

Many of Jesus’ followers over the millennia have done so, including many in America these days who claim that they are followers of the Prince of Peace and that America is a “Christian Nation”, but who support torture.

Let’s get real folks. Can you see Jesus as a torturer? Recall what He said, “What you do to the least of these, you do to Me”. As I understand it, “the least of these” includes what Abby calls those “who can’t do us any good” or those who as prisoners “can’t fight back”. There are a lot of people who fall into those categories – but I shall refrain from naming any lest I be accused of “politicizing”.

But you know who they are.

Brian+

2008-01-08T17:23:00.000-08:00

2008-01-07T19:40:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, January 8, 2008

The image is one thing and the human being is another.
It's very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.

- Elvis Presley, born on this day, 1935

Well, Elvis hits it right on the head, yes? I’m sure he was just thinking of himself – what he had to deal with in terms of being Elvis, and what his fans expected him to be. At some level or other, every one of us has to confront this issue. Who are we. Are we being ourselves, or are we letting others “tell us” who they want us to be. How much time do we spend trying to meet others’ expectations?

Christianity, along with other religions, really ups the ante! We are called to be Christlike! Now, if that doesn’t make you feel stressed, nothing will.

But let’s think about this. We seem to think that being Christlike means we have to be exactly like Jesus, behave exactly as He did, love exactly as He did. I don’t think so. There isn’t only one image or definition of “Christlike”. And it doesn’t mean that to be Christlike we can’t be ourselves, the unique self that God made each of us. What it does mean – to me anyway – is that we become “as Christ” in our own unique and individual way. Jesus’ great love may have led Him to a death on Calvary, led him to the Cross - but each of us will have our own “Calvary” and our own “Cross” on the path to becoming a loving human being.

An imposed “image” is false. An “image” discovered in the mystery of finding our unique Self , and embraced, is more what I think God had in mind.

Elvis – and it happens to many – got lost in the expectations of others. Let’s not go there.

Brian+

2008-01-06T20:52:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, January 7, 2008

From somewhere in the skies above us come, from time to time,
flaming discs and weird phenomena. What are they? Whence
have they come?

- Voiceover for “Buck Rogers” radio show (1939); the comic
book series started on this day, 1929

Zowie! I remember Buck Rogers. He had been going 17 years before I was born! I think I remember listening to the radio program at night in bed. Could that be right? Would they have had it on so we little kids going to bed could listen? I seem to remember “The Shadow” at that time too.

I am a complete devotee of “science fiction”. I have all the Star Wars DVD’s, and I watch reruns of Star Trek (in any version) whenever I can. I like thinking about what the future can possibly bring. In this sense sci-fi is like Scripture. They both hold out enticing possibilities for us humans. Most sci-fi is hopeful – it is optimistic that we can grow and develop in positive ways. The humans in Star Trek have “done away” with religion (presumable because religion proved basically negative - a warning we need to hear!), but they always explored various aspects of religion in intelligent ways when met in other species.

“Flaming discs and weird phenomena”. We humans are fascinated! A huge numbers of people believe in ET’s, in flying saucers, in aliens. I don’t believe in any of them. But I do believe that we human beings want to become fully and gloriously human. “God” is a path to that becoming. What amazes me is that so many humans cling to gods who offer the opposite.

Give it up! Buck Rogers was a decent guy, fighting for fairness and justice against the forces of evil. We could do worse than emulate him!

Brian+

2008-01-06T11:55:00.000-08:00

Sermon for: January 6, 2008 [Epiphany]
[Is 60:1-6][Ps 72:1-7,10-14][Eph 3:1-12][Matt 2:1-12]
Brian McHugh, priest

Gold. Frankincense. Myrrh. These are the three gifts that the Magi brought to the young Jesus. They are believed to have been Medean priest-politicians from Parthia or Persia. Jesus was probably somewhere around one year old at the time. They stopped to ask the soon-to-be-dead King Herod, a non-Jew who had bought the office of king from the Romans, where the true “King of the Jews” might be found. I confess to an utter cynicism about anything politicians say, so it does not surprise me that Herod lies to them and uses them to try and ferret out what might be a threat to his power. And while there is no non-Scriptural corroboration, Herod’s reputation for ruthlessness might indeed have led him to the mass murder of children born in the timeframe the Magi indicate. Genocide on various levels is not a new thing. We are acutely aware in our contemporary World what horrors people in power will do to keep it.

Why does Matthew’s Gospel alone include this story, for which there is no parallel historical evidence? I side with those scholars who say that the Matthew version of the Gospel is keen to show that the birth of Jesus is not just of concern to the Jews, but for the whole World. The Magi were non-Jews, and so represent the larger World for Matthew. And St. Paul, in his words to the church in Ephesus, says that through him and through the Mystery of Christ revealed to him, “the Gentiles – more non-Jews - have become “fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers of the promise of Christ Jesus”.[1]

Whatever else the Magi came seeking, I deduce by the gifts they brought that they were both seeking and expecting someone unusual. They bring Gold as if to a king. They bring Frankincense as if to a great priest. They bring Myrrh, used in the embalming process of important persons. Yet they bring all these to a child born in a makeshift barn to poor Jewish peasants. Costly gifts to a man who would later be arrested and crucified after a year of two as an itinerant practically homeless preacher. A man who in no worldly sense was anything kingly, anything of importance in the religious establishment, or anything worth the costly process of embalming. What are we to make of all this?

Yes, of course – Matthew’s message of a Divine Saviour for the whole World, revealed in the child Jesus, is deeply important. That’s easy to see. In my view, there isn’t a human being who at some time in her life doesn’t sense the need for a power to get us through Life’s challenges or to confront the power of evil. St. Paul’s famous cry of “The things I don’t want to do I find myself doing; Who will save me?” rings in our ears. The Persian Magi, the bright light or star in the sky, the splendor of the gifts, even the contrast between Herod and Jesus as a leader deserving our loyalty, all help to emphasize the importance of this child.

But I believe that the Magi, appropriately known as the “Wise” Men, have an equally important message for every human person, and particularly for those of us who have answered the call to follow Jesus and proclaim His Gospel.

The story of the Incarnation of Jesus the Son of God to a human mother by the power of the divine Holy Spirit is what I call a “truth story”. In this case, a truth-story about us. It points to the truth that what makes us human is the indwelling of God. That every human being, as the second story of Creation[2] teaches us, is composed of the "dust of the earth" and of the divine breath of God. Jesus Himself made this clear when He appeared in the Upper Room to His disciples. He breathed on them and said “Receive the Holy Spirit’. In doing this, He confirmed that we are fully human only when flesh and divine spirit become one. This is why the heart of our worship is the Eucharist, where we are given spiritual food and drink, Christ’s Body and Blood, the “true Bread which came down from Heaven”, food of the spirit to give life to the body.

Gold indicates Royalty, and Royalty reflects the majesty of all of us as human being - which is why kings and queens are called “Your Majesty”. Frankincense indicates Priesthood, even diety, which Scripture tells us we all share through the High Priesthood of Christ, and priesthood points to the intimate bond between flesh and spirit, between us and our Creator. Myrrh indicates preservation at death, and preservation points to the Mystery of Resurrection, of unending life in God.

The story of the Magi is also a “truth story”, seen in Nativity scenes and the Three Kings on Epiphany. It is to remind us that humanity needs to seek and know the compassionate God at the heart of us all. To remind us that we, like the Magi, are to honour the Christ of God who dwells in every human being; to honour the majesty and the godly nature of men and women - ourselves, each other, and all we meet.

Like the over-1000 mile journey of the Magi, becoming fully human is a challenge, often fraught with various Herods. But if we accept the journey of seeking the God Who breathes Life into us and makes us human, we join Mary and the Magi in showing the World where true Life and salvation are to be found – in the God of Love who makes a home with us.

[1] Eph 3
[2] Gen 2

2008-01-04T18:42:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, January 5, 2008

What is qualified? What have I been qualified for in
my life? I haven't been qualified to be a mayor. I'm
not qualified to be a songwriter. I'm not qualified to
be a TV producer. I'm not qualified to be a successful
businessman. And so, I don't know what qualified means.

- Senator Sonny Bono, who died on this day,
1998. Ran into a tree while skiing (some friends
of mine think it was the Mafia.)

Sonny Bono. Paired with Cher. Wonderful singing duo – at least I thought so. Cher so exotic. Sonny so ….. nerdy and wimpy. I thought it was a perfect symbol of how Life is. You just never know who will match with you. “Jack Spratt could eat no fat, his wife could no lean”. Or my partner and I – connected, both Cancers, same colour eyes - but so many differences.

Qualified? Most of us are not “qualified” for what we do! I wonder about our society some times. People spending multi-thousands to get educated. And what happens? They get “qualified” to be a lawyer, or a musician, or a mechanic. But they don’t get “qualified” be to be a human being. They get qualified to be a robot of service, on the assumption that this makes money. As if money is all we need to have a successful life.

Sad, sad, sad.

“Religion” should be about getting qualified to be human. It very often isn’t. But I’m committed. I spend my life trying to demonstrate how the relationship with “God” shows us how to be Human.

Don’t worry about getting “qualified” to “make a living”. Worry about what it is to be Human. Listen to the Gospel. Listen to the great teachings of the great spiritual teachers. They won’t tell you how to make money. They will tell you how to be your true Self.

“Qualification” resides in knowing what an authentic human being is. And by bringing that to what you do.

Brian+

2008-01-03T18:44:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, January 4, 2008

Don't wait for the last judgment - it takes place every day.

- Albert Camus, philosopher, who died on this day
in a car accident, 1960

Camus understood. As did Plato. As did Jesus. As did Jung. As have many. “Archetypes” (a typical, ideal, or classic example of something - Encarta Dictionary) are daily realities writ large. “God” is an archetype of the mystery of Life found in all things. “Heaven” is an archetype of the Life Energy that never ceases. “The Body and Blood of Christ” is an archetype of the divine energy that sustains the heart of Life. “Satan” is the archetype of the mundane reality of evil choice and action. On and on it goes.

“The Last Judgment” is the archetype of the daily reality that we are judged by our behaviour as to the quality of our humanity. We are not to live our lives with furtive glances at a coming final judgment, hoping that we will manage to outwit the Judge. Rather, we are to live every day under the watchful eye of Compassion, of Kindness, of Generosity. At the quiet moment at every day’s end, or perhaps at any moment we make a decision, the Archetype of God the Judge blooms and shimmers before our eyes, holding out the scales upon which our character as a person is balanced. Every day, every day, “judgment” is a spirit shaping our growth in humanity.

Camus once said, “In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer”. Oh yes, we will survive the Judge. If we believe in the “invincible summer” of our divine beauty.

Our Life is assaulted in many ways and by many things. We are quick, we human beings, to damn ourselves - having been ill taught by mean-spirited religionists. But Jesus teaches a different standard. We are the Imago Dei. This is the “invincible summer”.

Nothing can overcome it. The “imago dei” is the archetype of the human person.

Never forget it. Thus remembering, you, we, will rise every day letting drop the burden of condemnation, and rise with healing in our wings to soar on the lightwinds of Trust.

What a World we could remake!

Brian+

2008-01-02T18:47:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, January 3, 2008

I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend
my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more.
For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of
heaven would be even worse.

- Isaac Asimov, thinker, poet, author, fantasist,
born on this day, 1920, in Russia.

I do believe in an “afterlife”. Well - not really an “afterlife”. More an “Ongoing Life”. And I appreciate the metaphors of all faiths about what it will be like. They are colourful and beautiful, as are most metaphors about It. And, as Asimov, who doesn’t fear It because he doesn’t believe in It, I don’t either, because I do believe in It, and Jesus has said it is pleasant.

The metaphors of Heaven are supposed to make us think that Heaven is lovely – and I do. I have no interest in the details; they are irrelevant. The Afterlife will be about Truth, and “seeing through a glass” clearly instead of darkly. And about the giddiness of glimpsing finally what the Journey Onward is a little bit about. We really can’t know here the Reality, unless perhaps our imagination is fresh. And it doesn’t really matter to me.

I am not a person who can appreciate “boredom”. And I have to say that Christianity has produced some pretty boring theological “pictures” about Heaven. Ugh. As have other faiths - including the Muslim one about hoards of Virgins. (A) it makes me shudder yet again about the inability of religion to deal sensibly about sex, and (B) I prefer the idea that, having died, the mystery of sex takes an integrated place in the total reality of Being.

Life goes on forever, in a glorious kaleidoscope of dimensions of Being. One should never fear it - nthat presents a picture of “God” that is perverse. You can only “go to Hell” if you choose it, metaphorically speaking - and God doesn’t want that! And Heaven, well, Heaven, it is the most wonderful and un-boring thing you can possibly imagine. Because God lets us design It!

Sharpen your wits, oh friends!

Brian+

2008-01-01T08:33:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, January 01, 2008

The conception of gods as superhuman beings endowed with powers to which
man possesses nothing comparable in degree and hardly even in kind, has been
slowly evolved in the course of history. By primitive peoples the supernatural
agents are not regarded as greatly, if at all, superior to man; for they may be frightened
and coerced by him into doing his will. At this stage of thought the world is viewed as a
great democracy; all beings in it, whether natural or supernatural, are supposed to stand
on a footing of tolerable equality. But with the growth of his knowledge man learns to
realise more clearly the vastness of nature and his own littleness and feebleness in presence
of it. The recognition of his helplessness does not, however, carry with it a corresponding
belief in the impotence of those supernatural beings with which his imagination peoples the
universe. On the contrary, it enhances his conception of their power.

- from “The Golden Bough”, by Sir James Frazer, born on this day,
1854, in Scotland

Well, here it is – 2008. I wish you many many blessings and curiosities and surprises and happinesses and wonders and challenges and mysteries!

I am definitely going to spend a lot of 2008 thinking about the Mystery we call “God”. And reading what others have had to say about It. I have picked through The Golden Bough over the years. I intend to read it all in 2008. I like Frazer’s phrase “a footing of tolerable equality”.

I am caught by Frazer’s idea that the more we sense our own “littleness and feebleness”, the more we abandon our sense of power and attribute more to “the gods”. Is this just an abdication of our responsibility and of our role as creators? Of the fact, as Christmas implies, we share the Divine Life??

So many questions, so little time! But the consolation is, there is always more to learn!

May 2008 be full for you of Amazement!

Brian+

2007-12-28T08:45:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, December 28, 2007

Presented by jazz lovers from all over the world.
this piano is the only one of its kind in the world and
expresses the great genius of a man who has never
played a melancholy note in his lifetime on a planet
that has often succumbed to despair".

- Silver plaque on the Steinway of Earl “Fatha” Hines,
musician & pianist, who was born on this day, 1903

Earl Hines was born in Duquesne PA. His father was a cornetist and his mother played church organ. Happily for the world, playing the cornet hurt him behind the ears. The piano didn’t. In 1927, Louis Armstrong replaced his wife as the band pianist with Hines. Together, they made what are regarded as some of the most important jazz recordings ever made.

Our planet is in despair – and has been for awhile. Benazir Bhutto’s assassination is but the latest savagery. And it’s going to be like this for a long time, I think. My own feeling is that the bottom line for it all is the determination by some to refuse freedom to others in order to protect their position and power.

Sometimes melancholy is, I feel, appropriate. All human feelings deserve acknowledgment. But I’m grateful for Earl Hines’ non-melancholic “notes”.

I wish that, with perhaps a nod to melancholy, the World’s religions would play faithfully “Fatha” Hines note of non-despair. For, in my view, much of Religion contributes to that despair by contributing to the power mongering which only exacerbates that despair. Jesus, in my opinion, did not want everyone to be made a Christian. He desires every human being genuinely to love and respect each other, and build a World community that meets melancholy and despair with the music of hope and trust.

Something I need to learn too.

Brian+

2007-12-26T08:02:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, December 26, 2007
[ Boxing Day ]

"ELEGY WRITTEN INA COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD"

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

…..The Epitaph

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melacholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God.

- Thomas Gray, poet, born on this day, 1716

It’s Boxing Day to us colonials of the Dominions. The day when the “upper classes” gave gifts to the “lower classes”. We shall assume that this was, in the culture of the times, thoughtful. An expression of gratitude towards those who made life “work” and comfortable.

I elide to the “box” we shall all be carried out in eventually. And I love Gray’s beautiful line as a simple symbol of what life shall have been: He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

Life is given us. May our bounty be great; our soul sincere. And the “friend from Heaven” walk with us.

Brian+

Grays elegy in full: http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Poetry/Elegy.htm

2007-12-23T18:46:00.003-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: December 24, 2007 (Christmas Eve)

The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality,
but morality touched by emotion.

- Matthew Arnold, English poet, author,
born on this day, 1822

“Morality” is just rules. It isn’t “religion”, a linking to Goodness. Morality is heartless. Morality is an instrument of control. Morality is inhuman, without feeling, except perhaps of meanness. The “moral majority”? Just a bunch of control freaks afflicted by an innate inability to appreciate being human.

The Incarnation? God with us, God in us, God “human”? “Morality touched by emotion”.

Morality will never make us human. Emmanuel will.

Brian+

2007-12-23T18:46:00.001-08:00

2007-12-20T20:25:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, December 21, 2007

God is not attained by a process of addition to
anything in the soul, but by a process of subtraction.

- Meister Eckhart, Christian mystic

True, true. Of course, an argument can be made for any statement as well as its opposite. As I see it, our goal in Life should be to die to this earthly life with utter simplicity of soul. Die with everything that has piled on to us through the voyage of our Life burned away, as it were by the “fuller’s fire”, or the dross removed, leaving only the refined gold.

Are we born encumbered? I think so, by the very nature of human life. Perhaps this is what is meant by “original sin”. We have this journey to make. On it, we gather to ourselves great lots of baggage, much of which we believe we must have in order to live, to succeed, to be happy. But I think that if we have had good teachers, we begin to learn as we age and mature, that Life and success and happiness are more readily found in Simplicity. Life itself has a way of being such a Teacher. Finally, we must learn that we can do without our body. All that will be left is pure energy, the “fire of God” at the heart.

It’s exactly the opposite of the bumper sticker theology that says, “(S)He who dies with the most toys wins.” And the question is, “Wins what?” And “Was it worth it?”

I don’t really think that we can avoid the contest. It’s kind of a given, the growing process we all have to work through. But, as the parable says, whenever or however we get there, “those who labored in the field only a short time were paid the same as those who labored through the heat of the day”. If it was “easy” for us and “hard” for some, we can’t grumble. Each of us has our own journey, and we are happy for all who manage it.

We are not alone. Known or not, God stays close. When needed, God is there, providing the gear we need at the critical moments. In the times of trail, look within. What we need is present. And from there will come the wisdom.

Brian+

2007-12-19T18:44:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, December 20, 2007

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant
planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away
in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there
are far more galaxies than people.

- Carl Sagan, scientist, teacher & author, who
died on this day, 1996, age 62

Are you feeling insignificant today? Useless? Dumb? Unproductive? A failure? Life meaningless?

Does Dr. Sagan’s quote make you feel worse?

It should make you feel better! It does me. You’d think that being where we are in the Universe, we’d be destined for the deepest pit of everything really awful. But not so.

The Senegalese poet and president, Leopold Senghor, died on this day, age 95, in 2001. I remember, a young pup of a monk of 25 or so, in the early 70’s, flying east into the night from London to Dakar airport, Senegal, on my way to Liberia. As is still true, there are great patches of blackness when flying over the World. I had heard of Dr. Senghor, and had bought a book of his poetry to read on the flight. I looked out of the window, to see the glittering lights of Dakar like a gauzy bright mushroom in the blackness.

Amazing, both the poetry and the vibrant life. Since those days, perhaps before, I find everything more and more amazing. Not just the technology, my cow-tissue aortic valve, wireless communication, all the “new” stuff. But perhaps even more, the “old” stuff. If I close my eyes, my grandmother’s garden is before me, and I wonder at those glorious gladioluses tall and bright, and the “wild” tiger lilies swaying in the wind.

I’m looking forward to getting older, however long or short that may be. I anticipate being more and more filled with amazement and delight, listening to a violin player on a summer evening in Cortona, watching the Space Station float by among the stars.

“Lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a Universe”?

Irrevelant.

Brian+

2007-12-18T18:13:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, December 19, 2007

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard
even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this
duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

- Thomas Paine, who published the first of his
“American Crisis” essays on this day, 1776

Jesus is recorded as saying, “Love your enemies”. Joseph Campbell, mythologist, said it was the most difficult, most challenging saying in the Gospel. Jesus had a reason for saying it, probably several. I believe that Jesus was making a point related to “Love your neighbor as yourself”, and to “Do unto others as you would have them do to you”. I believe it was a stern, wise, loving warning, one of the core things to pay attention to, to understand in all of its ramifications for human society.

Thomas Paine understood it, and obviously deeply respected it - and if you read Thomas Paine you will see that he was a stern critic of “church”. He once wrote, “All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.” Oh, I’ve probably quoted him “out of context”. However, I think he valued the Gospel, but not what men and women had made of it. We need to pay attention to his warning, especially in our times.

Would you want to be waterboarded? Kept awake long hours in extreme cold or heat? Or any of the other things some people in our government and land seem to be trying to justify for our “enemies”? And oh yes, we do have enemies, those who wish us harm. This does not negate the point. Both Jesus and Thomas Paine make the point that what we are willing to do to fellow human beings - for whatever reasons we might think justified - “establishes a precedent that will reach to himself”.

The spiral of inflicting inhuman and inhumane pain on others only spirals downward - eventually probably to us. The rejection of Jesus’ command, even in time of war, only encourages humanity to a descent into barbarism ….. the result can only be terror. Paine wrote, “He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.” We and others are bleeding from self-inflicted wounds.

My prayer this holy season is that every human being will begin to pray for, and begin to love, our “enemy”. It does not mean we condone unloving acts. But that we all might be led to make peace, not war.

Brian+

2007-12-17T18:56:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 (corrected; ignore the one below)

I honour those who try
to rid themselves of any lying,
who empty the self
and have only clear being there.

- Rumi, Sufi poet

One of the things I liked about being a monk was the period of self-examination at Compline, the last monastic office (common prayer) of the day. I think people probably didn’t like it when I was the Officiant. Because I always left a relatively long pause for the self-examination. It was a time of utter quiet, the chapel hopefully in softened light. And there was always something ….. well, sensible about taking a few minutes to look at the day past and see where one might have strayed from one’s resolved path. There were always plenty! But it seemed to help that self-examination at the end of the day was (a) a habit and (b) encouraged an honesty that was liberating.

Alas, I don’t do that much anymore. Usually only when something goes wrong, or when I am challenged. Then I think it seems or is experienced in a more traumatic way - and one is less open to being honest, becomes more easily defensive. Compline began with the words, “Be sober, be watchful”. It’s good advice.

“Clear being.” The implication is that there is a “pure core” at the centre of us all. I’m not so sure. I think I tend to believe that we human beings are more “gray area”, even at the core. I don’t accept the theology which says there was a “Fall” from sinlessness to sin. My understanding of the Garden of Eden story is that, like Jesus’ parables, the details of the story are not the point. In my view, the story simply says that we are creatures who can choose either love and truth, or not. Perhaps the “clear being” is simply a grasp on what makes us most gloriously human.

I’ve never liked saying the Offices alone. But maybe I’ll take up saying Compline again, just for that quiet few minutes of self-examination at the end of the day. (Besides, who in our days wouldn’t value a bit of quiet peace at day’s end!)

Brian+

2007-12-17T18:54:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, December 18, 2007

I honour those who try
to rid themselves of any lying,
who empty the self
and have only clear being there.

- Rumi, Sufi poet

One of the things I liked about being a monk was the period of self-examination at Compline, the last monastic office (common prayer) of the day. I think people probably didn’t like it when I was the Officiant. Because I always left a relatively long pause for the self-examination. It was a time of utter quiet, the chapel hopefully in softened light. And there was always something ….. well, sensible about taking a few minutes to look at the day past and see where on might have strayed from one’s resolved path. There were always plenty! But it seemed to help that self-examination at the end of the day was (a) a habit and (b) encouraged an honesty that was liberating.

Alas, I don’t do that much anymore. Usually only when something goes wrong, or when one is challenged. Then I think it seems or is experienced in a more traumatic way - and one is less open to being honest, becomes more easily defensive. Compline began with the words, “Be sober, be watchful”. It’s good advice.

“Clear being.” The implication is that there is a “pure core” at the centre of us all. I’m not so sure. I think I tend to believe that we human beings are more “gray area”, even at the core. I don’t accept the theology which says there was a “Fall” from sinlessness to sin. My understanding of the Garden of Eden story is that, like Jesus’ parables, the details of the story are not the point. In my view, the story simply says that we are creatures who can choose either love and truth, or not. Perhaps the “clear being” is simply of grasp on what makes us most gloriously human.

I’ve never liked saying the Offices alone. But maybe I’ll take up saying Compline again, just for that quiet few minutes of self-examination at the end of the day. (Besides, who in our days wouldn’t value a bit of quiet peace at day’s end!)

Brian+

2007-12-16T18:37:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, December 17, 2007

My heart was heavy, for its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men,
One summer Sabbath day I strolled among
The green mounds of the village burial-place;
Where, pondering how all human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,
Awed for myself, and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave!

- John Greenleaf Whittier, poet, born
on this day, 1807, in Haverhill, MA

I can’t talk. I don’t, I think, hold “grudges”. But I am pretty stubborn about cutting off relationships with people that have pushed me beyond the pale. People who demean and belittle other people, especially in a racist or homophobic or sexist way. I once read that one should not surround oneself with people who bring negativity into your life. So, I try not to. And forgiveness, well, I forgive for a selfish reason (as I have so often preached.) The first person that suffers from an unwillingness to forgive is ….. oneself. Like so many other things, it eats away at you. “Pinches” one. Not good.

Whittier is right. We’re all one. In the end, we’ve all got “cold hands folded over a still heart”. When we lie in our graves, all the things that we think distinguish us are moot. Just human beings. Struggling to find our meaning. We all have a “common sorrow”. True, some may not have acknowledged it. But that matters not.

The “bottom line”: if we want to fly on eagles’ wings, rise to the height of being human, it’s best to cultivate the grace to forgive. It allows us to see each other as human beings, it shatters the false barriers we build to distinguish ourselves from one another. We can “pity our race” – we’re all in the same soup. All the same.

Pondering our common mortality sweeps away all pride.

Let’s be kind one to another.

Brian+

2007-12-15T06:19:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, December 15, 2007

Literally thousands of wonderful friends
have accompanied me in life, and many now
await me in the secret eternity to come.
I have enjoyed the long voyage.

- Ansel Adams, artist & photographer

We shall give thanks today at one of my congregations for the life of one of our members. Dottie was 87 when she died to this life. She had dealt with MS for many years and been in a wheelchair for about ten. Yet when she could, she would be at worship, even at our early 8:30am hour (!), faithfully attended by her husband Chuck. She was always elegantly dressed and coiffed, always a cheery smile on her face, a twinkle in her eye, and something nice to say. She is missed. One of our parishioners has started a Rogues Gallery in the Parish Hall – so those who go one ahead will be remembered.

Who really knows the details of the “secret eternity to come”. (What a lovely phrase!) We humans struggle to express our inner visions, following the hints that come to us from human hearts and minds throughout all the ages that we have been able to record. Wondering, wondering, dreaming, hoping. What amazing creatures we are. We know how to anchor ourselves, how to encourage our often faint hearts, how to soften the blows that this Earthly Life deals us. Friends and fellow journeyers of the spirit are a big part of it.

Today we will offer our last earthly accompaniment to Dottie, then continue with prayers and memories of love. We will envision her journeying on, and our hearts will be encouraged too.

May we all come to the moment being able to say, “I have enjoyed the long voyage”.

Brian+

2007-12-13T20:18:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, December 14, 2007

If we can laugh, our heart-aches disappear!
Our minds become freed off tensions and stress;
If we make others laugh, they lose their fear,
And become dear, starting to us caress.

Laughter is good for both the young and old;
Laughter can turn a foe into a friend;
Laughter can help forget our woes, be bold;
Laughter can bring to grief, an early end.
Laughter is life’s most precious medicine;
Laughter is soothing balm for all our ills;
Laughter is euphoric much more than wine,
Causing no harm to one or increase bills.

Then laugh and be merry whenever you can,
For, that’s the way to live life better, man.

- Dr. John Celes, India

I certainly don’t laugh enough, that’s for sure! I’ll have to think about that - a lot. I must say, I rarely find church a place to laugh, more’s the pity. Though today we did have some wry laughs. We were repositioning pictures of two of our wonderful parishioners who has recently died. It was suggested that we put up a frame with just a large question mark in it. That created a giggle - probably because we knew that there were some who wouldn’t find that at all funny! Strange and diverse creatures, we human beings.

So, confession: the best laughs I have are watching “South Park” videos. I’ll leave it at that.

Laughter is indeed the best medicine. If you don’t have much of it in your life - and I don’t - it’s time to remedy that!

I declare Friday, December 14th, Laugh A lot Day. Enjoy!

Brian+

2007-12-12T19:36:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, December 13, 2007

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
In the place of their self-content;
There are souls like stars, that dwell apart,
In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths
Where highways never ran --
But let me live by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead
And mountains of wearisome height;
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
And stretches away to the night.
But still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice,
And weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
Like a man who dwells alone.

- Sam Walter Foss, poet (part of his
poem based on similar words of Homer)

I am a big fan of the Episcopal Hymnal. I love the hymns in it and I know them all, many by heart, including the tenor line! It is said that Episcopalians sing what they believe, and what we pray. I have my funeral service leaflet in my little packet ready for when I croak - there will be lots of singing. I have to admit that I hear a lot of bitching and complaining about the hymns we sing, that they “don’t know them”. I am entirely unsympathetic. I’ve said many a time, “Don’t worry; by the time I leave, you will know them!”

Many of our hymns are ………. “sophisticated”? Would that be an appropriate word? Some might say “convoluted”, some “strange”. Many are ancient, many Victorian poetry; that can require some close attention and meditation.

Like poetry. I think I have commented that I can’t understand 75% of the poems in the New Yorker magazine, which I read cover to cover. But then there are certain hymns that strike a chord in their utter simplicity, simplicity in every way. Many of them I don’t like because they are, to me, “sentimental” - not a character I like in general.

But I will admit that “What a friend we have in Jesus” is ….. OK (as long as it isn’t overdone). I guess because I deeply value all of the wonderful friends I have had. They remind me that of all the things that “God” means to me, an unconditionally loving Friend is among the most important. True friends may not countenance all the nonsense one says or does, but they will always be there when needed.

I don’t need God to redesign nature or biology or time or mortality for me. I just need God always to be there.

So far, so good.

Brian+

2007-12-11T18:43:00.000-08:00

The Katzenjammer Kids comic strip
was first published on this day, 1897

Just thought you should know this! I loved the Kids as a kid!
+

Peace on earth would mean the end of civilization as we know it.

Joseph Heller, author (“Catch 22”, for one),
who died on thus day, 1999, age 76

In two weeks or so, over a billion Christians (and presumably with maybe a billion Muslims paying attention, since Islam deeply honours Jesus ….. in case you had gotten it wrong) are going to hear the angelic words, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to people of goodwill”.

Now, I know that all of us are pretty good at co-opting the Bible for our own purposes, and yes, there may be many people who would find “peace on earth” to be a big unwelcome kick in the wallet (especially the USA and Britain, who are two of the largest arms dealers in the world). But (here’s my co-opt) it seems pretty clear to me that the angelic message connects the birth of Jesus with peace on earth ……. Yes? Maybe even to say that perhaps God desires Peace on Earth???

Well, I’m just sort of wondering why there aren’t one or two billion of us hept up and out there on the streets and in the halls of government - including those elected to govern - working and praying and legislating tirelessly for Peace on Earth?? Have I missed something here?? Isn’t one of Jesus’ honorifics “Prince of Peace”??

Oh, I know. Some will quote me Jesus’ words, “I did not come to bring Peace, but a sword”. Has anyone ever heard of ….. irony?? Peacemakers are always going to generate enemies - as I say, War is lucrative, and many of us love the rush of dominance and power. But Jesus wasn’t into dominance and power, I don’t think. And His “Peace be to you” ’s outnumber the other.

“Let there be Peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.” Sort of has a nice Christmas ring, don’t it!

Brian+

2007-12-10T18:32:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, December 11, 2007

HERE

Here I am in the garden laughing
an old woman with heavy breasts
and a nicely mapped face

how did this happen
well that's who I wanted to be

at last a womanin the old style sitting
stout thighs apart under
a big skirt grandchild sliding
on off my lap a pleasant
summer perspiration

that's my old man across the yard
he's talking to the meter reader
he's telling him the world's sad story
how electricity is oil or uranium
and so forth I tell my grandson
run over to your grandpa ask him
to sit beside me for a minute I
am suddenly exhausted by my desire
to kiss his sweet explaining lips.

- Grace Paley, born on this day,
1922, in Manhattan

“Well, that’s who I wanted to be.” Charming! Do most of know who or what we want to be? Not most of the people I know. And I, well ….. it changes a lot. I have this feeling that it’s going to keep on changing a lot. It has to. I think new things. I learn new things. Things of inner wisdom, whether that be little or much.

Rich. Healthy. Honoured. Beautiful. No, these are all Sic Transit Gloria Mundi. Maybe, maybe not - too many variables and happenstances.

Content with who I am? Ah, well, that’s up to me. I’d like to be content ….and thinner. But I’ll settle for content and grudgingly plump. And instead of wearing purple, I’ll dye my beard and wear hippie caftans.

Brian+

2007-12-09T15:05:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, December 10, 2007

The good we secure for ourselves is precarious
and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and
incorporated into our common life.

- Jane Addams, social worker, internationalist,
first American woman winner of the Nobel
Peace Prize, on this day in 1931

I would bet that you have never heard of Jane Addams. She was born in 1860 in Cedarville, Illinois, to well-to-do parents. With a friend, she opened a settlement house in Chicago, to provide a center for a higher civic and social life, “to institute and maintain educational and philanthropic enterprises and to investigate and improve the conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago”. She was opposed to the entrance of the USA into WWI, and for her beliefs was kicked out of the Daughters of the American Revolution - tsk tsk! If you would like to know more, see http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1931/addams-bio.html

Jesus is recorded to have said, “What you do to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do to me”. I take this to mean what Addams said. I take Jesus to be saying that He represents ALL people. And that in order to be faithful to respecting Him – and therefore God - you must make sure that whatever “good” is secured is secured for all. Because “all” are “children of God”, for whom God cares equally.

Many Americans who call themselves Christians say that America is a “Christian nation”. If so, why is it that they aren’t supporting the rights of women to make the same money as men for the same jobs? Why is it that they are not supporting the right of American Gayfolk to the same equal legal rights under the legal contract called marriage? Do they fail to see that in not doing so, they are insulting Jesus? And this would certainly be more serious that naming your teddy-bear Jesus, yes?

Christian folk: if in civil life you think you deserve something, then everyone deserves it. Period.

Thank you, Jane Addams.

Brian+

2007-12-07T20:20:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, December 8, 2007

The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort?
Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean,
is there something wrong with society that's making us so pressurized,
that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?

- John Lennon of the Beatles, murdered on this day, 1980

The answer, John, is Yes. There is something “wrong with society”. And it has ever been so, universally. Despite the fact that Guinea-Bissau is now overwhelmed with drug dealers from South America controlling and destroying their society and importing cocaine by the multi-tons to distribute to the World, alcohol is still I think the major all-purpose drug that pervades most societies of the globe. The rudiments of beer have been discovered in ancient Egyptian tombs, sake in ancient Japanese culture, fermented liquor in ancient African cultures, etc. America, America - drug czars notwithstanding, Americans float on a sea of drugs to cushion us against our society.

Is it just urban society? I don’t know. But I have lived in many a small town - and drugs of various sorts were prevalent, even northern Manitoba in the late 60’s, where boozing men were a scourge every night on the roads and in the domestic violence of practically every household.

I don’t think the problem is living in society, urban or otherwise. I think the problem is denial. Denial of what will make us happy as human beings. We human beings always have thought that power and “stuff” will make us happy. Millennia have wrestled with the same issue. Religions and philosophies come and go, trying to make us see that this is folly. Jesus “had no place to lay His head”. The Buddha lives homeless under a tree. St. Francis strips naked and finds happiness in poverty. A few “get it”. Most don’t. Most adopt a “religion” on the surface, but ignore the teachings and insights. The so-called “Gospel of Prosperity” is a perfect example: worship God and you will be rich - and therefore happy.

Bullshit.

Love is scary. Demanding. Asking of human beings the deepest personal understanding of what makes us happy and calling us to “do unto others” that which we know we ourselves require to be happy.

Maybe most of “us” will never “get it”. Maybe human society will always need those “accessories to normal living to live”.

As Joshua said, “As for I am my house”, I choose the God of Love.

Brian+

2007-12-06T21:33:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, December 7, 2007

When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become
afraid of them as if their reason had left them. When it has left a place
where we have always found it, it is like shipwreck; we drop from
security into something malevolent and bottomless.

- Willa Cather, author, born on this day, 1873, in Black Creek Valley VA

Willa Cather was born into the Baptist religion, but “converted” (funny word, that) to the Episcopal Church in 1922. After co-authoring a very critical book about Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science (which so outraged the Christian Scientists that they tried to buy every copy printed!), she wrote for McClure’s magazine. In 1923, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel “One of Us”. She made the town of her youth, Red Cloud, Nebraska, famous. She died April 24, 1947, and is buried in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. And I’m sure that many of you will be thrilled to know that she was inducted in 1986 into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame!!

Kindness. Ms. Cather is right. Along with Love, and Compassion, Kindness is right up there in my book as a mark of great human soul. I think this is why I can’t watch any movie or read any book where someone is being tortured. And why I was so both stunned and angry that any high government official could possibly say that they couldn’t say whether waterboarding was or was not torture. The feeling I had was that indeed we had dropped from “security into something malevolent and bottomless”.

I can think of several instances when I have been unkind. It means that I have lost sight of a person’s humanity – and my own. And I am ashamed of myself for it.

The word “kind” has a telling etymology. It comes from the Old English “gecynde”, meaning “innate” or “natural”. Theough prehistoric Germanic, it is related to “kin”.

To be kind is to be innately, naturally human. And to be part of the human family.

Let’s join the human race.

Brian+

2007-12-05T18:11:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, December 6, 2007

Refuse to pander to a morbid interest in your own misdeeds.
Pick yourself up, be sorry, shake yourself, and go on again.

The direction and constancy of the will is what really matters,
and intellect and feeling are only important insofar as they contribute to that.

- Evelyn Underhill, poet, author, and philosopher of religion,
born on this day, 1875

Could it be possible that whoever wrote that song (“Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again”) had read Evelyn Underhill?? Stranger things have happened!

Ms. Underhill had a life I would like to have had. She was well educated, she was a teacher and spiritual counselor, she wrote. I’ve had some of that. It’s the other part I’d have liked. Her father and husband were great yachters - and she spent a lot of her life sailing the Mediterranean for months on end, enjoying the artistic treasures of France and Italy! Sigh.

She wrote a fine book, titled Mysticism. It is still read today.

I agree strongly with the first quote. Religion has often put too much emphasis on spending great amounts of time beating one’s breast and pandering to a morbid (good word) interest in one’s own misdeeds. This is not helpful. It’s just slacking. The whole point of knowing that one can honestly repent and be forgiven is to Get On With Life! My friend Connor+ said it nicely once to me, something like, “make a quick touch of the hand to the ground and move on”. Doing so would be the sign that one truly believes in the gift of Forgiveness. (This is why I always begin the Liturgy with the Confession – acknowledge our sin, but worship in the light of Grace.

I obviously owe, or have a connection with, Ms. Underhill. I have preached for decades that Love is 95% a matter of the will. That it has, or should have, little to do with feelings. And I believe that exercising the will ultimately has the power to heal hurt feelings. Love has become far too identified with how one feels in our cultures. Someone like Jesus didn’t choose Love unto Death because it “felt” good.

Accept your capacity for evil. Let it flit by quickly. Embrace new life. Shape and nurture the Will. Decide who you want to be and do.

Do it.

Brian+

2007-12-05T07:34:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, December 05, 2007

I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking,
what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means.
What I want and what I fear.

- Joan Didion, author, born on this day,
1934, in Sacramento CA

In my perception over many many years of contemplation, this is where Scriptures come from too. All Scriptures. When a human being begins to ask Joan’s questions - “What am I thinking?”, What am I looking at?”, “What do I see?”, “What does it mean?”, “What do I want?”, “What do I fear?” - “God” is at work. This is how the Source of Life and Meaning many call God reveals Its Nature, Its Being. I have come to believe that God is known only through the awakening and self-awareness of each individual person. Otherwise, God remains the utterly hidden “Other”, about which Mystery many religious thinkers have spoken.

Oh, I know. Many of us would like to believe that God puts a pen in someone’s hand and then uses that person as a conduit. Like Joseph Smith and the Golden Tablets. I don’t believe it works that way. The profound internal inconsistencies alone speak against such a concept - unless one is willing to accept a God Who is inconsistent! No, the Being of God and the Being of each human person are inextricably interrelated. When we have the courage to begin asking the critical questions about Life, the Two Solitudes awake in joy to each other.

This is why I read a lot more fiction than “theology”. Good fiction writers write out of the well of the Critical Issues of Life. As I think do the “writers” of scriptures. When I ask those questions, when I long to know what I’m experiencing and what it all means, I find the God Who is Compassion, Justice, Love, Gentleness. Baal, Molloch, the Hebrew God who would slaughter a nation, the Hindu God(dess) who would burn up a city, the Allah who would condone the “honour-killing” of women or the death of a woman whose school-children named a teddy bear Muhammad, the Christian God who would consign people to a Hell of pain - Nope. Not what I want Life to be. Or God.

Our understanding of God is fundamentally shaped by our own commitment to self-discovery. If on that journey we choose power, hate, aggression, such is the God we find. If we choose Compassion and Justice, the same. Indeed, God is at the mercy of our own self-perception and our choices.

Talk about a Vulnerable God! But in Jesus, Christians know this vulnerable God who places His/Her very existence trustingly in our hands.

This is only the beginning of a conversation. Keep thinking!

Brian+

2007-12-03T19:26:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, December 4, 2007

I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two
people: that each protects the solitude of the other.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, poet, born on this day, 1875

Most of us probably know Rilke’s most famous quote:

Live your questions now, and perhaps even
without knowing it, you will live along some
distant day into your answers.

The Answers are not the most important. The Questions are. Answers that come long before the “distant day” make for dull, boring, rigid people. Such people make for a dangerous world. “Fundamentalists” are Answer people. They “get” them - often from God, no less! - they write them in stone - and they use those stones to batter those they fear. I have long been a Question person. And even now, at 61, many of the Answers I thought I had are slipping away. I am not afraid. It reminds me that I haven’t died yet; I have Life to live and much to learn.

I have for many years now loved the presenting quote. Because it is true. The most destructive relationships, and especially marriages, I have seen are those which do not or cannot honour the solitude of the other. Relationships which seek to redefine the other, reshape the other, deny the other, are fatally flawed - because the perpetrator is an incomplete human being. One of the glories of the Christian understanding of God is that God honours our solitudes. And we love Her by honouring Hers. By not attempting to remake Him in our own image. At the meeting of those Two Solitudes is the heart of Love.

Rilke said:

For one human being to love another; that is perhaps
the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last
test and proof, the work for which all other work is but
preparation.

Yes. Because authentically to love another, we must be our own Self. And it takes courage and acceptance and surrender and the hard work of self-awareness to do that.

For many, it is too hard. Many cannot break out of old roles and stereotypes. The failure of relationships in our time is the sign. The Trinity, strange a concept as it is, is a good role model: three Divine Solitudes forming the one pure Divine Love.

Brian+

2007-12-03T06:49:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, December 3, 2007

If some longing goes unmet, don't be
astonished. We call that Life.

- Anna Freud, Austrian/English
psychoanalyst, born on this
day, 1895

Yep. Madam Freud is on the money. I often think about Jesus and the motley crew that He gathered around Himself. I hope He wasn’t trying to do what Madam Freud also once said, “Create around one at least a small circle where matters are arranged as one wants them to be.” Because if Jesus was trying to do that, I question His judgment! What a bunch, those disciples. Power-mad, or in-fighting, or wanting to do in opponents, or chopping off people’s ears, or elitist, or racist (Samaritans, ugh), etc.

Or, Jesus just understood Life, and knew that what He might have hoped for in a band of disciples was …. well, a longing not to be met, given human nature. That’s Life. He made the best of it - and still has to!

As I review my Life, I realize that many of my longings have been met. I have fine friends. I have had a vocation in which I’ve been a help to some people. I’ve seen glorious places on the Earth. I’m happy (in general) with the basic me, and have been accepted for myself by enough to make it ok, and best of all “God”. Some longings have gone unmet, though one in particular I thought never would be has indeed been. Anna has reminded me not to be astonished that some haven’t and probably never will be.

We call that Life. I’m on the plus-side of it - and I hope you are too!

Brian+

2007-11-30T19:22:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, December 1, 2007

Understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what
part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake
and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must
be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

- From the version of the Good News called “Matthew”

The “Unexpected hour” is not in the time-space continuum - if I may sound a little star-trekkie. Matthew’s Jesus does not say these words so that we spend our lives furtively looking around in anxiety and fear for what might spring unexpectedly upon us. Matthew’s Jesus says these words for one reason only: so that we actively live every moment understanding that we are in the presence of the Source of Life we call “God”.

The “coming of the Son of Man” is not a straight line. It is a continuous loop. This is what we are proclaiming in the Eucharistic Liturgy when we say, “Christ has died, Christ is risen; Christ will come again”. We are saying, God, keep pouring out your life for us; God, keep lifting us out of death into life; God, keep us living in the eternal present of your Presence. Past, present, future collapse into One Reality. Now. The Moment.

For Christians, Advent is the Season of moment by moment expectation that Life has captured us. That we are in the swirl of Compassion, Justice, Joy, Peace, Generosity of Self, Graciousness of being blessed.

“Do not be anxious”. The “hour” is now - calling us to be our true, our divine, Selves.

Brian+

2007-11-29T19:00:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, November 30, 2007

[ Sorry; pictures not available ]

St. Andrew the Apostle, by El Greco (left); traditional icon, right

“ O good cross, made beautiful by the body of my Lord! so long desired,
so anxiously loved, so unceasingly sought after, and now at last ready
for my soul to enjoy! take me from amidst men, and restore me to my
Master; that by thee He may receive me, Who by thee redeemed me.”

Well, I can’t resist. Being a Scot - at least on my father’s side. (My mother’s “side” is English, alas hated by the autonomous Scots!). But, you know what? Though the McHugh’s were “vera Scots” (one of my great uncles, Edward the Gospel Singer, changed his name to MacHugh, lest anyone think he was ….. Irish, horrors!), my paternal great-grandparents were ….. Irish!

Legend says that, in the middle of the 10th century, Andrew (brother of Peter, and called in the Greek Protocletos, “first called”) became the patron Saint of Scotland. And so it is that many years on St. Andrew’s Day, I have donned my kilt (the Orrock tartan, for my paternal grandmother Elspeth Orrock) and celebrated!!

I’m a Scot. I’m a Canadian. I’m also an “American”. All this is inconsequential to me. I don’t live on this lovely Earth to take ethnic or cultural sides! I live here as a free citizen of the World. Oh, if only I could have a United Nations passport! I think of myself as everything! I I am neither “Jew nor Greek”; neither “male nor female”. I am essentially - I choose to be - a citizen of God’s Kingdom - where there are no distinctions. I consider myself to be in the same family as all people.

Friends, give up tribalism. Give up zenophobia. Be a brother or a sister of every other human being. You will be giddy with the sense of relationship. This is what it means to be “one with Christ”. This does not mean “Christian”. It means “A lover of All People”.

Brian+

2007-11-28T19:35:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, November 29, 2007

He whose only concern had been to announce the unconditional love of God
had only one question to ask, "Do you love me?"......."Do you know the incarnate
God?" In our world of loneliness and despair, there is an enormous need for men
and women who know the heart of God, a heart that forgives, that cares, that
reaches out and wants to heal. In that heart there is no suspicion, no vindictiveness,
no resentment, and not a tinge of hatred. It is a heart that only wants to give love
and receive love in response. It is a heart that suffers immensely because it sees the
magnitude of human pain and the great resistance to trusting the heart of God who
wants to offer consolation and hope.

- Henri Nouwen,

Well, I have work to do. I want to be the kind of person that Henri Nouwen describes. An “announcer of the unconditional Love of God” ….. who “forgives, cares, reaches out, wants to heal”. But ….. I have to confess that there is much suspicion, vindictiveness, resentment, hatred in my heart at times. And I am further concerned that those things are shading my life and my living while I am unaware.

Perhaps I am too fortunate, that I don’t see ….. no, I see it, but rather don’t feel ….. the magnitude of human pain, especially of those I see as “enemies”.

Here is the role of “true religion”. To help me see the vision, to feel the suffering, to understand the resistance to trusting ….. to be free to offer hope and consolation to all. When I can feel this way about George Bush, I will be home free - and believe me, only Grace will get me there!

Pray for me.

Brian+

2007-11-27T19:50:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, November 28, 2007

That the Jews assumed a right exclusively
to the benefits of God will be a lasting
witness against them and the same will
it be against Christians.

- William Blake, poet, born on this
day, 1757

I am certain that I would have liked William Blake and his wife. (Which I can say, not knowing much about them intimately.) They were once discovered naked in their garden, playing the parts of Adam and Eve as they read Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. As the young would say, “Cool!”

When I was a callow youth, and a young man “into” being an avid Anglo-Catholic, I thought that surely Christianity was the top of the heap of religions. Judaism? Certainly superseded by “the New Israel”.

It did not take me long to realize how pompous and arrogant my thinking was. And it didn’t take me long because I was lucky enough to meet people who had come to know God. And these people, mostly Christians, taught me how my God was too small. And besides, who was I to think that I knew the mind of God - when Jesus Himself said, “No one knows the Father but the Son”. Why would I be one to whom God revealed Her reality???

But She did! And I learned not to think that I controlled God. I learned that God “works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform”. That God was not above using every possible path to make the wonder of divine Love known.

Jews and Christians are just two of God’s “children”.

We claim “the true God” as “ours”. But God lavishes Love and the knowledge of God on all. Without exception.

Brian+

2007-11-26T18:57:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Kiss the Earth

Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Bring the Earth your love and happiness.
The Earth will be safewhen we feel safe in ourselves.

- Thich Nhat Hanh, poet, Buddhist

A lovely human being he is. At least I think so ….. at least in his public persona. He exhibits character that I find winning and true. I have heard Thich Nhat Hanh speak in the vast space of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, and I have heard him in a garden in California. He has that so attractive quality of ….. serenity. He sees Life as the Big Picture. Where everything is part of everything else. I admire that kind of vision. And I admire and respect his understanding that, while we may be on different paths, all paths call us to find what it is to be authentically human.

I have always felt a part of the Earth. I was lucky enough to spend my childhood summers in the lakes and mountains of the Laurentians. Lying on sun-warmed rocks, or on the still warm grass at night, or floating in the warm-cool waters of our lake, I had then and still have the sense of being one with It.

The Earth, our Mother, is in danger. It is sick and dying in many places. Is it because we do not feel safe in ourselves? I hadn’t thought of that until I read Thich Nhat Hanh’s poem.

It is hard to feel safe in ourselves when so many human beings are threatening others, over religion, or power, or greed, or fear.

Unless we learn to make Life safe for all, Mother Earth will die, and we with Her.

Kiss the Earth with your feet.

Brian+

2007-11-25T20:40:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, November 26, 2007

I'm not wise, but the beginning of wisdom is there;
it's like relaxing into - and an acceptance of - things.

You take your problems to a god, but what you really
need is for the god to take you to the inside of you.

- Tina Turner, singer, born on this day, 1939

What energy! Have you seen Tina Turner on stage? Incredible! Well I remember the first time I ever saw her. I was awed!

And oh, I would say that Tina is indeed wise! It’s a cliché now, to say “Go with the flow”. But the “flow” is the Journey of Life, and going with it is understanding who we human beings are. It’s knowing that we are an integral part of The Flow, not “above” or “outside” or “in control” of It. It is the Tao. It is our milieu, our natural context. It is to be connected with the god/goddess. We need to be in that river, accepting our part and participation in the Mystery. In the Flow, we begin to understand.

And Tina is right on the money about taking your problems “to a god”. Most of us who are so inclined do this - and drop it. We think that God is “out there” and that the God Out There will solve our problems. But the God is not Out There. God is always “inside of you”. And if we have problems to solve, we must let the God take us inside. The answer is always there, inside ourself. Once we learn this, we have at least begun to be wise.

Good old Tina! Wise indeed.

Brian+

2007-11-24T18:23:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Sunday, November 25, 2007

Love must Act, as Light must Shine, and Fire must Burn.

- James O. S. Huntington, OHC, founder,
The Order of the Holy Cross, who died on
this day, 1935

Well, I got “lazy” over Thanksgiving ………. So here’s the "guilty" Sunday Reflection.

Fr. Huntington is acknowledged as the Founder of the Order that I was a member of for 15 years. The Religious Life established itself in the Episcopal Church in the mid-19th century, an outgrowth of the re-flourishing of the Catholic tradition in the United States and other Anglican churches. Still many Episcopalians don’t know that there are monks and nuns in the Episcopal Church. It’s s fascinating part of the story.

Fr. Huntington wrote these words in the Rule of the Order. And I have remembered them all these 40 years. To me, they are a perfect, simple, and poetic stating of a profound human truth. Jesus emphasized it in a powerful way when He said, “There is no greater love than this, that a man should lay down his life for a friend”.

Talk is cheap. And God knows there is a lot of cheap talk in American (and other) life about Love. Especially in nauseous music - though I have to admit in my old age that Bing Crosby or Cole Porter being nauseous about it sounds a whole lot better to me than rappers.

Love must act ………. or it isn’t. Like dark light or dead flame.

What Life requires is us to be Act-ors in the great game of Love. Let’s be creative!

Brian+

2007-11-20T23:08:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, November 21, 2007

The great secret of a successful marriage
is to treat all disasters as incidents and none
of the incidents as disasters.

- Sir Harold Nicholson, English author
and diplomat, married to Vita Sackville-West,
born on this day, 1886

It was quite a marriage to be married to Vita! Believe me - read the historical documents! (Or, don’t read them if you are prone to judgmentalism; it will be perhaps too challenging to your inner life.)

And I might have mentioned before the gardens of Sissinghurst, the Sackville-West’s ancestral home. Stunning! Go there, if you like gardens.

I have gotten to the age to realize that Harold is right. We can spend a lot of sleepless nights worrying about what we think are - and might be in some sense - disasters. But you know, before long, they aren’t. Just think of all the “disasters” that occurred between God and the Israelites, and yet, the relationship continued. God choose to consider all the disasters as incidents, which then became non-disasters.

This is because Love allows you/God/us to see what’s important. When you truly love someone, “disasters” don’t destroy anything. One just deals with them, because the gift of the relationship goes on.

So, take Sir Harold to heart. Keep things in perspective and balanced.

Balance and perspective are always characteristics of a wise person.

Brian+

2007-11-19T19:51:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Mr. Foster, when you beat our teams, it gives us a black eye.

- Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Federal judge (!) and
Baseball Commissioner, born on this day, 1866

I would hope that no one would condemn me as “conventional”! I would hate to think that I was predictable. The worst of judgments, to my way of thinking. Yes, yes, I have spent my Life exulting in the fact that I surprise people, in everything from what I wear to what I think. Does that indicate a jolly wickedness, or a deep seated insecurity? You know, I care not!

Now who who knows me would think that I would ever quote a sports person?! I loathe sports and everything that has to do with competition. Just proves that I can be open and flexible and ….. surprising!

Mr. Landis said these words to Rube Foster, founder of the Negro National League, in 1923. 1923! What I don’t know is, did they know each other or have a relationship? Because it is delightful in its wit! Did Mr. Justice Landis know that when Mr. Foster got this message, he would chuckle???? Did they both know what the joke was?

A “black” eye. Rapier-like, yes. But more ….. human and humane. I like to think that Mr. Landis and Mr. Foster sat and laughed with a beer on a porch somewhere, away from the prying eyes of the Fascist so-called Christian storm troopers.

When people become Buddhists, does that give Christians a “black” eye? When they become Muslims, does that give Christians a “black” eye? Or Jains? Or Pagans? Or Wiccan? Or Atheists?

No, friends. It simply means that people are looking for an inner discipline that makes sense of their Lives. If Christianity abuses them, demeans them, doesn’t answer their questions with respect, they will look elsewhere. It is “our” job to show them, by loving them with the intensity of The Christ, that we, as does God, honour their humanity, their uniqueness, their Mystery. And more ….. Love them.

As we approach Thanksgiving, give thanks for all human beings, in their incredible Diversity.

Better: honour them by saluting their Beauty.

Brian+

2007-11-18T18:37:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, November 19, 2007

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent,
a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all
men are created equal ….. It is for us the living ….. to be dedicated here to
the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced
….. that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish
from the earth.

- President Abraham Lincoln, at Gettysburg, on this day, 1863

God knows that I do not trust any politician - unless I have had very ample reason. And God knows that I would be loath to connect any political statement to a theological virtue.

But.

The Kingdom of God is a community in which all human beings are members. In It, all who govern do so solely for the purpose of building the community of Love. In It, the common, equal, and non-discriminatory welfare of the People is the grounding principle. In It, the benefit of the people according to God’s Compassion and Justice rules.

Lincoln was right in his vision of the American purpose. Lincoln, and present politicians, may have their own view of what this means. But God’s purpose is, I believe, clear.

Do not vote for anything less.

Brian+

2007-11-14T20:28:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, November 15, 2007

So as this only point among the rest remaineth sure and certain,
namely, that nothing is certain. . .”

- William Pitt the Elder, British statesman, born on
this day, 1708

Very freeing! Well I remember my time in Nicaragua. There were six different points to cover. One day each week, the catechist and I would get in a dugout canoe, dressed only in shorts and a T-shirt. The communion vessels, a stole, bread and wine, and books were stashed in a heavy plastic bag which was tied to the gunwales. We would head up the shore of the sea towards a village (Rio Grande, I think) near the mouth of the river entering the sea. I got used to the sharks circling, looking for fish. But I would often say, “Will we make it?” The catechist, an experienced canoeist, would answer, “Father, nothing is for certain.”

It isn’t. So it’s better just to live with that reality. Make plans, sure. Dream, sure. Definitely strive for good health on all levels. If you wake up to another day, live it fully, loving and laughing and enjoying and singing and weeping with and maybe mourning with. The only near certain thing is the Present Moment.

I have a wonderful calligraphy from the Evening Gatha on my wall that Roy Parker, OHC, did. It says:

Let me respectfully
remind you:
Life & Death
are of supreme importance.
Time swiftly passes by
&
Opportunity is lost.
Each of us should strive
to awaken,
Awaken
Awaken.
Take heed.
Do not squander your Life.

Indeed. Jesus said, “Stay Awake! For you do not know the hour when the Master will come.” If we can live with shifting “certainty”, we will be less likely to be lulled into squandering, and opportunity not be missed.

Brian+

Brian McHugh, priest & vicar
St. Peter's, Casa Grande
St. Michael's, Coolidge
http://www.blogger.com/orrock1946@msn.com
520.705.2689 (telephonitto)
blog: http://brianstakeontheworldfaithandreligion.blogspot.com/

2007-11-13T20:14:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, November 14, 2007

People discuss my art and pretend to
understand as if it were necessary to
understand, when it's simply necessary
to love.

- Claude Monet, artist, born on
this day, 1840

Well, here I am again, “borrowing” paintings from the Internet. Claude Monet’s “Row of Poplars” and “A Meadow at Giverny”. Beautiful, yes??

I’ve been a “preacher” for 40 years. I’ve never “used” a sermon twice. Life changes, the World changes, ideas change - so no matter the Scripture, Life makes its demands, and no sermon written years ago can be in any way adequate to this new day. But that has made it easy! New wineskins, new wine! You just need to be alive, with some imagination.

If I had to say what the biggest preacher-ly mistake I’ve made, it’s that I’ve spent too much time trying to get people (including myself) to “understand”. As if understanding would really come from wrestling with the words. Oh, certainly we get somewhere. But, as Monet points out, “understanding” is not critical for any art, including the art of Life.

It is “simply necessary to love”. That’s where the understanding of Life is found. Monet also said, “No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition.” The “picture in the head” is Faith informed by heart, mind, spirit. And the surety of method and composition is what Religion is at its best - that which shows us how to structure and nurture Faith.

“Understand”? This is an unexpected gift of Love. Be it Monet’s paintings, the World, Self, Another, all Mystery. Jesus said, in the end, “Love”. It is the only Path to comprehension.

Brian+

2007-11-12T20:38:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, November 13, 2007

If you would only recognize that life is hard,
things would be so much easier for you.

- Justice Louis Brandeis, Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court for 23 years,
born on this day, 1856

Most of us live in a fantasy. We think that Life is going to be perpetually lovely. Without pain, physical or emotional or whatever. We think that every child will be born perfect. We think that doctors will fix everything to our own fantasy….. or God will ….. or prayer will. The highest form of repression and delusion is that, when experience proves all this wrong, we continue to live in a state of childish unreality. The God who has promised to “walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death” becomes the Good Fairy God whose failure to make everything right will be rationalized away with the most appalling stupidity ……. but secretly we harbor deep resentment, and how this makes a mockery of the God who above all things wishes to help us to live Life in its reality.

Life is hard, in a sense. But Life, lived in the context of Its Reality, is also stunningly amazing and fun and hilarious. Making a fantasy of Life only makes Life more difficult! And a fake.

Reality is always easier. Always.

Brian+

p.s. The Justice also said:

To declare that the end justifies the means, to declare that the government may commit crimes, would bring terrible retribution.

And:

We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.

You think this is politics and not about the inner life of the spirit and of America?

Think again.

2007-11-08T18:35:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, November 9, 2007

By the time we hit fifty, we have learned our hardest lessons.
We have found out that only a few things are really important.
We have learned to take life seriously, but never ourselves.

- Marie Dressler (Leila Marie Koerber), actress, born on
this day in Canada, 1869

Oh Lordy! Who could forget Marie Dressler as “Min”, alongside Wallace Beery as “Bill” in that great film! She won the Academy Award that year (1930) for her performance. She was great as the owner of a tough dockside hotel, struggling to know what to do for the young girl she took in and raised. I’ve seen the movie three times - I just love Marie’s strong character and her gutsy acting.

Marie might better have said, “By fifty, we ought to have learned our hardest lessons ….”. I don’t think I can say that I have. O, I know what’s important, I think, at least for me. But I continue to allow all sorts of other things to take up my time and energies. I’ll have to take some quiet time and really think about why that is. Why is it that I still find myself in a rush all day long, doing several things at the same time, not leaving enough time, dashing to appointments having left just seconds to get there – and being in a fury when someone or something (perfectly predictable, of course!) gets in my way. Sigh.

Could it be that ….. oh, surely not! ….. that I take myself too seriously?? That I really think that I need to be doing all these things at breakneck speed because I think this means I’m taking Life seriously?? Yikes!

I think I do know, in the center, what’s really important. By 50, most of us probably do. We have learned what is genuinely serious in Life.

If we can just learn not to take ourselves too seriously, we can see all the distractions for what they are. We can let them go. I think this is what Jesus meant in saying, “Take up your cross” - He meant, Live and Die for what’s really important.

After 50, that’s the goal!

Brian+

2007-11-07T19:39:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, November 8, 2007

We have all known the long loneliness
and we have learned that the only solution
is love and that love comes with community.

- Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic
Worker movement, born on this day,
1897

Dorothy Day was born in Brooklyn. She survived the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Her family moved into a tenement on Chicago’s South side, where, with her father out of work, Dorothy came to understand the shame of failure, and poverty, and the beauty even of slums and their fullness of life and people.

Her experiences led her to Roman Catholicism, and to working for the equality of women and for social services to the poor. She was drawn to the Franciscan way of life. Eventually, to further outreach to the poor, she started a newspaper called The Catholic Worker - it sold 100,000 a month. And then Catholic Worker houses, for the homeless; they grew to 33 by 1936. And, in my mind, being the best of Christian love and charity, people were never proselytized - they were just loved and cared for in Christ’s name. To me, this is the very best of Christian witness. Charity for conversion is only unholy manipulation.

In the Christian myth, Jesus did not die for love of any one person. He died for the whole community of God’s human family. Of course love can begin between two. But any loving relationship draws others to it. Community forms - where people come “com muneris”, with gifts to share, so that all may grow together in mutual affection.

Anyone can pray alone – and this is good. And God can be found alone, or often finds us when alone. The church is only useful if it is a community of Love patterned after God’s unconditional Love. If it is not, it is a millstone around God’s neck.

If you are a church-goer, work to make your community a solution to the long loneliness that so many of us know.

Brian+

Brian McHugh, priest & vicar
St. Peter's, Casa Grande
St. Michael's, Coolidge
orrock1946@msn.com
520.705.2689 (telephonitto)
blog: http://brianstakeontheworldfaithandreligion.blogspot.com/

2007-11-07T19:37:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, November 7, 2007

http://www.maniacworld.com/Phone-Salesman-Amazes-Crowd.html

You may have seen this; if not, here it is.
It made me cry.
What a joy to see someone with a gift move the whole crowd.

Brian+

2007-11-05T20:09:00.001-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Evolution seems to close the heart to some
of the plainest spiritual truths while it opens
the mind to the wildest guesses advanced
in the name of science.

- William Jennings Bryan, who lost
the Presidential election to McKinley
on this day, 1900

Well, I don’t know who Mr. Bryan talked to ….. but he didn’t talk to me!! Why, I even projected myself back in time and stood outside the polling booth to give him the opportunity on this night in 1900 - but he must have been preoccupied.

For me, nothing could be more glorious than the elegance of evolution. And if “God” is anything, God is elegant! God is not some crude hucksterish magician - whose cache is illusion and delusion and trickery. “God” is about Reality.

And, since Science is Reality, they are Twins. Born of the same Beauty and Elegance and marriage of Imagination and Intellect.

There is no separation or contradiction between Science and Faith. Science is the biology and the geology and the genetics and the chemistry. Faith (or Religion) is the glorious Art of elegant explanation which honours the science and exalts the Mind - the Mind being the fountain of God’s language.

Bryan, alas, allowed himself to be misled by small-minded people.

Don’t make the same mistake. Your sanity depends on it.

Brian+

2007-11-04T19:41:00.000-08:00

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, November 5, 2007

Life is too short to work so hard.

- Vivian Leigh, English actress,
born on this day, 1913.

Miss Scarlet! I’ll bet most people think that Vivien Leigh was American. She was born in Darjeeling, India - as was her Irish mother. Her father was British, her mother Irish and part Armenian, contributing to her daughter’s dark features. She had a fine career, but Vivien Leigh will always be Miss Scarlet to Americans.

You know, Life IS too short to work so hard!

Balance, balance is the goal. It’s hard in America. Puritan blood still courses through our bodies. Thinking we can “earn” Heaven and God’s Love. And, Life as we want it - all the trimmings, all the MRI’s, all the techie toys, $30,000 per year colleges, Starbuck’s coffee at $3.95 a frappacino.

Relax guys! Take a deep breath. Think about what expensive stuff you don’t need! Buy a grill and have good salmon and veggies on it! Play Scrabble. Reduce cable TV to 5 good channels.

Take the extra moolah every year and go to the Greek isles and eat moussaka from a cheap stall.

Feel better??

Brian+

2007-11-02T19:57:00.000-07:00

Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, November 3, 2007

Mutation

They talk of short-lived pleasure--be it so--
Pain dies as quickly; stern, hard-featured pain
Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;
And after dreams of horror, comes again
The welcome morning with its rays of peace.
Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain,
Makes the strong secret pangs of pain to cease:
Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase
Are fruits of innocence and blessedness;
Thus joy, o'erborne and bound, doth still release
His young limbs from the chains that round him press.
Weep not that the world changes--did it keep
A stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.

- William Cullen Bryant, American poet, born on
this day, 1794

Born in Cummington MA, Bryant was a sickly child - but he prospered, went to Williams College, later became a lawyer, practiced successfully, but leaned more to literature than the law. Whether or not this had anything to do with the fact that his doctor father tried to reduce the size of his enormous head by having him plunged as a baby into a cold stream daily, we cannot know. As I often say - Ain’t People Amazing!

I guess we can give thanks for the short reign of fierce agonies. For Oblivion, wiping out the strong pangs of pain. For remorse, welling up and flooding our lives and causing innocence and blessedness to flower, and Joy given strength to break chains and take over from mistakes and meanness and cowardice.

Lord, how many people I know who resist Change! We are using some new formats for the Liturgy, encouraging new insights into the nature of God, Self, Repentance, Salvation, Love. Oh the behind the scenes bitching! One person swept by me the other day and spit out, “Don’t tell me what page we need, just tell me whether we are using the Liturgy “we” (who’s “we”???) hate or the one we like!”

“Weep not that the World changes …. Did it keep / A stable, changeless state, ‘twere cause to weep.”

Weep. Yes, weep. Resist change, especially in ourselves, and we wither and die.

But The Christ calls us to change and Live.

Brian+

2007-11-01T21:17:00.000-07:00

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, November 2, 2007

The world is too much with us;
late and soon, getting and spending,
we lay waste our powers;Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
the winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.

William Wordsworth "The World Is Too Much With Us"

“We lay waste our powers.” I think so, oh, I think so. Is my perception just clouded by cynicism? I wonder sometimes. I am always grateful for National Public Radio. It helps me not to wallow in discouragement about “the World” that “is too much with us”. Especially on the weekends, the news programs are filled with fascinating people who are doing wonderful, interesting, creative, thoughtful, fresh, kind, artistic, or funny things. I can’t watch TV News - too negative. And even NPR is getting way too filled with news of violent, saddening stuff, so I limit myself to an hour a day.

“We have given our hearts away”. Indeed I think we have. And here is where some words of Jesus come to mind. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.”

Ponder Wordsworth with me today. Are we “out of tune”? Especially if we have given our hearts and minds and all we are to the God of Love and to the building of the Kingdom of Peace? The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon and the howling winds are but symbols of the wonder of Creation. Are we moved?

Treasure whatsoever is lovely, gentle, kind, generous.

Sleeping flowers of divine humanity will unfold.

Brian+

2007-10-31T19:26:00.001-07:00

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, November 1, 2007
Feast of All Saints

My soul can find no staircase to Heaven
unless it be through Earth's loveliness.

- Michelangelo, artist, whose
Sistine Chapel was opened to
the public on this day, 1512

I was in the Sistine Chapel for the first time the day that the Pope died. Unfortunately, the place was jammed with wall-to-wall people - all of whom were in Rome waiting for the Pope to die! But at least I could stand and look up at that glorious ceiling and the apse without worrying about falling over. I was “in Heaven” for a half-hour - and of course, being a birder, I had my binoculars with me. The detail was superb.

I absolutely agree! I feel exactly as Michelangelo felt. I have always rejected, even as a young person, that this world and our bodies and all the loveliness of the Earth was in any way to be despised or rejected. It just didn’t make any sense to an INFP intuitive like me And believe me, there have been a lot of religious people and certainly Christians throughout history who have taught such nonsense. Such an attitude flies in the face of one of the few aspects of the Judeo-Christian Creation Story (or at least, the interpretation of It) I agree with - that “God looked and saw that it was very good”.

We would have no concept of the loveliness of things Heavenly were it not for the loveliness of things Earthly. Heaven can only be described with the human language of glory and beauty, in word and in art and music, and through the experience of Earth’s beauty. Heaven is Earth-writ-large - and by some magic, we sometimes manage to reach the sublime.

Let us not destroy the Earth in our greed and our carelessness.

Our soul will have no staircase to the vision of the Divine wonder of existence.

Brian+

2007-10-30T21:15:00.000-07:00

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Eve of All Saints; Eve of Samhain

The imperfect health [of soul], that is to say, the imperfect love,
of the dying brings with it, of necessity, great fear; and the smaller
the love, the greater is the fear. (14)

- The Fourteenth of the 95 Theses of Martin Luther,
published on this day and nailed to the door of
Wittenburg parish church, 1517

I read through all the 95 Theses today. First time I’ve done that. Principally of course, Luther inveighs against the selling of pardons (indulgences) by the Pope or the Church. Not very interesting - except that Luther rightly and boldly attacks the absurd idea that pardon can be bought from an “earthly” source. No wonder Erasmus (quoted in an earlier Reflection) sighed at how money/gain in his time could be squeezed out of anything either secular or religious.

It is good to be reminded that it is Love that conquers fear, including the fear of death. Isn’t it nice to think that the more energy we spend in loving, the more surprised we will be when the moment of death arrives?! It will sneak up on us, and all we will be able to say is “Oh” before we slide over. The idea is, of course, firmly anchored in Scripture. 1 John 4: “love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.”

And there’s another point. I suppose that many people fear death because they are afraid that they are going to be punished. To which I only have to say (and here I resonate with Luther, who might have felt at least a little twitch at contradicting the Pope) - God does not punish anyone. That is not in the nature of the God who is Love. If there is any “punishment” after death (and I’m not at all sure there is), it is self-imposed.

So let’s Love, and a pox on Death and all it’s minions!!

Brian+