Why?

Why?

Diamonds scattered among blades of green grass in the early morn,

Golden banners stretched across the evening sky--

When You spread such amazing riches here among us,

Why must we lust after the gems and minerals of the Congo,
Bathing its peoples in blood
Expelling its residents into nearby camps and
Creating a diaspora in far away lands?

How long, O Lord, will you hold back your hand of judgement from us?


On Refugees 

On Gold and Diamonds in the Congo

A Trimeric on Acrophobia:

 Terrorized Car Passenger High Above the Columbia River

Riding high above the water
Muscles tensing,
Mind predicting
Fearing falling, falling, falling

Muscles tensing
Fingers crooking
Grasping door handles
Shallowly breathing

Mind predicting
Calculating miles remaining
Computing the angle climbing
Estimating the distance down

Fearing falling, falling, falling
Stressing, distressing, why did I come
Wanting to jump out of my skin
How much longer?

Lost Sheep, Lost Coin - Who's Who

Our English Coasts or Strayed Sheep by William Holman Hunt

Attend a production on Broadway. You receive a program naming actors and their roles. This provides an on ramp to get up to speed quickly as the story unfolds. Sometimes we need a similar advance explanation when reading Jesus' parables. Luke 15:1-10 (Lectionary 19C) provides clues to create such a list of characters so we might better understand and apply the parable in our own lives..

For churchgoers, the parable of the Lost Sheep is familiar. The shepherd is Jesus.  But what about the sheep who has wandered off, the one we see hiding in the bushes above.  Look at the parable's context.  Jesus had been inviting the unholy, sinners, lowlifes, while the holy, the religious establishment, looked on in disgust.  So, it seems that the unacceptables were the sheep that the shepherd had sought. These sheep had responded and were listening to him preach about God's reign.  What is the point of the story? The central message is that God's delight in reestablishing a relationship with these scoundrels is so great that he has a big party, inviting everyone.  But who refuses to rejoice?  The religious power-brokers.  Where does that place them with God?  What about Act II, the Lost Coin. Here the woman is God, the coin is the person detached from God, and the party literally takes place where God dwells (heaven).  Church leaders, are you listening, or are you hiding in your sanctuaries of saved and safe people, preaching against the scoundrels outside?

"Making the Nation Great "

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; 
you shall cry for help, and he will say, 
"Here I am. 

If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, 
if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, 
then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. 
The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; 
and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. "

Isaiah 58:9-11(NRSV with punctuation and phrasing added by me)

Where We Need to Focus

Becoming more contemplative as I age (even me, impatient ActionNow child of the '60's), I am concerned over what I see in my country today.  Those with great talents flow toward excessively lucrative careers in finance and technology rather than professions giving service to fellow humans. Politics seems to draw the opportunists, unaware that theirs is a position of trust in a democracy, and that their job is to govern us well.  Their charge is to draw us together through inspiring words and to enable the machinery that benefits us all to work well: roads, schools, orderly immigration.

As a Presbyterian Christian, I deplore the way our Presidential candidates are treating one another, failing to recognize their opponents not just as flawed but also as made in the image of God and deserving of respect.  The end does not justify the means.  Winning at all costs is losing.  Process matters.

Many of our people are immensely frustrated by being unable to find work, or even if working, unable to afford housing or food.  Outside our nation exists groups dedicated to our destruction.

Let us pool our energies to solve these problems using the precious tools of democracy and not use the democratic process to pit us against one other and risk losing our democracy to chaos or authoritarian rule.

Lesson for the New Year

For Christmas, my son's family gave me a digital photo frame, an electronic viewing device on which family members can remotely post photos. Anxious to begin receiving pictures of my children and grandchildren, I attempted to set up the device as soon as I returned home. The quick start guide was easy to follow.  Just five simple steps, simple for a technology professional like me!

1. Attach the support stand
2. Turn on the device
3. Connect to Wi-Fi
4. Enter your code to claim your Skylight email
5. Now, ask loved ones to send pictures

All was well until I attempted to follow the details of step 4: "your personal 6-digit code, which is on the paper insert in the box." Wait! Did I miss the paper containing the code when I removed all the packing materials? Back to the box.  No, nothing there but styrofoam sheets.  How frustrating when I was so looking forward to seeing the show! What to do now?

I emailed the Customer Service Department, fearing the worst. There was no serial number on the device and since it was the holiday week between Christmas and New Years probably no one was in the office. Woe to me!

The next day, I began sorting through the holiday mess.  I spied the photo frame packing materials, looked through the box once more, and tossed it into the trash but then had misgivings about my actions.  Maybe I should keep the box in case I had to return the frame. As I picked up the box to take to the basement, I closed it and just happened to turn it over. Voila! Glued to the top of the box was the insert with my code and personal email address! Typing in the code, I was blessed to see many photos had already been loaded, (and later I found a note from customer service in my email.)

One little letter in one small word, "in" vs "on" and my brain had become trapped...inside the box.

May we all learn to think outside the box during 2016.  Happy New Year to all!

Reflection upon Reflection

Are my thoughts productive, the disturbance creating a resolution that goes beyond the original state,

     Milk into butter;

Are my reflections motion going nowhere,

     Turbulence that leaves passengers agitated;

Has this very process of turning thoughts over in my head become harmful,

     Picking at scabs, preventing healing, increasing damage?

Move the Windows!

Art in government buildings should affirm our national unity and ideals; church art should support our beliefs.Two stained glass windows at Washington’s National Cathedral do neither. 
They honor Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, heroes of the Confederacy. The Cathedral is an Episcopal church with quasi-governmental status, not receiving Federal financing, but serving as a location for government officials to gather for prayer during national emergencies and a place to bury Presidents. Currently, in the shadow of the Charleston massacre, the Cathedral community ponders the presence of these windows and their Confederate flags. 
As an American citizen and a Christian believer, I call for the Cathedral to change the context and the message of these windows:  Move them to a museum and surround them by the visual displays of the painful fruits of the Confederate state’s violent ideology of racial domination. Show shackles, slave auction blocks, lynchings, Klan terrorism, the Birmingham 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, the Charleston massacre.  Racial domination is an ideology we must renounce just as South Africa abandoned apartheid.  Glorifying these ideas gives them power to remain an accepted part of our national dialog. 
Art can be used to bring division to a country and genocide against its minorities. In the recent past, for example, Serbia looked for support for genocide against Muslims from The Mountain Wreath, a 19th century epic poem celebrating the killing of local Muslims. Better we should look to Germany, where World War II veterans are looked on with suspicion,and swastikas may not be displayed. Contrast  Japan’s current government, which is considering bringing back its World War II “Rising Sun” flag, while at the same time retracting apologies for wartime acts . 
We do not need to hide the Confederate flag from view, but rather undermine its use as a battle flag for racist ideologies . Delegitimize the narrative that the Southern struggle was honorable.  Our national unity and our integrity as Christians call for such a stand.

Calm in Our Storms

Mark 4:35-41
After Hurricane Katrina. In New Orleans, in one of the cemeteries, the many monuments and gravestones ended up as ruble, small broken pieces of stone, with the remarkable exception of a tall statue of Jesus, intact except for one hand. A great image for the familiar story in Mark 4: 35 - 41. Here we see Jesus in a boat, going across the sea of Galilee, asleep in the storm, literally a great storm, with the disciples, even the experienced fishermen, afraid for their lives. What does this say to our churches today? Corporately, we are afraid for our churches as many believers die off from old age and we have difficulties attracting younger people to our congregations. Let's look at where Jesus and his followers were headed? Away from the familiar to the "other side," where the excluded, the Gentiles, lived. We in the church need to reach out to the unfamiliar, to the unchurched or to immigrants or to those from different backgrounds? We are called to this? Is it scarey? For sure it is! But what church in our Presbytery is drawing in young families? Nuevas Fronteras but many of them don't even speak our language! In very recent research reported in the New York Times June 19, across a wide variety of communities, areas of increased immigration had economic revitalization and lower crime. So connecting to the unfamiliar has benefits.

Let's look back to Mark to learn more about what happened when Jesus and his friends went to "the others." Massive storm, terrified disciples, woke Jesus, who revealed his power over wind a wave, like God over the chaos at Creation. Result -- great calm replaces great storm. What about the disciples? Do they respond in gratitude and faith like Psalm 107:29-30? No, great fear! Phobos like phobia. Repeatedly in the Bible, God's presence or an angel's brings fear and "Do not be afraid." Have faith in God's presence, the answer for our congregations today in scarey threatening times.

October Nor'easter???

We have 14 trees on our property so we were badly hit by the freak October Northeaster with very heavy snow added to the weight of the leaves. We had 5 or 6 big branches fall in the front and a huge branch is hanging onto our back 2nd story porch, held by a thread. Even if we could pull it down, it might take out our garage. We will wait a month or so until prices for tree men come. One major artery, Martine Avenue had trees down in four places last night.

Reflections on Barcott's It Happened on the Way to War, Prologue and Part I, #1.

Reading this book reminded me of conversations with my son, Huck. This young man, Rye Barcott, is serving in the Marines while at the same time running a NGO in Kenya. My son, Huck, is in the Navy, going to Medical School and running a startup web-based software company while being married and having a new son. Barcott learned Swahili so he go to Kenya. My son tried to learn Farsi and Arabic before he went to Afghanistan and brought back a translator. Both have fierce love of the military and patriotism, while being aware of all their negatives.

Barcott went with his family to Africa in high school and realized he wanted to go back later, including doing research to "give back." His mother encouraged his learning Swahili, because "research could be seen as being simply extractive" and "Learning a language was a sign of genuine commitment." (20) His language knowledge serves him well on his first visit to Nairobi where some local "hardcores" (7) are threatening, until he speaks to them in Swahili and Sheng, a mixture of Swahili, gangsta rap and local languages, which disarms them and brings him respect. This story reinforces my current desire to learn to speak Spanish well. Doing so is a way to show respect, both to the vibrant Spanish-speaking Presbyterian community, Nuevas Fronteras, and to family members from George's side of the family. Why hasn't this thought occurred to me and other Americans before. I find his word choice of "extractive" so meaningful. We who possess affluence, white privilege and education can so easily objective others and use them for our own benefit or entertainment. Making the effort to enter their culture on its own terms by learning the language seems a first step of respect.

Another powerful passage concerned Barcott's receiving advice from another young man who studied abroad as an apprentice to unique door carvers in Zanzibar Island in Tanzania. The advice was to be flexible and persistent in contacting people. "Reach out to a bunch of people and eventually a few, maybe five percent, will give a damn. That's enough, though. When they respond, you ca follow up and start pulling it together." I need to keep this in mind in any novel pursuits that need others' backing. This could be included in preaching to a church engaged in outreach and/or transformation.

Barcott writes about falling through the ice in a pond as a young boy (27-28) and coming close to dying. He returns to the spot and has an experience of light and God, and realizes how close he came to dying. He then goes through a period where he has a premonition of dying young, by age 30, but sees this as freeing and leads to an intense life. I wonder how many young soldiers and suicide bombers both have any such mindsets as he describes.

Works Cited.

Barcott, Rye. It happened on the way to war: a marine's path to peace. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2010. Print.

Irony in the naming of Chief Joseph Dam

CHIEF JOSEPH DAM

In central Washington the second largest dam in the United States is located. It is named for Chief Joseph of the Nez Pierce Indians. The dam's name, however is ironic, given this quote from Chief Joseph: "I have carried a heavy load on my back ever since I was a boy. I realized then that we could not hold our own with the white men. We were like deer. They were like grizzly bears. We had small country. Their country was large. We were contented to let things remain as the Great Spirit Chief made them. They were not, and would change the rivers and mountains if they did not suit them." Naming the dam for him, thus, seems a dishonor, not an honor.

I saw an article in ASCD on what brings success to schools where many students are economically disadvantaged and why it is rare.

High-poverty Texas school finds formula for success

"Reaching such an achievement isn't because of one single factor. Bowling said she's selective in her hiring. Many teachers will stay as late as 5:30 p.m. to work with children. "...
"The twice-monthly parenting lessons address topics such as preparing children for the transition to middle school and teaching the adults math lessons so they can teach their children."...
"Bob Sanborn, president of Children at Risk, a Texas-based research and advocacy group, said many factors go into successful poor schools. He calls such campuses "outliers" because of their rarity.Other factors he listed are strong parent involvement, small class sizes, good hiring practices and high attendance rates."

"We tend to see they have good leadership," he said. "It's either very experienced leadership that knows the community or engages parents or very young and energetic with lots of ideas. It's not normal leadership – it's extraordinary for many reasons." ...

Everyone wants success for all students and most believe in magic bullets, like charter schools, merit pay or more money, but rather hard work, experience and community connections, engaging and training parents, and passion that leads staff to giving their all seem to be what makes a difference regardless of the economic strata of the students. There are no cookie cutter assembly line approaches that automatically make a difference. Knowledge of strategies that have worked elsewhere is invaluable, but the will to implement them and keep trying until success is attained (persistence) are needed.

A second article about teacher merit pay reinforces this.

Study: Paying Teachers for Student Performance Doesn't Raise Test Scores

Vanderbilt did a study in Tennessee that found that bonuses up to $15,000 for teachers whose students received higher test scores had no effect on student achievement.

What does all this say to the millions of dollars just given to Newark schools by the founder of Facebook? Time will tell if it will make any difference.