Montclair Presbyterian Church

Last Sunday I preached about Harold Camping’s prediction that Judgment Day is coming on May 21st, 2011. While a part of me didn’t want to give him or his right wing fanaticism any more airtime than he is already getting, the other part of me is convinced that the progressive Christian church must learn how to speak out in the fight over God. Don’t we, as progressives, care that one man has proclaimed a God to millions of people that is a foreign God to us?
The progressive Christian church exists, to some extent, in reaction to the claim on truth that right wing Christians have promulgated. Progressives shy away from anything that sounds like dogma because even if it’s liberal, it’s still dogma. So how will we ever have a voice in this fight?
Okay, I get that most people don’t like the word “fight” when it comes to conversation about God. Perhaps “war” would be a more fitting term. My experience has been that an army of people are trying to take over the country we call God and most of us are sit idly on our porches or ducking into our houses as it happens. My pondering over this has left me with two questions: Are we so unsure of what we believe that we won’t even enter into the fray? Or, are we so afraid of becoming “like them” that we won’t stand up for anything?
While I don’t wish to be dogmatic, I can certainly speak from experience. The God I have experienced throughout my life and all of its twists and turns is a God who is long on mercy and short on judgment, is concerned more about those who are hungry and sick and oppressed than about individual salvation, is able to work in ways and through people that are surprising to us, is intent on a world community in which there are no insiders and outsiders, and is not interested in being the God of America only.
One of my favorite professors in seminary was teaching a class on good and evil and he began the class by saying, “This is what I believe today. You may see me 6 months from now and I might believe very differently. God continues to reveal and I continue to be open to such revelation so I will qualify everything I say by saying I am always open to further revelation. So here is what I believe today.” And then he went on to teach the class. He was different than many professors in that he genuinely listened to the students in the class rather than simply trying to transmit his own knowledge. He modeled for us how to be open to further revelation.
Perhaps that is an option for the progressive Christian churches to join in the conversation and the fight over God. Perhaps we simply need to say, “This is what we believe today and we also believe God continues to reveal each and every day so we continue to listen.”
I think I can honestly say it’s not my competitive streak that makes me want to join the fight over God. It’s a result of sitting with so many people who have been deeply wounded in the fight. If I can do anything to prevent the wounds from happening, I will do it and it seems as if speaking up is one of the ways to prevent the wounds. Will you join me in speaking up so God is not used as a weapon against all kinds of people?

Well, after my blog last week I was aware that I have a bit more of a rant inside of me regarding the subject of Bin Laden than I realized. Last week I was trying to be sensitive toward people who personally lost someone on 9/11 and the fact that their feelings and grief are complicated. I understand that some are rejoicing in the death but I also felt obligated to raise some of the concern about such rejoicing.
This week I need to rant just a little. As a parent I have tried to teach my kids that making mistakes are a part of life and when we make them it’s important to own them and then make amends. Part of what troubles me about the rhetoric regarding Bin Laden is that there are very few people willing to look at the role the US played in creating a terrorist like him. As a country we are TERRIBLE at owning our mistakes and making amends. We just keep on bulldozing through the world as though our mistakes are all justified in some way or because we are the biggest we don’t have to be accountable for our mistakes.
Is that the kind of country in which you want to live and belong? When did we become so high and mighty and above accountability? We wonder why we have corrupt CEO’s and politicians and business people. Isn’t the answer fairly obvious? The bully is rewarded because we are the bully and it’s worked for us as a country.
Come on, people, have we really lost all hope of being able to transform our government and our foreign policy and our military policy? When are we going to flow out into the streets and demand that we live up to our democracy? When are we going to say enough is enough? How is that we can assassinate a human being publicly across the world and no one says a word?
Sometimes I wonder if we are all asleep…

Well, it’s all over the news. After 10 years, the wicked witch of terrorism is finally dead. Apparently there are happy people dancing in the streets at various locations around the world. Apparently this is a huge victory for the USA. Apparently this will send a message to terrorists all over the world. Hmm….what exactly is that message?
When I heard the news this morning, I was strangely unemotional. Why am I not rejoicing? Why am I not feeling victorious? Why am I not impressed by our country’s ability to send a message? Why am I not at least satisfied that he got what he deserved? Am I the only one, besides those in his own network, not rejoicing?
Honestly, I feel more like sighing. My heart is heavy with the realization that we have learned very little over the years in regard to terrorism. Rather than feeling proud to be American, I can only wonder who we really are as a country.
Don’t get me wrong. One of my favorite pastimes is to read fiction and the fiction I choose to read is all about the elite forces and the plots they try to foil. Because I am such a chicken liver, I think I like to live vicariously through the fearless characters in the fiction I read. Through them I can be a navy seal or a CIA agent or some other elite squad member. There was a small part of me who was impressed by the fact that it was a navy seal team who did the deed. The event will no doubt be fodder for many more books for me to read about our elite forces.
When I am not in the world of fiction, but in our very real world, I am concerned. What does justice mean anymore? Why was Bin Laden treated so differently with a blanket order to kill? Or, do those orders get carried out all of the time all over the world without our knowledge. Was Bin Laden really that much worse than some of the dictators who have slaughtered hundreds of thousands in Africa? Why don’t we send elite forces in to “remove” them? At the end of the day, was this about pride and saving face? I will not mourn for Bin Laden. My mourning is closer to home. My grief is related to our false sense of who we are as a country. In the end, are we really just wealthy thugs?

After the Easter Celebration, I spoke with a young couple who has an 8 year old son. They told me that he is a deep thinker and asks some challenging questions. Recently one of his classmates told him that the world was going to end in 2012 because the Mayans have predicted it. Naturally the boy wanted to know all about the Mayans and why they think the world is going to end. The parents were telling me they have had a difficult time knowing how to answer their son’s questions.
Many of us, if not all of us, have heard the same prediction. In fact, it’s interesting to see how many movies have come out regarding the end of the world. What do we do with the prediction? Remember Y2K? The world watched and waited as the millenium changed wondering if the world’s grid would collapse and communication would be cut off worldwide.
What sense have you made of the prediction by the Mayans? Do you ignore it? Have you investigated it? Is it a concern lingering in the back of your mind? Are you curious about it? What would you say to an 8 year old boy if he asked you the questions he has been asking his parents?
My approach as a parent was usually to talk about my feelings or perspective pretty honestly. As to the world ending in 2012, I remember being 8 years old and being terrified of a nuclear bomb that would end the world. That was 40 years ago. It seems there is always a threat of some kind. We have to decide whether to live our lives in fear of what might happen or to live our lives purposefully each day. Sometimes I slip into fear mode, but I try really hard to live purposefully every day. We have no way of knowing or predicting the future and while there is a great deal to be afraid of, there is also a great deal to discover and enjoy.
Life is a bit like running a race. If you only look at the ground right in front of your feet, you probably won’t get very far or go very fast. If you only look so far out in front of you that you don’t know what is at your feet, you could easily trip and hurt yourself. Somehow we have to find a way to notice what is in front of us and to look down the road into the distance so we are ready for both. Every step we take is a choice to live in fear or in faith.

This morning as I listened to National Public Radio, I was dismayed to hear of yet another earthquake aftershock in Japan that registered 6.6. A month has passed since the initial quake and tsunami and just when they might be thinking things are settling down, along comes another aftershock and the terror fills them again as it did when it first happened. The image of the ground shaking beneath them and then settling down and then shaking again reminds me a great deal of how it is with grief.
Our culture has unwisely over the years perpetrated the myth that grief is something you feel for a limited amount of time and then you move on with your life. Widows and widowers will tell you how often people ask them several months after their partner of 50 years has died whether or not they are over it yet. The loss of someone or something we love to death or divorce or forced separation is not something that goes away. Instead, it’s a bit like an earthquake, or the waves of the ocean. There are times when very little is happening and we can barely feel it or sense it. There are other times when the ground shakes so hard we almost fall down or when the waves come crashing and we can barely catch our breath. We don’t usually know when or where the quake or wave will occur, but we know at some point we’ll feel it again. The best thing we can do for ourselves and for our grief is to let it come and to hang on to the hope that eventually the aftershocks will lessen in force and they won’t come as often.
One of the gifts we receive from being in community is that we don’t have to weather our grief storms alone. Let someone know when the ground is shaking beneath you or the wave has drenched you. Sometimes an arm around the shoulder or a reassuring word or a silent companionable presence is all you need. If you are not part of a community where you can do that, you are welcome to come and join ours. We care about each other and we care about you, whatever your journey.

Talitha writes:

Great thanks to the Spiritual Activists committee! Betsy King, Eloise Gilland, Barbara Peters and Jean Gregory worked together to bring the community an experience of Taizé prayer last Wednesday (3/30). It was a quiet, reverent, and peaceful time full of meditative singing and long silence. Many of us found our hearts were opened by the simple time of prayer. Many also participated in the “wilderness journey” set up around the sanctuary, leaving their mark in the sand of our Godly Play “desert box,” or adding a leaf to a dry branch, or lighting a candle in the darkness. In all these ways and through spoken and silent prayer, we had a time of reflection and celebration.

The Taizé community in France (from which this prayer style originated) has found it to be a powerful way of bringing people together across boundaries of nation, language, culture, and even denomination. (More here: http://www.taize.fr/en_article3148.html) Brother Roger, Taizé’s founder, was a great bridge between the Catholic and Protestant churches. He received Catholic mass daily, and even received it from the pope, yet remained Protestant and never converted to Catholicism. The brothers at Taizé are a unique mix from the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox churches. By singing simple songs in many languages, people discover that they are able to pray with people of other nations. People who cannot share a conversation can share a deep spiritual connection, and can pray together this way. Taizé has a rich history of hospitality, from war refugees in 1940 to the thousands of young people who now come on pilgrimage each week, many of them non-Christian, seeking a spiritual experience.

I wonder how the meditative style of Taizé prayer can help us bring people together. I wonder whether it will help us build any bridges, or connect what has been torn apart. I wonder how we can best welcome a stranger, a seeker.

Hello from Talitha!

I’m usually the person behind the posts that show up on our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Montclair-Presbyterian-Church/133926043339703). This is just a small part of my newly expanded job responsibilities (I changed from 10 hrs/week to 15). I have a long relationship with Facebook – since I was in college, back when you had to be a college student to sign up!  

Someone recently posted on our new page “I like the facebook page. How do we use it to enhance community?”

This is a great question. What is important to realize is that facebook IS a community, in a different kind of way. My generation grew up keeping in touch primarily by electronic means. It became really important for me as a high school grad, when my group of friends relocated to various colleges, and we stayed in touch by reading one another’s blogs and chatting on AOL Instant Messenger. Facebook status updates are an easy extension of AOL “away messages” or comparable to micro-blogging.  

For those who just don’t “get” Facebook, you should know that it is just a different mode of keeping in touch. Facebook users don’t often have long face-to-face conversations catching up on “what’s going on” in your lives, because they already know what you’ve been up to – perhaps even what you cooked for dinner last night. Each little bit of information passed on through facebook may be small and even mundane, but they add up to a general knowledge (it’s been called an “ambient cloud”) of your friend’s interests and activities.

On Facebook, our page “likes” a lot of pages that are of general interest to our church members – from Food Inc, to Covenant Network, to the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program. I look through the list of what these groups are up to, and post one or two for our page. It’s a way of staying up to date on these great groups and their news. If you find something you think other church members would be interested, I encourage you to post it on our page! I also encourage you to be facebook friends with other church members, to get to know one another in a new way.

Thanks for letting me have such a fun element in my job! ~Talitha~

During these 40 days of Lent, the time between Ash Wednesday and Easter, our church is exploring the theme of wilderness. Have you ever been in an actual wilderness? Prevailing wisdom would say that you would do well to have a healthy fear of the realities of wilderness. In other words, be prepared for what might come your way. Be knowledgeable of the dangers and take what steps are necessary to prevent the danger from taking your life.
When I did my 5 day Vision Fast in the wilderness by myself, I spent weeks preparing thoroughly for what might present challenges. I had rehearsed what to do in various situations and I brought along mosquito netting, jungle juice, a hatchet, a flashlight, a whistle and various and asundry other tools to assist me. The first night out as I laid in my sleeping bag on top of my tarp, I was wearing a baseball cap with the mosquito netting over it because the bugs were out in swarms. I had a difficult time getting to sleep because I was afraid of the wild animals that might visit me in the night. Mountain lions, wolves, bears, lions, tigers and who knew what other murderous animals might spring out of the dark? It didn’t help that when I laid down on my tarp I could hear constant scratching sounds under the tarp. My imagination was amped up and I could feel myself spinning into a world of fear. Somehow I ended up falling asleep and after what seemed like hours, something woke me up. I opened my eyes and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Perched on the top of my baseball cap with it’s head bent over looking into my face was a mouse! Of all of the animals in the wild wilderness that I had prepared for, this was not one of them. It took me a minute to register what I was seeing and when all of my brain synapses finally talked to each other, I reached my hand up and knocked the mouse off of my cap. It scurried away and I got up and out of my sleeping bag and began to pace.
Isn’t it true that what we fear is often so much bigger than what actually shows up in our lives? We think lions and tigers and bears and instead a cute little mouse shows up and looks at us with curious eyes. After a day or two in the wilderness, I was able to see the humor in what happened the first night. Seeing a mouse eyeball to eyeball was the perfect thing to dissuage my fear and remind to trust. I hope your fear of lions is transformed into a beautiful moment with a mouse.

When our daughter came home from school on Friday she mentioned that some of the teenagers at her high school were talking about the Tsunami warning in California. As is often the case with teenagers, it eventually turns into joking and laughing. One of the differences between teenagers and adults is in how we deal with fear. Teenagers tend to laugh while adults tend to act out in anger or by trying to over-control a situation. Teenagers are seeing the same pictures of devastation coming from Japan that we are seeing. As far away as Japan is, teenagers who live near the coast in California can almost imagine a wall of water crashing through the coastline and they can certainly imagine the feel of an earthquake because most of them have experienced one by now. No wonder they were talking about and nervously laughing about tsunamis. They feel some fear, whether they recognize the fear or not.
Most of us continue to be dismayed by the reports coming from Japan. Most of us cannot imagine the chaos and confusion and devastation that they are experiencing, let alone the ongoing fears related to a nuclear meltdown. As I was driving to work this morning, I was thinking about how helpless we end up feeling when tragedy strikes across oceans. We want to help in some way and we think about how we hope those in Japan would come to our aid if the situation were reversed. As I was pondering our feelings of helplessness, I drove through a very poor section of Oakland and saw several men pushing shopping carts looking for bottles or cans. As I watched them labor in the rain, I realized how easy it is to forget the tsunami of poverty that continues to wash over the city in which we live and work.
If you are feeling helpless and want to do something in term of Tsunami relief, I have three suggestions for you. The first is to donate money to the Presbyterian Disaster Relief fund and designate it “for Japan.” The second is to donate money or food to either the food bank or a local homeless shelter that has a feeding program. The third is to buy food that can be distributed (I used to buy bulk trail mix or cheese and crackers) and when you see a homeless person or someone pushing a shopping cart, pull over and hand them some food. Obviously none of these are long-term solutions, but if you need something to rid you of your feelings of helplessness, any one of those ideas would work.
As you pray for all of those in Japan who are suffering, remember to do the work required in each of your significant relationships because at any moment a tsunami of one kind or another can change one’s life forever.

One of the authors I have enjoyed immensely over the years is Frederick Buechner. He is an ordained Presbyterian minister and he has a way of writing about life and faith that is poignant, at times funny, and takes one to different depths depending upon the subject. One of his books that I recently picked up from my shelf again is “The Longing for Home.” In it he talks about our childhood “home” and how for each of us it is different depending upon where we most felt at home. If our parents didn’t provide a stable and warm home, maybe it was our grandparents or our best friend’s home. Regardless, he describes how we spend a great deal of our lives feeling homesick for either the home we had or the home we never had and for which we still long.
At some point in our lives, however, we realize we have reached an age where there is no going back and at that point our longing takes on a different character. We long to be wholly loved and whole and our longing becomes a longing for an eternal home. In our culture in the US, we have made an enemy of death rather than a friend so we rarely talk about our eternal longing. Have you ever asked someone who is closer to the end of their life than to the beginning what they long for in death? For people who spend their lives taking faith seriously, we skirt the issue of death altogether perhaps because there is no one living who has experience!
When I was a child I heard about the mansions, the streets made out of gold, and the harps that played music constantly (I actually worried about that one a bit since I wasn’t sure how I could listen to harp music 24/7). Do I still believe in that picture? Do you? If not, what is your vision for what comes after death?
The people I have met over the years who are not afraid of death are also people who are living life to the fullest. We all have longings. Imagine how incredible it would be for the oldest generation to share with the younger generations their longings for what comes next. None of us can ever be “right” about what comes next since there is no way to verify so why not share our longing and our visions with one another? Maybe if we do we will all journey in that direction more gracefully.