Category Archives: Religion

Of humanity, earth, and teshuvah

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by Gordon C. Stewart, Feb. 27, 2013. Copyright

The Gospel reading for next Sunday tells of Jesus speaking about terrorism and violence, and an urgent invitation to turn.

Some people tell Jesus “about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.” The speakers seem to be contrasting the Galileans – known for their armed resistance to Roman rule – and the Jerusalemites. Jesus himself is a Galilean! As often happens, the non-Galileans are putting him to the test, and as he does so often and so ably, Jesus the Galilean Jewish rabbi begins by appearing to agree with their prejudice. He asks whether these violent Galileans were any different from the rest of the Galileans. One can almost hear the applause from the more sophisticated Jerusalemites.

Then he quickly shifts ground to a scene in Jerusalem. He asks them whether the eighteen saboteurs “upon the tower of Siloam fell, and slew them, do you think they were worse sinners than all others in Jerusalem? No,” he says, “but unless you (plural) reform/ repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Here is the text in an unfamiliar form from The Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB) Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2008, 2010, 2011 by Artists for Israel International.

Lukas 13:1-9

1 Now on the same occasion there were some present reporting to Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach about the men of the Galil whose blood Pilate mixed with their zevakhim (sacrifices).

2 And, in reply, Moshiach said, Do you think that these men of the Galil were greater chote’im (sinners) than all others of the Galil, because they suffered this shud (misfortune)?

3 Lo (no), I say, but unless you make teshuva, you will all likewise perish.

4 Or do you think that those shmonah asar (eighteen) upon whom the migdal (tower) in Shiloach fell and killed them, do you think that they were greater chote’im (sinners) than all the Bnei Adam living in Yerushalayim?

5 Lo (no), I tell you, but unless you make teshuva, you will all likewise perish.

6 And Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach was speaking this mashal. A certain man had an etz te’enah (fig tree) which had been planted in his kerem, and he came seeking pri (fruit) on it, and he did not find any. [YESHAYAH 5:2; YIRMEYAH 8:13]

7 So he said to the keeper of the kerem, Hinei shalosh shanim (three years) I come seeking pri on this etz te’enah (fig tree) and I do not find any. Therefore, cut it down! Why is it even using up the adamah (ground)?

8 But in reply he says to him, Adoni, leave it also this year, until I may dig around it and may throw fertilizer [dung] on it,

9 And if indeed it produces pri in the future, tov me’od (very well); otherwise, you will cut down it [Ro 11:23].

The “mashal” (a familiar proverb or parable) he re-interprets is already part of his and his hearers’ self-understanding from Yeshayah (Isaiah) 5:2; Yirmeyah (Jeremiah) 8:13.

Reading the text in a form much closer to the original context of Jesus’ linguistic-religious-cultural-political-economic context serves to awaken me to hear it with new ears.

Jesus is speaking about collective social life – politics, economics, religion, resistance, keeping the faith. He is calling for thorough-going societal transformation – from blaming others (the Galileans) to looking in the mirror to be startled by the log that is in one’s own eye, individually and collectively: the underlying violence in our way of being in the world, taking up “ground” on this beautiful planet.

In Hebrew Scripture the human species, Adam, is derived from Adamah – earth, soil, dirt, ground. We, the fig tree, are here to produce sweet figs.

The Owner of the vineyard with the barren fig tree shows two traits in this Mashal: disappointment and frustration (“Why is it even using up the ground?”) and the extraordinary patience that allows it more time to produce the sweet fruit for which it was created.

As I look out to the world outside, and as I look in the mirror in the morning, I feel a tiny shiver of G-d’s frustration and long-suffering with the likes of us. I wonder what it will take before we see the reflection of ourselves and our way of the violence of terrorists. Are they any different from the rest of the people in the Galil, Yerushalayim, Chaska, or Washington, D.C.? When and how shall we make teshuvah?

Is Easter’s coming?

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After receiving this today I called Steve suspecting depression. “Hi, Steve. Your stuff’s been really dark lately. Are you depressed?” “No! Why?” said Steve with a chuckle. “Not at all. Pay attention to the last line. I CAPITALIZED Easter.”

miserable days

these days cold rain falls on faces
looking for the season’s changing
…
birds are silent somewhere hiding
winds whip trees no buds are showing
…
bulbs are prisoned in their places
beneath clods slowly rotting

floods have drowned all springlike traces
dark clouds keep the sun from shining
…
graves are closed is Easter coming

– steve shoemaker, urbana, il, feb. 26, 2013

fear of dying

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fear of dying

the umbrella is gone
…
with my mother’s death
a year ago
i am the oldest
in the family
…
slowness
stoopedness
sickness
forgetting
falling
all remind me
of my age
…
i visit doctors
more than friends
…
faith is far away
fear is near

[stoopedness–yes]

-Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Feb. 23, 2013

Stand and Fight?

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“Views from the Edge” exists to promote public discussion of critical public issues. It’s not often that we post something from the NRA, but this one needs to be read by everyone who cares about the future of the United States of America. The “Stand and Fight” campaign announced in this piece is a call to arms. It assumes impending chaos. Readers of Views from the Edge rarely hear it from the horse’s mouth.

I invite readers to listen very carefully to what is said and what is not said – what is written between or below the lines – and the tone of how it’s said.
If you haven’t already read today’s earlier post – “The Common Ground Beneath the Gun Debate” – you might want to swing by it before or after you read this column by Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Click “Stand and Fight” to read how the NRA sees responsible life in our times.

Then post on “Views from the Edge” what you think you saw and heard. Thanks for coming by.

The Common Ground beneath the Gun Debate

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Gordon C. Stewart, February 22, 2013 – Copyright.

“Ninety-nine percent of reality is perception.” Analytical philosopher Willem Zuurdeeg argued that perception itself is the expression of something far deeper, far more powerful.

Zuurdeeg, author of An Analytical Philosophy of Religion and Man Before Chaos: Philosophy Is Born in a Cry, spent his life listening to human speech, listening more deeply for what lay under the surface of the language.

Homo loquens (“man-who-speaks”) is homo convictus (“man-who-is-convicted/convinced”), the creature who establishes finite existence in time by powerful, unshakeable ‘convictors’ that anchor us against the chaos.

What we often describe as irrational speech, is, in fact, “convictional language”, the hidden power of which can only be understood by a kind of “situational analysis, i.e., the life “situation” (historical-convictional context) of the one who is speaking. Our varying perceptions are determined by the less conscious hidden convictions of implicit needs and unquestioned cultural traditions.

What is missing in the national debate is public expression of the non-rational perceptions of the word ‘gun’ and the unspoken convictions that shape our different perceptions.
We not only hear the word ‘gun’ differently. We hear different things differently.

Until we come together to discuss what we hear when we hear the word – our non-rational (not un-rational, as in opposed to reason, but non-rational, as in beneath the presumptions of reason) convictional worlds, the gun debate will be a shouting match that finds no common ground.

A simple exercise of word association demonstrates the difference.

Say the word ‘gun’ and listen for what it evokes in the hearer. In the ears of one, the word ‘gun’ means ‘safety’ and ‘protection’. In the ears of others, it means ‘without protection’ or ‘threat’.

But if we listen carefully to the apparently opposite responses, we discover a common ground they share: the threat of insecurity. The threat of chaos.

Whenever we hear a scream, something powerful is under assault. Chaos threatens. We cry out against the chaos. We cry out against death and extinction.

In Man Before Chaos, Zuurdeeg claims that, from its very beginning, western culture has been bound up with a powerful dread of chaos. Even Plato’s philosophy, argues Zuurdeeg, is born of a cry.

“Socrates has died. He himself does not fit very well into Athens’ political life. He is naked and defenseless and is not ashamed of it. He has the courage to cry against chaos and for Being and Goodness. All this has been smothered by the comfortable, although often quarrelsome, classical and medieval philosophy and theology. Who can live by a cry? Who can stand to hear such disturbing noise? Clear and calm reasoning under the guidance of venerable old philosophical schools (or just as respectable church fathers) enables us to live, make church and civilization possible. Who can endure permanently Plato’s uncertain, unsafe balance on the b rink of the abyss of chaos? By what does a man live? By a cry? Claims? The careful and broad elaboration of philosophy? All of them?” (Man Before Chaos, pp 43-44)

In the current debate about guns, the life situations, cultural traditions, and life experiences of the hearers are “worlds” apart. Perhaps…perhaps…if we could find the space to listen more deeply to our different cries in the face of chaos, we would find the common ground of homo convictus and move to something deeper than the shouting.

It takes one

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Click HERE to read “It takes one” – a poem sent to Views from the Edge today from nuclear-free New Zealand by David Earle in response to “The Home of the Scared and the Land of the Tyrannized.”

It all begins with one.

Into the Cocoon of Sorrow

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The return of the prodigal son - Rembrandt drawing

The return of the prodigal son – Rembrandt drawing

During seven years as Executive Director of the Legal Rights Center, Inc. a nonprofit public defense corporation founded in 1970 by American Indian and African-American civil rights leaders, there were sacred moments when the lawyers would call me in to meet a suicidal client in a jail cell. Sometimes the person in the cell was guilty of murder or manslaughter. They were beside themselves. All I could do was be there with them as a kind of quiet presence of hope and the possibility of forgiveness and new life.

I knew then that we were sitting right in the middle of the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Gospel of Luke 15:11-32). In Jesus’ parable, the son, who has convinced his generous father into giving him his inheritance before his father’s death, has squandered it all, and, after finding himself in desperation, eating the left-overs in the pig sty of “the far country”, he staggers home to his father. He comes beating his breast with remorse and shame. “But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him, and kissed him,” and orders the finest robe for him and a magnificent feast to celebrate his son’s return from “the far country.” When the older brother who has stayed home obediently objects, the father of the two sons declares: “It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, but is alive, was lost, and is found!”

Only after returning to parish ministry did I discover The Book of Common Prayer’s rite for the reconciliation of a penitent that is constructed on the story of the return of the son to the father. For those in the bowels of despair, remorse, and guilt, there is no word from inside one’s own self that can crack open the cocoon of horror, self-disgust, and condemnation. When I found this rite, it moved me deeply. I adapted parts of it for the Prayer of Confession in morning worship at Shepherd of the Hill Presbyterian Church in Chaska, MN.

RITE FOR THE RECONCILIATION OF A PENITENT from The Book of Common Prayer (The Episcopal Church)

The priest and penitent begin as follows

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving-kindness;
in your great compassion blot out my offenses.
Wash me through and through from my wickedness,
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions only too well,
and my sin is ever before me.

Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One,
have mercy upon us.

Penitent: Pray for me, a sinner.

Priest: May God in his love enlighten your heart, that you may remember in truth all your sins and his unfailing mercy. Amen.

The Priest may then say one or more of these or other appropriate verses of Scripture, first saying:: Hear the Word of God to all who truly turn to him.

Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. Matthew 11:28

This is a true saying, and worthy of all to be received, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. I Timothy 1:13

If any man sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the perfect offering for our sins, and nor for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. I John 2:1-2

The Priest then continues:

Now, in the presence of Christ, and of me, his minister, confess your sins with a humble and obedient heart to Almighty God, our Creator and our Redeemer.

The Penitent says:

Holy God, heavenly Father, you formed me from the dust in your image and likeness, and redeemed me from sin and death by the cross of your Son Jesus Christ. Through the water of baptism you clothed me with the shining garment of his righteousness, and established me among your children in your kingdom. But I have squandered the inheritance of your saints, and I have wandered far in a land that is waste.

Especially, I confess to you and to the Church . . . . (Here the penitent confesses particular sins)

Therefore, O Lord, from these and all other sins I cannot now remember, I turn to you in sorrow and repentance. Receive me again into the arms of your mercy, and restore me to the blessed company of your faithful people; through him in whom you have redeemed the world, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Priest may then offer words of comfort and counsel.

Priest: Will you turn again to Christ as your Lord?

Penitent: I will.

Priest: Do you, then, forgive those who have sinned against you?

Penitent: I forgive them.

Priest: May Almighty God in mercy receive your confession of sorrow and faith, strengthen you in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life. Amen.

The Priest then lays upon the penitent’s head (or extends a hand over the penitent) saying:: Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has left power to his Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive you all your offenses; and by his authority committed to me, I absolve you from all your sins; in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Priest concludes: Now there is rejoicing in heaven; for you were lost, and are found; you were dead, and are now alive in Christ Jesus our Lord. Go (or abide) in peace. The Lord has put away all your sins.

Penitent: Thanks be to God.

A song for the weary soul

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Listen to the spiritual that soothed the mind and heart of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he was rebuked and scorned. Sit back and feel the music sung by Odetta.

Pardon

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The Prayer of St. Francis is a well-known. Here’s the Prayer, followed by a reflection for today (Feb. 20) on “pardon” from a Lenten booklet prepared by members of the United Church of the San Juans in Ridgway, CO.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

“Part of my job, when I was on staff at First Presbyterian Church in Boulder was to prepare ‘messages’ on a twice monthly basis. These were to be shared in our huge singles Sunday School class. Some Sundays, we would have upwards of 100 single adults in our group; many ere just separated, some post-divorce, others recently widowed. All were seeking advice or encouragement about getting on with life, in most cases a life-style change that had not been chosen by that person. A second part of my job was the coordinator for the Divorce Recovery Program. This is where I ran into the word ‘pardon,’ used differently than the legal usage more familiar in society today.

“I have always loved words; when I run into an unfamiliar one, I generally stop what I am doing and look up the meaning. The computer has made my lifelong affair with words much easier! I used to haul my huge old five pound unabridged version (1940) of Webster’s Dictionary down off the shelf, turn the onion skin tot he right location and study the pronunciation, origin and usage of these unfamiliar words. Some words I managed to remember and use myself to reinforce the memory, but others faded away quickly because they were not that useful. The word pardon has an interesting origin; it stems from the Medieval Lation perdonare, meaning to remit, overlook, or literally ‘to forgive.’ The Latin was then adopted into a Germanic ancestor of our English, where it was translated piece-by-piece. Linguists call this process a ‘calque’, a tracing or copy. ‘Per’ was replaced by ‘for’, a prefix that means ‘thoroughly’, and ‘donare’ was replaced with ‘giefan’ meaning to give. The Germanic result was ‘forgiefan’ which showed up in Old English meaning to ‘give up’ or to allow.

“It isn’t just divorced or widowed parties who might need to deal with the concept of pardon or forgiveness; most of us have experienced hurt, deliberately or not, by the thoughtless or painful words and actions of others. The most difficult concept to explain is that pardoning or forgiving is not about saying what happened was ‘alright’; rather, the act of pardon or forgiveness allows the injured party to let go or give away the hurt and release the hold that kept that person stuck in the past.”

– Member of United Church of the San Juans

Thanks to dear friend, former classmate and colleague Harry Strong for sending “Lenten Devotionals” complied by members and friends of the United Church of the San Juans in Ridgeway, Colorado.

Here’s the entire Prayer of St. Francis:

Loneliness and Love

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George Matheson wrote this hymn. Matheson (1842-1906) was one of Scotland’s great preachers. Most people didn’t know that he was blind. When the sister on whom he had depended to be his eyes and his companion was married, he was left alone to fend for himself. He wrote “O love that wilt not let me go” the night he had “celebrated” the joy of her new life. The rendition in the video captures the emotion and the faith of the hymn-writer, whose faith and poetry still encourage later generations in times of personal loss and loneliness.