Slowing life down

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Life moves at break-neck speed. Are we built for speed, pressure, stress of this magnitude?

My Amish Rocking Chair

My Amish Rocking Chair

I answered “Yes!” until hearing impairment garbled the sounds, muted the music, confused conversations, and made solitary moments my preferable times of day. I chose slowness over speed, ease over pressure, peace over stress – an end to the vocation of active ministry with a loving congregation.

“How’s retirement?”

Life is slower. I share the quiet with Kay and our canine friend Barclay. I write a lot, which was my intention as the hearing loss progressed.

Still, I’m addicted to speed. Between my MacBook Air and iMac, I’m still dependent on speed – the speed of the internet. The speed of instantaneous communication. The speed of news makes my head ache. I can’t keep up. The pressure builds in my head. My heart gets heavy. Not a good thing, I think, for a privileged person who chose solitude over crowds, silence over confusion, low-pressure and low-stress over high-pressure and high-stress.

Slowing life down is a spiritual thing. The Amish rocking chair in our living room reminds me of the virtue of spiritual simplicity. But I rarely sit in it. I rarely sit and rock without my MacBook Air. The speed, pressure, and stress are in my head or, as the Hebrew ancients would say, in my heart. My heart and head don’t easily un-learn what they’ve been taught. But it seems now that un-learning, not learning, is the privilege and task of solitude.

“Barclay, want to go up and take a nap with Dad?” Barclay races up the stairs and takes his place at the foot of the bed. If I’m late with the invitation, he comes to get me for our intimate hour with no speed, no pressure, no stress – and no MacBook Air!

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, February 5, 2016.

 

Sermon on most divisive Christian claim

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“I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me [Jesus]” is sometimes used as a billy club, as in, “if you believe, you’re ‘in’ – if you don’t, you’re ‘out’.” According to Matthew Myer Boulton, the statement has nothing to do with belief. Read in context, this line in the Gospel According to John is the opposite: an assurance of divine comfort and inclusion.

Matthew (“Matt”) Myer Boulton, President of Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, is the son of Wayne and Vicki Boulton, friends of Gordon and Steve for 51 years. Matthew’s leadership is a source of great joy. He is the author of God Against Religion and Life in God.

Last Night’s Iowa Caucus Results

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What a difference a year makes. Last night, Senator Bernie Sanders virtually tied Secretary Hillary Clinton in the Iowa Democratic Caucuses. In April 2015 a Views from the Edge post began:

Ted Cruz, Ron Paul, Marco Rubio, and Hillary Clinton are taking their places in the starting gates for the horse race to the White House in 2016. Smiles and frowns all around, emails asking “Are you IN?“ with requests for money from the partisan Yea-Sayers and Nay-Sayers. But the fact is that every horse they ride – conservative and liberal – is owned by Wall Street.

I’m not “IN” until a candidate rides a different horse into the starting gate. Until someone acts and sounds like Floyd B. Olson….

“I am not a liberal. I am what I want to be — a radical,” said Governor Olson to the 1934 Farmer-Labor party convention. A radical is not an ideologue. It’s a person who insists on going to the root of things. Olson was the nemesis of Wall Street, a champion of the people.

Most Americans have never heard of Floyd B. Olson, the popular Minnesota Governor regarded at the time as President Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s successor before his untimely death. The Views from the Edge piece concluded:

“If and when someone like Floyd B. Olson rides a different horse into the starting gate for the 2016 White House horse race, I’ll be IN with both feet. Until then, I’m not IN.

That was before Bernie Sanders came on the scene.

Last night’s Iowa Democratic Caucuses resulted in a dead heat between Secretary Clinton and Senator Sanders. Unlike all other candidates, Senator Sanders is not funded by Wall Street. He’s supported by over 3,000,000 small donations by people drawn to his clear message, unwavering consistency on the issues, integrity, courage, and a populism like that of Floyd B. Olson.

In Minnesota many people ask, “What would Wellstone do?” referring to Sen. Paul Wellstone who demonstrated the same straight-talking as Floyd B. Olson, and who, like his progressive predecessor, died too early to run for President.

What would Wellstone do? What would Floyd B. Olson do? Ask Bernie Sanders.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 2, 2016

“The time has came….”

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We just tuned in to the Iowa Caucuses. The GOP caucus is airing from Boone County, IA.

The first words from the Chair?

“The time has came!”

NEXT!

Making the nation great again?

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Vincent_Willem_van_Gogh_037

Prisoners exercising in the Yard – Vincent Van Gogh

Might Vincent Van Gogh’s painting of the Prisoners Exercising have been inspired by conflicting biblical texts, like the ones read in many churches two Sundays ago?

The reading from the Book of Nehemiah tells the story of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.

In the absence of leadership, the people’s confidence – their sense of national destiny – has been shaken. The citizens have intermarried. They’ve welcomed and married foreigners. Now Jerusalem’s exiled leaders have returned to restore the nation’s religious identity, to rebuild a nation that has lost its way. Ezra, the priest, and Nehemiah, the governor, are rallying the people to make the nation great again.

Sound familiar?

Jesus, Ezra, and Nehemiah shared a common faith. They were children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their lives were rooted in Torah. Each interpreted Scripture in his own time, according to his own lights. Ezra and Nehemiah re-built the wall. Jesus doesn’t like walls.

Jesus returns to his home town synagogue in Nazareth. He opens the scroll to the Book of Isaiah, and selects the reading announcing good news to the poor, release to the prisoners, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed.

There is nothing about building walls. Nothing about isolation. Nothing about privilege. Nothing about rebuilding the nation. Nothing about the nation at all. Nothing about building the walls of a self-imposed penitentiary.

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. – Luke 4: 16-18

No more prison. No more wall. No more other! Every Other is a BrOther. Otherwise, we’re all exercising in the prison yard.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Jan. 31, 2016

Verse – Brothers

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Steve Shoemaker

Our parents clearly could control our births:
Each one of us born three and a half years
After the other–boys, four boys… Our baths
Could hold two squirrelly kids, but always tears
Would start to stream, if three or more. Now all
Of us at sixty-two to seventy-three
Swim in our own oceans at home, but still
Can shower at the beach house by the sea
In our own room. Our ten grand-kids will scream
As they run up and down the halls, fly kites,
Stomp through the castles in the sand, and dream
Of being oldest, strongest–win the fights
That always happen when the cousins dart
Around–all born three or four years apart.

  • Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Jan. 31, 2016

NOTE: Steve and his his brothers are together this weekend in Urbana, still three and a half years apart! But very much together.

Elizabeth Warren Speaks

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As presidential candidates scramble to win Iowa, Senator Elizabeth Warren, in this opinion piece in the New York Times, reminds voters why the choice is so important.

Click “For whom does the government work? Presidents decide.”

Protected and Secured?

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You receive a mailing. Snail mail. Addressed to you. It looks official.

The upper left hand corner reads:

PROTECTED AND SECURED
PER CURIUM DOCUMENT ENCLOSED
RECEIPT MUST BE AUTHENTICATED

You open the envelope. The letterhead – with a picture of the U.S. Capitol dome – reads:

United States
Investigative Unit

OMG, you’re being investigated by the United States Federal Government!

You’re 80 years old and scared. You call a friend who knows something about the law. The friend is not scared. He looks at the bottom of the stationery which reads in small light colored font:

 

Project of Policy Issues Institute. Not affiliated with the federal government
5405 Alton Pkwy, Suite 5A #369 Irvine CA 92604
http://www.policyissuesinstitute.com (202) 558-6491

The enclosed letter and URGENT RESPONSE form asking for money “to support the fight to impeach Barack Obama” is to be returned to a different address:

UNITED STATES INVESTIGATIVE UNIT, a
Project of PII, P.O. Box 96444,
Washington, D.C. 20090-6444

Your friend assures you this is a hoax. He does a google search. He finds a blog that exposes the details of the work of the Policy Issues Institute.

To be PROTECTED AND SECURED against the United States Investigative Unit, click Drowning in Junk Mail – How to Opt-out of Junk Mail from Policy Issues Institute (PII) and to learn more about the meaning of sinister.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Jan. 29, 2016

 

 

 

 

Loving, Obituary Humor

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Nick Harris“Multi-talented and always interested in mechanics and construction, Nick continually renovated the house at Olson Gulch. He was especially interested in various heating methods and experimented with solar, waste oil burners and various wood-based fuels. Unfortunately, he didn’t leave the instruction manual.

“After graduating from high school and spending some time in college, Nick joined the Army in 1953 and was stationed in South Korea. Nick never said much about the two years he spent serving his country, except to say that he was cold the whole time, the kimchee smelled terrible and the water was unusable!” 

A construction and ironworker, Nick “started at the Anaconda Job Corps in 1983, as a maintenance mechanic where he enjoyed working with the staff and students until his retirement in 1995.”

– Excerpts from the Montana Standard obituary published January 26, 2016.

Allyn “Nick” Harris, 82, of Anaconda passed away surrounded by family on Jan. 25, 2016. 

Nick was a “mainstay” at St. Timothy’s Memorial Chapel, the summer chapel overlooking Georgetown Lake. Blessings and peace to the experimenter’s wife, Lois, children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN who shares Nick’s love for St. Timothy’s Memorial Chapel and its people, January 29, 2016.

 

 

Mr. Bluster and Mr. Trump

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Those who grew up on the Howdy Doody Show will recognize that Mr. Bluster is at it again tonight in DesMoines, Iowa. The only things missing are Buffalo Bob and FOX.