what sense does it make?

I am an Anabaptist/Mennonite, not by birth as many are, but by God’s leading and my choice. The Anabaptists were so named in the 16th century for their preference for believer’s baptism over infant baptism, but that is only one of the stances taken by these brave souls. Central to the faith are the teachings of Jesus and discipleship. Jesus spoke in love and taught peace and reconciliation. This is one of the core values of the Anabaptist belief. It is not a core value of the social system in which you and I live. The tension is obvious. Search the gospels. You will not find a word from his lips that support violence or retribution of any kind, nor do we.

This morning when I opened my email I found this letter from one of the members of my little church at the edge of the city. He is one of several in the church who are members of our denomination’s Christian Peacemakers Teams. He and his wife believe people can change. So do I. So did Jesus. So does God. That is what Grace is all about. If it were not so, how do we find ourselves still here, chugging along trying to be better people despite our many continued failings? I am not talking about leaving the toothpaste cap off the tube or grumbling about things. I am talking about attitudes, behaviors and actions that wound the spirit in other persons—abuse in all it’s many forms. I have done this many, many times.  I once was blind, but now I see….

Here is the letter that came by email to my congregation this morning:

Alabama killed Phil tonight, November 4, 2010, to my church…

Tonight the state of Alabama killed Phil who was on death row at the prison where our friend Glenn is also awaiting execution.

Earlier this year Glenn was originally scheduled to receive a ruling mid-October which would have set his execution date, possibly as early as mid-November.   And then in August, Phil was assigned a death-date of November 4, and Glenn knew he would live to see another Christmas and New Year, because Alabama only kills one inmate each month (Phil in November) and they don’t kill people in December (too close to Christmas — after all, it would be un-Christian to kill someone so close to Jesus’ birth.  Best to have a little distance…..).   And then, in addition, Glenn’s court ruling was postponed until later this month (at which time he will get an execution date).   But if things had fallen differently, Phil’s execution could have been Glenn’s.

I Googled Phil, and this is what I found.  Phil has been on death row for over two decades.  The information focuses on what he did many years ago; who knows who he is today.  I have learned from my conversations with Glenn that people can change in amazing ways while on death row.   The death penalty is wrong because it denies the possibility of God’s transforming love for victim and perpetrator.   More on that in a later email or other sharing in church.

I talked to Glenn tonight, he was somber, as were the rest of those on death row.

After I hung up with Glenn, I went to sing Eli songs as part of his good-night routine, and Eli asked to sing “Alleluia, the Great Storm is over.”

The thunder and lightning gave voice to the night;
the little lame child cried aloud in her fright. .
“Hush, little baby, a story I’ll tell,
of a love that has vanquished the powers of hell.

Alleluia, the great storm is over, lift up your wings and fly!
Alleluia, the great storm is over, lift up your wings and fly!

“Sweetness in the air, and justice on the wind,
laughter in the house where the mourners had been.
The deaf shall have music, the blind have new eyes,
the standards of death taken down by surprise.

Alleluia, the great storm is over, lift up your wings and fly!
Alleluia, the great storm is over, lift up your wings and fly!

“Release for the captives, an end to the wars,
new streams in the desert, new hope for the poor.
The little lame children will dance as they sing,
and play with the bears and the lions in spring.

Alleluia, the great storm is over, lift up your wings and fly!
Alleluia, the great storm is over, lift up your wings and fly!

another word to ponder

Today I am turning over the word, betray. What does it mean to betray? The word is colorful and has variant usages. I’m partial to this set of definitions from Free Dictionary.com:

be·tray  [bih-trey]

–verb (used with object)

1. to deliver or expose to an enemy by treachery or disloyalty: Benedict Arnold betrayed his country.

2. to be unfaithful in guarding, maintaining, or fulfilling: to betray a trust

3. to disappoint the hopes or expectations of; be disloyal to: to betray one’s friends.

4. to reveal or disclose in violation of confidence: to betray a secret.  (synonyms: bare, expose,  tell, divulge / antonyms: hide, conceal)

5. to reveal unconsciously (something one would preferably conceal): Her nervousness betrays her insecurity.

6. to show or exhibit; reveal; disclose: an unfeeling remark that betrays his lack of concern. (synonyms: display,  manifest, expose, uncover / antonyms: hide, conceal)

7. to deceive, misguide, or corrupt: a young lawyer betrayed by political ambitions into irreparable folly.

8. to seduce and desert.

I think we all have committed at least one of the states of betrayal on this list at one time or another. I do not like to think of myself as having done so, but the truth is that I have, sometimes purposefully, sometimes unwittingly, as in not allowing conscious recognition of my purpose. I am far from good…as Jesus said in Luke 18:19 “Why do you call me good?…No one is good except God alone.”

Except for the Benedict Arnold type of action in usage #1, betrayal is a slippery thing that hides out in the outer reaches of our human selves. It is beguiling and seductive. Betraying ourselves as in usage #5 is a private matter—of lesser impact than usage #2 or #7—these generally having some personal gain attached to them. We all do this. Some one shares a bit of information with the caveat not to tell anyone. Sometimes that person really expects confidence, sometimes not. In any case, many of us find ways to pass the information on. I find it morally useful to ask if I may tell my partner. I do not like the tension involved in having to keep a solitary confidence and am grateful if told I may share with my partner. For this reason, I rarely ask a confidante to keep information completely hidden from a partner. I pretty much expect it will be shared, so giving permission keeps me in charge of at least a small part of what can become a daisy chain of information and mis-information.

In my lifetime (7 decades) I have experienced several life-changing, egregious, betrayals of trust. Each one has left its mark in the cells of my body, despite the forgiveness I’ve tried to practice. The most recent betrayal caused an enormous amount of damage to me, my family and friends. I dare not think of it, for when I do,  my breath becomes labored and my heart sinks in my chest. By God’s grace we forgive, but the cells of the body remember. The heart grieves to hear the spoken apology that is a balm for healing and reconciliation. Not my will, but yours Lord (Luke 22:42). These words sometimes stick in my throat. I am not good. Only God is good. I can only do as I am able…by Grace.

going forward while standing still

Last night baby kitty, Bella woke me up  after  only 1.5 hours of sleep by jumping up to nestle down upon my sleeping body. Normally I would manage this but last night and for the past several nights I have been flushed with concerns and anxieties. I am currently overwhelmed with life in general and mine in particular. I would like to know when the golden years begin. I’m thinking this whole golden years idea might have been one of those advertising gimmicks to sell retirement homes or insurance policies. There is nothing golden going on in my life at present. Definitely nickel-plated.

Big Dawg and I still have 2 houses: the big beautiful one we put up for sale 2 years ago when we answered the call to come follow Jesus with the congregation we were attending at the time, and the charming little cottage in which we now reside. There had been ample time for leadership persons to explain to us that the invitation couldn’t include the two of us, but nothing was said until 3 days after we moved and there we were, sort of like your best friend died without leaving you a handkerchief. Two years later, we still have 2 houses and the strain of floating them, along with all the other vicissitudes of 21st century life is killing us. The strain of having lost Adopted Daughter along with what we’d thought would be a church family, comes home to roost quite frequently. I won’t go on. It will sound like a soap opera.

Two and a half days ago I had what we used to call a nervous breakdown—uncontrollable crying, despair, hopelessness, deep depression. I pulled myself up to a level closer to normal with the help of homeopathic medication, but  I am truly tired, inside and out. The prairie style FLW house we rescued from ignominy and poured so much love and money into has slipped from $479K to $300K and still no real buyers. We are reluctantly preparing to seek renters. This is a band-aid and not a good one, but it might lessen the financial leak. The wound remains until such time as the church that invited us, and then uninvited us, publicly accepts and confesses its culpability to us. Although we have extended forgiveness to them, such a statement would be a very healing balm to our battered selves. In the meantime, we practice the rule of 70 x 7.

Tomorrow BD and I will head out to Minnesota to attend the annual conference of Mennonites and Roman Catholics, called Bridgefolk, to be held at St John’s Abbey in Collegeville. We are looking for something more, but don’t know what it is. I have moments of wishing we’d not signed up for this because I feel so out of the Circle of Light, but we will go and God will bless and life will go on…one day at a time.

immigration prayer

Recently an Open Letter written by MennoNeighbors to my denomination—Mennonite Church USA—urging the leadership to stand fast in opposition to Arizona’s proposed immigration law, came along for signing. The letter asks the Church to rescind our agreement to hold the 2013 Conference there, as we have many latino/latina members who will not be welcome or safe should this bill become law. This is not the only raison d’etre for this stand, but it is a good and timely one. We are aware that many states are watching to see if they might do the same.

As usual there were a lot of opinions floating on the listserve about how it should be written/worded, but eventually it got done. On the day of its last signing an email circulated with this prayer. It seems that First Mennonite of Denver piloted a group prayer project on various themes led by Randy Macy, who plans to add music and record them, then send CDs to politicians in Washington and beyond. This particular prayer was written and submitted by Theda Good and Dawn Kreider.

Prayer for National Security and Immigration

God, Creator of all peoples on earth

We in the United States are a gathered people
With ancestral roots in many lands
Whose descendants navigated terrain and sea
To reach this land we have come to call home.

Many sought new fortunes
Or an escape from oppression
But this land was already inhabited
And in searching for a new home
Our ancestors too became oppressors
Violating the freedoms of those here before them.

Forgive the past acts of violence
Towards natives who already had
What our antecessors were searching for
Forgive our arrogance for believing
That manifest destiny made this land ours
And our unwillingness to now share this land

Millions now migrate to this land
Seeking the same opportunities sought by our ancestors
Many have borne children
Who are United States citizens
Alien parent and citizen child
Both created in your image
All of us equal in your eyes

Give us the ability to see
The aliens in our midst the way you see them
Grant us the wisdom to fairly address their complex issues of
Citizenship, health care, education, and social welfare
Help us resist the temptation to legislate them further from their dreams
Instead let us offer them the decency and compassion
Each of your children deserves

Forgive us for not loving our neighbors as ourselves
Give us wise, just and humble leaders
And give all who live in this land
A will to live in peace with one another
On 9/11 the security of our homeland was threatened by attack.
Our leaders then declared war on an abstract enemy
and old testament justice prevailed
an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth
turning the other cheek was never an option
Instead we used violence to ensure peace and security
We could have chosen life instead of more death, to listen to our enemies,
to try to understand their desire to destroy our empires

God, help us identify what loving our enemies on a national scale entails
and to recognize our part in fomenting hatred and violence in our world.
As we cannot claim to be innocent;
forgive us for not loving our neighbors as ourselves.
Help us O God to see that all peoples of the world truly need each other –
Give us wise, just and humble leaders
And give all who live in this land a will to live in peace with all peoples on earth.

God of mercy, hold us in love!

Theda Good and Dawn Kreider

11/18/2009

prayer for the earth

I received a response to yesterday’s posting from my dear friend Dancing Queen, who has many friends in many places. She sent me 2 messages requesting prayer. One is a 4-minute video Four Years Go: A Campaign to Change the Course of History, and the other is the statement below from  the Native American, Chief Arvol Looking Horse, 19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe. I am not familiar with all of the belief systems of the world, but I do believe that the God I know has no borders and manifests to all peoples in myriad ways. In short, I believe in One God, with many faces. I hope this will not offend my Christian brothers and sisters, for I am assuredly Christian in commitment and practice.

This is the chief’s call to prayer for our earth, which has sustained human life for eons:

A Great Urgency

To All World Religious and Spiritual Leaders

My Relatives,

Time has come to speak to the hearts of our Nations and their Leaders. I ask you this from the bottom of my heart, to come together from the Spirit of your Nations in Prayer.

We, from the heart of Turtle Island, have a great message for the World; we are guided to speak from all the White Animals showing their sacred color, which have been signs for us to pray for the sacred life of all things. As I am sending this message to you, many Animal Nations are being threatened, those that swim, those that crawl, those that fly, and the plant Nations, eventually all will be affected from the oil disaster in the Gulf.

The dangers we are faced with at this time are not of spirit. The catastrophe that has happened with the oil spill which looks like the bleeding of Grandmother Earth, is made by human mistakes, mistakes that we cannot afford to continue to make.

I ask, as Spiritual Leaders, that we join together, united in prayer with the whole of our Global Communities. My concern is these serious issues will continue to worsen, as a domino effect that our Ancestors have warned us of in their Prophecies.

I know in my heart that there are millions of people who feel our united prayers for the sake of our Grandmother Earth are long overdue. I believe we as Spiritual people must gather ourselves and focus our thoughts and prayers to allow the healing of the many wounds that have been inflicted on the Earth.

As we  Honor the Cycle of Life, let us call for Prayer circles globally to assist in healing Grandmother Earth (our Unc’I Maka). We ask for prayers that the oil spill, this bleeding, will stop. That the winds stay calm to assist in the work. Pray for the people to be guided in repairing this mistake, and that we may also seek to live in harmony, as we make the choice to change the destructive path we are on.

As we pray, we will fully understand that we are all connected. And that what we create can have lasting effect on all life.

So let us unite spiritually, All Nations, All Faiths, One Prayer. Along with this immediate effort, I also ask to please remember June 21st, World Peace and Prayer Day/Honoring Sacred Sites day. Whether it is a natural site, a temple, a church, a synagogue or just your own sacred space, let us make a prayer for all life, for good decision-making by our Nations, for our children’s future and well-being, and the generations to come.

Onipikte (that we shall live),
Chief Arvol Looking Horse
19th generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe

Early this morning I sat in a sunny spot on the porch and prayed in the way suggested. Then I turned on the computer and checked the oil spill map for progress. There is some progress, but the area is still huge. You can check the site yourself every day if you like. You can change the graphics to get a satellite view, a terrain view, or a hybrid view. Just click:  If It Was My Home – Visualizing the BP Oil Spill and add it to your browser’s favorites. The website is designed and updated by Andy Lintner, whom you can contact by clicking on his name at the bottom of the home page.

I confess that I could not look at the animals again—too painful. I used to have a lapel button that said something about preferring cats to people. I tossed that out a long time ago, but those pictures of oil laden birds unable to free themselves, brings the message of the lapel pin to mind again.

If you are curious about Chief Arvol, just Google him and you’ll find many blogs to choose from. In a month’s time Called by Name will likely be one of them.

oil and the big picture

Today I was going to write about my new grandchildren and then about Arizona immigration 101, but in attempting one more time to cull through my over-stuffed email in-boxes, I came upon an email from my sister that I had set aside last week. The subject line reads: Visualizing the BP Oil Disaster. When I first received her email on June 5, I looked at the link and was properly amazed. But I was so thoroughly caught up in my episodic grief and mourning that I didn’t go beyond. Today I went beyond and I am going to share this horrific piece of human carelessness.

This is a picture of the size of the disaster as of today, June 8, 2010. Big, isn’t it? Think of all the animals and plant life that will perish because of our greedy life styles…our captains of business who cannot manage to live on less than 7 figures per year. My world…your world…our world is so messed up. I think of Jesus’ ministry here on earth and what he had to say about kingdoms and power. He came to reform a power system not of God’s design. Nothing seems all that different, just worse. We still have Caesar thinking he is king of the world. Quite a few of them, actually. King(s) of the world. I wonder sometimes how long we can keep this world—this planet going with so little nurturing love of it.

See the big picture at Visualizing the BP Oil Spill Disaster Scroll down and read the text. Be sure to see number 5, Is the oil really hurting anything?

I am sick at heart. I don’t understand how God can still love us. Maybe it’s time for another flood?

Grace is completely undeserved.

green shoots

I have several dear friends. This was not always the case. I have become lucky in this way and I intend to hang on to them. One particular friend has gone through the whole same-gender-covenanted-couple-seeking-membership debacle of 2008/09 with me in a very deliberate way. We talked every day and walked together, whether here or there. Our friendship had always been centered around a sense of spirituality that we carried in common. We had many dreams and plans for doing things at the church we both attended. After the roof fell in there on Pentecost Sunday, May 31, and the dust settled (as slowly and alarmingly as it did after the World Trade Center collapsed), we tried to pick up and dust off whatever pieces remained. We hope to still be able to work together even though we are now at very different congregations, very different settings, and in very different places.

My compassionate friend is working on reconciliation in her congregation and I am working on starting over in my new congregation. I don’t know if reconciliation can happen without truth-telling and transparency. I had not seen very much of that when I worshiped there, but my friend cannot help but try. I will help, I will hope, and I will pray, but I don’t see the rainbow. That’s why I have left and gone on, quite tearfully, to a congregation where I do not have to walk Job’s road anymore. I did that for a long time in the congregation where my friend remains. I did that because I felt that God had assigned me the task of being front and center for this issue. Sometime in the week between May 31 and June 7, I distinctly felt released from that assignment, but it wasn’t an easy road to walk. There were so many people I’d come to love in one way or the other, and didn’t want to leave. The sense of loss for this and my visual art ministry to the people, was a constant companion in my heart and soul. Depression and tears took over my days, most especially at night when I was alone with God.

My friend talks about green shoots. I talk about phoenix rising from the ashes because fire is how it felt—burning to nothingness. It’s been two months since that decisive last  day in May. I shed many tears for the enormous losses I was experiencing. And I was angry—angry with the specific persons who failed to lead the congregational majority in the direction it wanted to go. My partner, Big Dawg and I were charred in the fire that burned in the church that day, and the following days. But we were not the only ones damaged. Everyone, except for those whose wishes remained intact was affected—collateral damage. The congregation is wandering in the desert, desperate for leadership. I don’t know where it will come from. So much damage all around. Green shoots. How does that happen without water and rain, sunshine, humility and truth?

I have been blessed. I am free to walk on…to follow on in the Way without hindrance. I am grateful. And I am no longer angry at anyone. The last bit of anger I had was finally toward God many days ago and, I gave that up too. No point in it, I realized because I can’t really hear God calling my name when my head is filled with the noise of hurt and anger. So now, my friend and I will pick up whatever pieces still glisten in the sun and we will see if between us, we can encourage green shoots in the corner where we are.