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Welcome to another year of Christian Education at Saint Michael and All Angels!

There are some exciting changes coming this year, and I hope all of our parish children will be involved.

We have divided the classrooms differently in order to present a more age appropriate lesson plan: Child care is available for infants through two years of age in the Nursery; the Blue Room is for ages three and four; the Red Room is for ages five, six and seven; the Yellow Room is for ages eight, nine and ten; the Corner Room is for ages 11 through 17.

The groups will meet in the classroom with the appropriately marked door from 9:55am until the Peace, at which time we all will come in to the Sanctuary.

We will begin on September 10th , with our first lesson. The curriculum has been updated and enhanced with new stories, books, people and activities.

You will be receiving a schedule with important dates and curriculum for the year that day, so please plan on being here.
We are very excited about the new look for Sunday School, and hope you will be also.

A special note: Mark your calendars for September 24th, St. Michael’s Day. It will be a fantastic day, full of fun, food ,and special activities. Include your friends for the fun!

The Decorating Committee and the Vestry have decided on the prioritiesfor items to be purchased with offerings for memorials, thanksgiving and general gifts to the parish. These are listed below in in order of priority with their cost.

All donations need to be approved by the Vestry. Please put a note in a sealed envelope indicating the item you wish, the amount you plan to donateand your name and telephone number. Drop the envelope in the Evangelism mail box in the parish office.

Stacking Chairs (120 ea) $50.00 ea
Literature Racks (8 ea) $100.00 ea
Sofa and Upholstered Chairs $700.00
Coffee Table and Lamps $450.00
Area Rug $1,200.00
Round Tables (3 ea) $866.00 ea

Sofa and 4 Barrel Chairs $5,700.00
Coffee & End Tables $1,850.00
Lamps $350.00
Buffet Storage $2,500.00
T.V. Cabinet $900.00
Task Chairs (2) $450.00

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Cheri Fuller is an inspirational speaker and author of over thirty books. Her ministry is called Families Pray USA.

This book offers practical suggestions on how to pray, how to utilize our time in order to make room for prayer in our busy lives. It contains “real life” anecdotes that aid the reader.

Says Fuller, “The first time I read the verse in the Bible that tells us to ‘pray without ceasing’ (I Thessalonians 5:17) I thought, Does Paul know about my schedule? Surely Paul must have had an assistant – unlike most of us.” Prayer without ceasing does not mean just spending a lot of time in prayer; rather it implies a continual dialogue with God wherever one goes. Prayer is a gift, not a duty, a discovery of a relationship with God through Jesus.

It is how we know God and hear God. “Prayer is a dialogue between two people who love each other.”

The following are some suggestions for helping us pray:

· Pray five blessings to help stay focused – bless body, labor, emotional, social and spiritual needs.
· Weave prayers into workouts or walking; upon awakening or at night or before beginning a book.
· Say simple prayers of thanksgiving as you move through your day.
· Have a prayer closet (hers is a kitchen cabinet). Make post-it-note prayers. Every so often take down some notes and put them in a container. Look through them to see how many have been answered. Keep a “God box” or notebook.
· Use the Bible as a prayer handbook.
· Pray God’s attributes. Use them to praise him – unfailing love, compassion, bounty, Lord is peace, healer, shepherd, etc.
· Do not set artificial rules, such as “I have to get up early to pray.” Do so when you are most open to God.
· Make a prayer list every month – names and Bible verses. Write “thank you” next to answered prayers and keep them in a separate folder.
· Have a prayer partner.
· Pray “on the spot.” Pray short prayers. Pray for your “enemies” – This leads to forgiveness. Pray through the news.
· Look for prayer cues – When you pass a school zone sign, think prayer zone.
· Make a mobile Quiet Time Basket containing a Bible, prayer journal, pens, paper, etc. This is a good role model for children.

My favorite anecdote is about a kindergarten boy who kept saying, “Listen, Mommy” as mommy got lunch ready, put clothes in the dryer, turned on the noon TV news, etc. He repeated “Mommy, are you listening?” several more times. “Sure, honey, I’m listening.”

Finally the child, after repeatedly asking for attention, tugged on his mom’s jeans until he pulled her down to his eye level. “But, Mommy, would you listen with your face?”

“I think God wants that from us as well; he wants us to listen to him .. . . to give him our full attention and focus.”

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) is one of my spiritual mentors. Born in France and educated there and in England and the United States, he entered a Trappist monastery in Kentucky and later moved permanently to a hermitage built on the grounds. His excellent writings are brilliant, yet simple, inspirational and accessible. “No Man is an Island” is a collection of sixteen essays, a sequel to “Seeds of Contemplation.”

According to Merton, the purpose of our lives is to discover the meaning of our lives and to live according to that meaning; thus we have something to live for. He recognizes how hard this is. As we grow as a person, we gradually become increasingly aware of what life means, but this awakening and realization is not easy. ...

“Although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself in fear and trembling. We can help one another to find the meaning of life, but in the last analysis the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for ‘finding himself’.”

The meditations in this book, says the author, are intended to be at the same time traditional and modern and his own.... “the first responsibility of a man of faith is to make his faith really part of his own life, not by rationalizing it, but by living it. What every man looks for in life is his own salvation and the salvation of the men he lives with.”

He defines salvation as “an objective and mystical reality – the finding of ourselves in Christ, in the Spirit.” Over and over he stresses the necessity of courageously facing oneself, seeing oneself exactly as one is, with all his limitations, and to accept others as they are, with all their limitations. The discovery of ourselves in God and of God in ourselves cannot happen otherwise.
Paradoxically, “We cannot even look for Him unless we have already found Him, and we cannot begin to seek Him without a special gift of His grace; yet if we wait for grace to move us, before beginning to seek Him, we will probably never begin.”

We do not always know what the will of God for us really is, but this does not mean that we must not seek to know it. How do we find it? First we must be and “live by commandments and the counsels and by the Spirit of Jesus.” Search Scripture and understand the Gospels to find out what Jesus is like and what his commandments are and seek him on earth in the Kingdom he came to establish; be part of his Church and its sacraments; pray to gain grace. The mystery will remain, but recognize signs (beware of superstition) and take them as they come.

Merton reminds the reader that it is up to each of us to find the kind of work and environment that enables us to best lead a spiritual life. We know that nothing is perfect. We become exhausted by what he calls “agitations” of life – more so in 2006 than in his times, I dare say. Constant noise, lights, ads, cell phones, traffic, etc.
“The whole mechanism of modern life is geared for a flight from God and from the Spirit into the wilderness of neurosis.” We need to detach ourselves, get rid of irrational fears and desires, and be disciplined. Use the good things in life in simplicity and gratitude.
Quality of activity is important. Merton gives as an example the tourist in a museum, guidebook in hand, who looks at every “important” work and comes out less alive than when he went in. He looked at everything and saw nothing. He has done a lot and it has made him tired.

If he had stopped for a moment and looked at a picture he really liked and forgotten the others, he might believe he has not wasted his time, but rather discovered something outside of himself and in himself. He discovers a new level of being, a new capacity for being and for doing.

Thomas Merton’s essays enlighten and strip away the “phoniness” that can afflict us. He helps us bare our own souls to God.

At the time of publication, Jack Addington, who had been a successful businessman, attorney, and in the ministry for twenty years and founder of two large churches, was devoting himself to writing, lecturing, and presiding over a large radio and prayer ministry, as well as working in prisons.

Cornelia Addington had been a successful interior designer and edited and coauthored her husband’s books. Both were active in the Abundant Living Foundation, bringing their teachings to people throughout the world.

Hundreds of books have been written about meditation, what it is and why it is such a crucial part of spirituality, examining the many techniques used in practicing it. These authors remind the reader that some say meditation is not necessarily a religious experience, that anyone can do it by repeating a mantra, but they choose to practice it as a religious experience.

“There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” (Job 32:8). “God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24).

THE JOY OF MEDITATION emphasizes that a meditative life can be blended into any life, that though Jack Addington gave up his law career to take up meditation, such a change is not necessary. It is helpful to set aside a certain time each day for quiet meditation, but it can be done in the midst of life’s turmoil.

He uses the example of a member of the Pacific Stock Exchange who was a floor trader (how hectic can that scene be) who learned to momentarily go within and meditate on Peace as a mantra. He emerged calm and refreshed. He had learned to escape into Reality through the joy of meditation.

A most significant quote is from a Joel Goldsmith: “Meditation is much like inviting God to enter us, or to speak to us, or to make itself known to us. It is not an attempt to reach God, since God is Omnipresence. Where God is, I am; where I am, God is, since we are one. So there is no need to reach for God; the purpose is to be still and let the awareness of God permeate us. The activity is always from God to us. We are not seeking to reach God. We start with the realization that where I am, God already is, and therefore we seek a state of stillness in which we may become consciously aware of that Presence.

The Presence already is, the Presence always is; in sickness or in health, in lack or in abundance, in sin or in purity, the Presence of God always already is. There is no seeking after it, there is no striving, for God is where I am, I and the Father are one. In that realization you relax and invite the Father to reveal Itself: ‘Speak, Lord, thy servant heareth.’ That is really the main function or meditation.”

One can meditate in times of waiting, especially in hospitals or in doctors’ offices. The one mantra suggested in this book that speaks to me is one I will use in my meditations - LET THERE BE PEACE ON EARTH AND LET IT BEGIN WITH ME.

This little gem of a book was first published in 1968 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

The author is now eighty-seven years old. She was educated in California and at the National Cathedral School where she was confirmed an Episcopalian. She graduated from Swarthmore College in 1940 and became a writer and magazine editor. She is the widow of Leo Malania, an Episcopal priest who was coordinator for the revision of the Book of Common Prayer.

For many years the author would daily write down her “musings of the everyday.” According to the Foreward by Lauren F. Winner, the author predicted a trend - “a turn in how Americans would live out their spirituality.” “We are beginning to rediscover that the Christian life also unfolds in ordinary time. We tuck our children into bed, even when we argue with our spouses.”

The title is drawn from one of the visions or “shewings” of the fourteenth century mystic Dame Julian of Norwich. In her vision she sees a very small object about the size of a hazelnut lying in the palm of her hand. “What can this be?” she asks. “It is all that is made” is the answer. “It’s so small, might it not disappear or be destroyed?” The answer: “It lasts and ever shall last because God loves it.” Both the author and Julian recognize that God loves and delights in creation - creation “lasts and ever shall, because God loves it - that our very lives are sustained by the giving of God’s love.” The hazelnut can stand for all of creation - all of creation cradled in God’s hand.

Some examples now, of Malania’s musings: Upon awakening each day she declares “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

“I don’t know much about music, but I know what I like,” she says. “Why can’t I say even that much about people?” She pays attention to music and hears more each time. This is a clue to pay attention to people and the virtue of silence.

I related to her musings on the Matterhorn. She and her husband had come to Zermatt for a day or two just to see the mountain. The mountain is often covered by mist and one is fortunate to catch a glimpse of it. Years ago my loved one and I came to Zermatt, essentially to see the mountain. It should have been visible from the large window in our room. I awoke early on the first morning and saw the Matterhorn clearly. I called excitedly to come and see! But in a few seconds the mountain had disappeared from view. Too late!

The author pictures a similar scene. One may not see the mountain, but one knows it is there. “Sometimes people say, ‘But how can you really be sure God is there? I can only laugh a little and say, ‘Oh yes, he’s there, he’s right there.’ ”

She muses on the animal kingdom. “What a God, to think of such forms to create, such ways of life to set in motion! . . .Mosquitoes seem unnecessary; buzzards are, to the merely human eye, unattractive, (etc.) . . .It’s the hyena, though, that gives me pause - a nauseating sight.” But, says the author, since he’s an animal, he cannot be depraved or evil. God made him. “Given what I say I believe of the nature of God, I am absolutely required to believe that he made the hyena with pleasure, looked upon him with love, and saw that he was good. It’s thoughts like this that make me realize how little I have yet understood of God.”

And finally, “All things were made by him, and without him, was not anything made that was made” - the heart of the virtue of poverty. “The simple, enormous fact that every particle of matter was called into being - called by name, itself, alone - through the Word of God - constitutes an absolute demand for the practice of poverty.” Never waste or spoil or break - eat what you put on your plate; mend, do not throw away clothing, etc. I do take exception to her saying no to listening to Bach and reading a Shakespeare sonnet at the same time, thus giving only half attention to each. Sometimes such simultaneous action might enhance both. “Satiety, haste, boredom, restlessness, indifference, inattention, carelessness - all these are disorders of the soul . . . poverty is health. . .In poverty we make a deep and joyful reverence to the riches of creation. In poverty we answer with reflected love the patient, generating Love of God. Because of this, St. Francis sang.”

Robert Pinsky, former U.S. Poet Laureate, is also a prose writer and award-winning translator of “The Inferno of Dante.”

Pinsky’s commentary on David brings to life this remarkable and complex character. His insights and often witty language make the Old Testament accounts of David’s life ring with clarity and sparkle with visual images. Also, the author depicts every player in such a way that the reader comes to know each one – Saul, Michal, Abigail, Bathsheba, Abner, Adonijah, Jonathan, Amnon, Absalom, Tamar, Achitophel, Solomon, and all the rest.

Of David, Pinsky writes: “He is wily like Odysseus and an impetuous daredevil like the Scarlet Pimpernel. Like Hamlet, he pretends to be crazy. Like Joan of Arc, he comes from nowhere, ardent and innocent, to infuriate the conventional elders. Like the Athenian rogue Alcibiades, he goes over to the enemy side for a time. Like Robin Hood, he gathers a band of outcasts and outlaws in the wilderness. Like Lear, he is overcome and betrayed by his offspring. Like Tristan and Cyrano, he masters the harp as well as the sword: a poet as well as a warrior-killer, but as a poet he is far above any other hero, and as killer no one among the poets can even approach him.”

The Early Source, a relatively secular story of King David’s career, was probably written in the time of Solomon (10th C. BCE), a generation or two after the events. The Late Source, compiled and edited hundreds of years later, adds what Pinsky calls “the overlay of divine punishment and reward.” The Early source is mainly “a nationalistic hero narrative.” The Late source “is largely a religious moral narrative.” Later editing and interpolations further emphasized the principle of obedience to God.”

Pinsky, in his Afterward, says: “I have quoted the Hebrew Bible mainly from the King James translation and its offspring, because I write in English,

Malcolm Boyd, an Episcopal priest, is poet/writer-in-residence at our Cathedral Center of St. Paul in Los Angeles. From 1990-2004 he wrote a column in Modern Maturity, the AARP magazine
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Boyd wrote his first book of prayers in 1965 “Are You Running with me, Jesus?” His latest book of prayers is written especially for older people with problems and changes in life that lead eventually to how one prepares for dying and death.

Now in his eighties, Boyd writes, “I have learned, in my own life, that growing older is perhaps the greatest blessing I have experienced. It is a time to forgive, to mellow, to understand, to make peace, and to figure out what life is all about. So it is a time of reflection and wonder, humor and grace - if we let it be.”

The author’s prayers are really short meditations, often based on the thousands of letters he received when he wrote for Modern Maturity. The following examples will give the reader some idea of the book’s contents:

GROWING OLDER
Time is racing . . .An engagement for next Tuesday sneaked up on me. I had completely forgotten it until I noticed it scrawled on my calendar. It’s all something of a hodgepodge. Can I stop the rush of events and things to do, Jesus? Apparently not. But I can try to stay calm within the storm, prioritize duties on the basis of their significance, fence off quiet times, and keep my own pace manageable. I can’t run anymore, Jesus. Thank you for understanding this. I appreciate your matching your pace to mine when we walk together. Thanks for walking with me, Jesus. Thanks for just staying here quietly with me.

Before very long, Jesus, I won’t be here anymore. Sometimes I have trouble accepting this or dealing with it in a rational way. However, I know that I must. Yet this doesn’t soften the situation or make it easier. In one moment I’ll still be present. In the next, however, I’ll be gone. I suppose my problem is that I’ve become comfortable with life. Certainly, I know my way around. I take for granted all kinds of things, Jesus: fresh bread, small acts of kindness, rain on the roof at night, the newspaper on the steps in the morning, and familiar voices. I guess I take for granted, too, my place in the human scene, with the ups and downs, crazy turns, shifting moods, seasons and ironies, and a seeming permanence beneath it all.

However, that will suddenly be whisked away - like a rug pulled from under my feet - when I’ve died, my body has been burned, ashes scattered, possessions of a lifetime disposed of. Stay with me, Jesus. Let me have your firm hand, the quietness of your presence, the thundering echo of your love.

HEALTH
The pain won’t stop, Jesus. I’ve tossed and turned in bed all night, trying to get into a comfortable position. There doesn’t seem to be one. I try to focus on something else, anything else, in an effort to shut this out of my mind. The pain remains. I get up, move around, walk into the next room. Turn on a light, sit in a chair, and - in the middle of the night - try to read a book. Can I forget the pain? Apparently not. Now I return to my bed. I breathe deeply - slowly, regularly in and out - and find such a focused exercise is helpful. I try not to think about the next hour, or day, but stay here fully with you, Jesus, in this moment. Thank you for sharing my human nature. Your suffering and death on the cross gives me an undying example of your faith. Teach me, Jesus, to share your suffering and your resurrection.

THANKSGIVING
I confess, Jesus, that I love some friends more than I like them. I like some friends more than I love them. Yet I am grateful for all of them. I am continually astonished by their diversity. Some friendships are comforting and nurturing, while others challenge me and force me to struggle. Some friendships offer me security and meet my needs, while others require me to make sacrifices and receive little or nothing in return. What all of them have in common, Jesus, is a sharing of life in the present moment. Mutuality is found here. I am grateful for these companions on my life’s journey, Jesus. They safeguard me from rigid pride and crippling aloneness. Friendships are among my greatest blessings.

Do your self a favor and check out books from our own Davis Library. This slim volume can be found there.

THE WORD IS VERY NEAR YOU – A Guide to Praying with Scripture
By Martin L. Smith, Cowley Publications 1989

The author is an Episcopal priest and a member of the Society of St. John the Evangelist.

So many books about prayer have been written. Smith’s book is especially helpful in defining prayer and helping the reader embrace meditative prayer with Scripture. He tells us that we may need to redefine our idea of what we think prayer is.

“To want to pray is to want God . . . A breakthrough of faith occurs when we recognize that our desire for God originates not in ourselves but in God. In prayer we are never ‘getting a conversation going’ with God, we are continuing a conversation which God has begun. . . . Though we seemingly open the conversation, our opening is a response to who God has been for us, or what God has done, or is making known to us, or causing us to feel.”

The author asks if we think of prayer as a duty or requirement. We project onto God the image of a taskmaster. “How can there be intimacy with one who is waiting for us to fulfill a quota of prayer-work?” He asks what if God does not demand prayer but rather gives us prayer to satisfy us. “Suppose prayer is not a duty but the opportunity to experience healing and transforming love?” It is being invited to participate in the relationship of intimacy between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

There is no right way to pray, of course. Smith simply offers meditative prayer with Scripture as a means to deepen our relationship with Christ as the Word of God. He reminds us of the usual aids to meditative prayer, which takes discipline, time, privacy, and a place set aside. Prayer is an activity of the whole person; he discusses the need for physical comfort and movement.
If one has not experienced praying with stories from Scripture, Smith encourages the reader to find stories that he can relate to, to put oneself in the story by identifying with a character in order to make oneself “vulnerable to a fresh encounter of our own with the Lord, Jacob, Mary, Judas, Peter”, etc.

Here are some guidelines for praying with Scripture:

1. Select one story before prayer time.
2. Spend some time settling down.
3. Ask God to touch you through the passage.
4. Pick up your Bible and read slowly and carefully several times. More will occur.
5.Place Bible aside. Let your imagination run. Become whoever.
6. Let the drama slowly unfold.
7. Let yourself respond. Tell Jesus how you have been touched; ask what feelings mean; what are you thankful for, etc. Be aware of the presence of the Lord.
8. Bring to a close by reciting a prayer or singing the verse of a hymn.

You will have various initial reactions – I feel silly, I forgot to include God, I feel self-conscious, etc. It takes time for inhibitions to fall away.

Smith also gives other guidelines for holy reading: using a mantra, any word or phrase or sentence that “rings a bell.” Or pray by gazing on a simple object – a candle, bowl of water, a stone, as we meditate on an event or scene from Scripture.

It takes patience to begin the practice of meditative prayer. We often see how much we do not want to pray! “We cannot hope to escape all of a sudden from this basic human condition of reluctance and sluggishness.” “I’m not in the mood; I’m bored.” We can be distracted easily or we can “dry up.”

In Part II of his book, Smith gives us ways to choose passages from Scripture. He gives us various headings: “Praying in Pain,” “Letting Go of Fear and Anxiety,” “Don’t Cling to the Past,” “Realize Your Gifts, Use Them!”, “The Fear of Commitment,” etc. Under each theme he lists numerous Biblical passages to choose from.

I recommend Martin Smith’s book to anyone who is looking for insights into meaningful prayer. I leave you with my favorite quote: “Prayer is not within our power to guarantee or master; it is always a gift.”

(This book is available in our Davis Library.)

Deborah Mathis is a journalist, researcher, and author of “Yet a Stranger: Why Black Americans Still Don’t Feel At Home.”
“What God Can Do” tells of ten different ways that God works in people’s lives. Mathis uses the remembrances of people she has come across in her life whose stories seemed to involve “some special favor from God.” She interviewed many people at great length. Her biggest challenge was tracking down the people and condensing the book to manageable size.

The author, daughter of a Baptist minister, says she is a product of grace. She grew up in a loving and comfortable home. Though never in serious trouble, she strayed from the path. The reason she was spared from real heartache “is the forgiveness, patience, and love – the consummate mercy – of God.” “Looking back, I realize my life, like all others, has been a series of near misses, and that many of those hazards were of my own making. So I am living proof of the old adage that God takes care of fools. More than that, I am living proof that God can make use of even us prodigals.”

Among the many interviews are examples of physical healing and recovery from “incurable” illnesses. She points out that recent studies have shown that there is “a demonstrable link between remote, intercessory prayer and marked improvement in heart patients.” She tells of a man saving a woman from icy waters after a plane crash. “Those who have been called by God for a particular mission and endowed with the unnatural power it takes to accomplish that mission are aware that theirs was more than just a physiological anomaly. Adrenaline, after all, doesn’t bolster courage. That’s a God thing.”

A fascinating account tells of Michael, a law student on semester break with a young family and little money, whose old car breaks down and is towed. The mechanic determines a new engine is needed. Michael has no money to pay for it. As usual, he prays over the problem. At the same time he gets a call from a woman saying someone who was scheduled to do a workshop has just cancelled. She would pay $1500 for Michael to come and do the workshop the following weekend. The new engine cost $800. He was able to get his engine and have money left over.

The second time Michael encountered God’s grace was when he was an official with a teacher’s association. He also was helping conduct workshops involving gang prevention around the state. He was involved in an important election that meant funding for public schools and asked his colleagues to take his car and drive on to the next workshop and he would drive down after the polls closed. Borrowing a car after the election results came in, he experienced car trouble –the car shook and stopped – out of gas at ten at night on a dark road. He hiked a mile to a gas station which had closed ten minutes earlier; another two miles he finds an open liquor store; the man inside says the only station he knows of is five miles down the road. He tells Michael he has today filled a gas can with gas to use in his lawn mower, which Michael may have.

Michael accepted the offer and began to walk the three miles back to his car. He took a dead-end service road and finally walked back to the main highway. Suddenly a car appeared; the young man from the liquor store and his father were there. He has asked his wife to run the store and was there to take Michael back to his car. The young man tells him that a year ago he had run out of gas and a stranger had helped him. Michael’s rescuer declines the money Michael offers him. The young man says the only thing he wants me to do is help someone else someday. He knew he owed this debt. Michael adds, “And here’s the Lord working, giving me a chance to get myself settled and giving him the opportunity to pay off his debt. This has to be providence.”

Another tale is about a repentant skinhead who was somehow transformed. “I know it was Him who made me see the light. I didn’t want to see it at first, but He overpowered me.”

The author, seemingly out of the blue, resigned from her good television job; she had no idea what to do next. Her impressive letter of resignation was printed in a newspaper. She ran into her old newspaper boss who asked her to write op-ed pieces about “real life”, if the new incoming editor approved. She began these pieces in 1988 and continues today as a nationally syndicated columnist. How does she explain her sudden resignation and what followed? “When God speaks to a heart, it is similar to conscience, imagination, and intuition, but more like an understanding, a sense of something. But somehow you are made aware of whence it did come.”

“That little voice is something else, I tell you. If we listen for it, then pay attention when we hear it, then heed and submit to it, God will take care of the rest . . . But you have to develop an ear for it. And there’s the rub.”

SABBATH KEEPING, Finding Freedom in
the Rhythm of Rest
By Lynne M. Baab
Paperback, 132pp, $12.00
February 2005
InterVarsity Press

The author has a Master of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary. She was Associate Pastor at Bethany Presbyterian Church. Last year she began working toward a doctorate at the University of Washington
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In the late 1970s, Baab and her husband lived in Iran for six months before the revolution and then spent a year and a half in Tel Aviv, Israel (her husband is a dental specialist). It was while living in Israel that she became aware of the importance of keeping a Sabbath.
Sabbath began Friday at sundown and continued for twenty-four hours. In her Christian congregation, worship was on Sunday evenings.

What could she do on the recognized Sabbath? Everything was closed. They had no car, no television or computer.
It was too far to walk to the beach or Jaffe, the Arab part of Tel Aviv. She began to relish the silence. The couple had leisurely breakfasts, took long walks, read, wrote letters, read the Bible and said prayers.

When the Baabs returned home from the Middle East, they decided to keep a Sunday Sabbath. They would attend church, walk, read, play with their son, and be with friends
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They would free themselves from work or shopping. The couple had a second son; the author attended seminary part-time (It took her ten years to get a three-year degree). She graduated in 1990 and spent seven years as a freelance writer, editor, and teacher, using a home office.

As the boys grew older, they wanted to do things with their friends and the author and her husband spent their Sabbath together and with friends.

In 1997, Babb was ordained and became an Associate Pastor. Now Sunday felt like work. Her husband’s job changed – he had Mondays off. A new Sabbath was possible – from 2:00 p.m. on Sundays for twenty-four hours. The couple had time together on Monday mornings to have a late morning, take walks, eat lunch out. In 2001 another change occurred.

Her husband Dave had to work on Mondays and the author’s congregation began to hold Sunday evening services; also, a knee injury prevented Baab from taking walks. The couple began to have different Sabbaths – Dave, all-day Sunday, and the author all-day Monday. Having Sabbath alone, she found new ways to experience God.

Why is keeping a Sabbath so important? We need to take time to notice “God’s footprints in our lives.” “The purpose of the Sabbath is to clear away the distractions of our lives so we can rest in God and experience God’s grace in a new way.” Baab offers several suggestions culled from her own experience and from hundreds of people she interviewed. Cease from work – beyond what we do for pay. For Baab this means eliminating housework, shopping, gardening, paying bills, exercising, and everything on the “to do” list.

Let the answering machine do its work. Just experience; read, sleep, journal, focus on the present. Away with multi-tasking; let a heavily used appliance rest –washing machine, television, computer, car, etc. Let go of the spirit of competition. This does not mean we cannot do sports – just do them for fun. “As soon as something becomes compulsive, as soon as we’re doing it because we want to get it done, then we need to stop doing it on the Sabbath.”

Now the author attends corporate worship on Sunday morning; she observes Sabbath on Mondays. She begins the day slowly and quietly, thanking God in a wordless way. Alone, she reads, sometimes goes out for a meal, sews, listens to music, does a craft, does frivolous shopping. Always she stays attuned to beauty and joy, trying to pay attention to all the gifts of God. She breathes slowly and deeply.

A warning – be careful that your Sabbath observance does not turn into a sense of obligation! It is all about letting go and letting God.
One final idea that I have read about in other books as well about keeping a Sabbath: Make a box and put away things that are not to be used or fill it with crafts and games only to be used on Sabbath. Or, make a “blessing box.” Decorate it and attach a pad and pencil. During the week, when you or anyone receives and answer to a prayer or someone is particularly thoughtful, write down the blessing and put it in the box.

“The Sabbath is a day to let go of perfectionism and let God run the universe. On that day I will do my best to stop working, let God worry about what I’m not doing right, and rest in the joy of knowing him.”

Pastor Jim Wallace is a co-founder of “Call To Renewal”, a growing network of individuals, groups, churches and organizations that want to work for change in their lives, the nation and the world.

“Call To Renewal” is working to change the soul of politics and offers an alternative voice to the Religious Right and a vision of politics that transcends both the Left and the Right.

The organization is now called “Sojourners” and publishes a bi-monthly magazine of that name that focuses on the main issues of the day.

The author traces the roots of the Religious Right and criticizes the leadership who do not talk much about Jesus or the Hebrew prophets or spiritual values that might bring us together and heal wounds or uplift the poor.

Their greatest moral failing may be that of leadership in the issue of race. But he states that “the Left has misdiagnosed the roots of our present social crisis, mostly leaving out the critical dimension of family breakdown as a fundamental component of problems like poverty and violence.

“For too many leftists, family issues are just the issues of the Religious Right or bourgeois concerns. But the Religious Right has seized upon the family agenda and too often turns it into a mean-spirited crusade against women’s rights and homosexuals. Their definition excludes too many people.”
Wallis puts his finger on a critical issue for me -- the loss of civility across the political spectrum.

“Civility is really about two things: the quality and integrity of our public discourse, and the level and depth of citizen participation in the political process. The two are deeply connected.

“Vocal minorities take the media microphone and drown out the silent middle. Civility is the first casualty and citizen participation is the second. Most people just get disgusted and walk away.”

Who speaks for God? “God speaks for God. And it is the voiceless and powerless for whom the voice of God has always been authentically raised. When the voice of God is involved on behalf of those who have no voice, it is time to listen. But when the name of God is used to benefit the interest of those who are speaking, it is time to be very careful.”

In 1995, over one hundred religious leaders from diverse traditions met the “Call To Renewal.” They sent messages to the media and political leaders that there was an alternative Christian voice. The call was initiated by evangelists, joined by Catholics, African-American church leaders and main line Protestants. Those taking part included the Dean of the Washington Cathedral and the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Now it is ten tears later. Has progress been made?

LONELINESS
By Elizabeth Elliot
Oliver Nelson, A Division of Thomas Nelson, Publishers, Nashville, 1988

The author is a former missionary in the bush country of western Canada and in theAmazon rain forest of eastern Ecuador. She travels and lectures.

Elliot was widowed twice. Her first husband, also a missionary, was killed by Indians in the Amazon; her second husband died after a devasting illness; and she is now married to her third.

Elliot does not offer “practical” help for those suffering from a loss, such as join a health club, take up a new hobby, go on a cruise, learn to - etc.

She takes a different line - more practical and useful in the long run, one that is fundamentally transforming -- the simple matter of seeing loneliness as a gift -- to be received and to be offered back to God for His use. “My theme is oblation -- the offering up of ourselves, all we are, have, do, and suffer. Sacrifice means something received and something offered.”

“This is what you can do with it right now. You will still be alone , but you will not be lonely. You will find solace in solitude, and your oblation brings you one step nearer to spiritual maturity.”

What always follows loss of any kind is “a new set of marching orders”, if only we can hear and see what gain God intends to bring out of our loss.

She speaks of a divorced woman friend who found her place of service within the community of God’s people. She had little time to feel lonely. Her loneliness became a gift for her and (like all God’s gifts) a gift for her friends who share her hospitality, for example, and those she can now console.

Through reading this book I found the idea of loneliness as a gift an insight that I had not before articulated.

Every change in life, be it sorrowful or joyous, can be a blessing, a new challenge and opportunity to be of service to others and ultimately to ourselves.

Elliot knows firsthand of what she speaks. Her abiding faith in Christ has been the strength of her whole life.

AFTER DEATH? Past Beliefs and Real Possibilities
By David L. Edwards
Casseil - London & New York 1999

David Edwards is Retired Provost of Southwark Cathedral. He was formerly a Fellow of All Seals College, Oxford; editor of the SCM Press, Sub-Dean of Westminster Abbey and Speaker’s Chaplain in the House of Commons. He is author of What Anglicans Believe, Christianity: The First Two Thousand Years, and What is Catholicism?

After Death? deals with the beliefs, rituals, and literature about death and beyond as found in ancient funerary practices, myths, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, philosophy, and spiritualism. He quotes from The Gospel of Matthew, the Revelation of John and from many non-biblical sources.

These are some telling quotes in Edward’s discussion of Jesus’s resurrection:.

“Whatever may have happened at the grave and in the matter of appearances, one thing is certain; the grave was the birth place of the indestructible belief that death is vanquished, that there is life eternal.” (Adolf von Harnack)

“Neither Jesus’s resurrection nor ours is dependent on an empty tomb. The reanimation of a corpse is not a precondition for rising to eternal life...Christian life therefore appeals not to the empty tomb but to the encounter with the living Christ himself.” (Hans Küng)

In the Quran the judgment of Allah is the main theme but qualified by two factors: “The good and the evil alike have been predestined to their fates before their conceptions, yet the evil can be forgiven if before death they repent.” However, the Prophet can intercede after death and a pardon or release from death can be obtained.

Little is said about the interim between death and resurrection. “Neither Jesus nor his chief interpreter Paul, left behind any books of revelations and instructions comparable with the Quran.

In the last analysis of what constitutes authority for Christians, the Word of God is therefore not a book but Jesus himself. The key is divine love, love which is willing to sacrifice.”

The following is Edwards’ summary:

“The beliefs which make sense to me as I try to sum up what has been positive in this book are these. When we die we go not to the stars, not to Summerland, not to fairyland and not to any other world, but to God, without end. (That is, we go unless, we ourselves make the final refusal which brings down on us the judgement which means non-existence - a complete non-existence, without any of the positive and attractive elements in the Buddhist’s Nirvana.) And when we live after death that life will not be the immortality of the individual’s soul with little change, for such a survival without renewal would indeed bring boredom as we simply carry on being ourselves.

Nor will eternity bring the re-assembly of our present flesh and bones with improvements, for that kind of resurrection would mean the total reversal (not the mere ‘transformation’or redemption’) of all the laws of the creation which has so marvellously given us the bodies we have before death.

Nor will the life which is ‘life indeed’ be absorption into God or Nature, for that future would not rescue from death what has been of value in the individual’s life before death. The most reliable hope seems to be that ‘our Father in heaven’ will not swallow us, any more than we shall be kept as we are and at a distance. We shall be embraced - embraced by What and Who is reality more real than anything or anyone known by us previously.”

SPIRITUAL NOTES TO MYSELF
Essential Wisdom for the 21st Century.
By Hugh Prather
Conari Press, Berkeley CA 1998

At the time of publication, Hugh Prather was Resident Minister at St. Francis in the Foothills UnitedMethodist Church in Tucson, Arizona.

He is a best-selling author. Prather and his wife teach classes on relationships and parenting.

This is a book of short sayings or words of wisdom that speak to the reader of God’s love, of relationships, of parenting, and of simply being in theworld.

I have selected a few examples that especially speak to me.

•Sometimes I get the feeling God has pets and I’m not one of them.

•God is the only sane thing there is, and we are all part of God. However, if I believe there is some divine law
manifesting itself as parking places and fat bank accounts in the West, while allowing children in the East to step on
land mines, I have got an insane God on my mind.

•Jesus’ life didn’t go well. He didn’t reach his earning potential. He didn’t have the respect of his colleagues. His
friends weren’t loyal. His life wasn’t long. He didn’t meet his soul mate. And he wasn’t understood by his mother. Yet, I think I deserve all those things becauseI am so spiritual.

•The identity you think you are does not exist.

•There is no reward in the world for our spiritual efforts. There isn’t even a connection. The pay-off for turning to
God is more God, not more world.

•Actions are not spiritual. I can “kill with kindness” and drive people up the wall with positive thinking.

•“Finding something nice to say”about someone is not practicing love.If I tell a friend that the person who cheated him didn’t mean it, I just make him feel more isolated and alone.

•It should be obvious that the evidence of love, unity and wholeness in our lives will begin to disappear whenever we
choose to be special and separate.

•We must let our children make mistakes and we must protect them.That’s the balancing act.

•Our children can see us. They can’t see God. Our function is not to describe God’s love or talk endlessly about it, but to reflect it so that it can be seen.

THE SUNFLOWER
On the possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness
By Simon Wiesenthal,
Schocken Books, N.Y. 1998

Simon Wiesenthal writes of his time as a concentration camp prisoner. While doing manual labor on a railroad work crew outside the camp beside a hospital (formerly a school), he is surreptiously beckoned by a nurse to enter the hospital and visit a patient.

The patient Karl, who is dying, is wrapped in white with openings for his mouth, nose, and ears. His hands are free. Karl had asked the nurse to find a “Jew,” any Jew, and bring him. Karl has a need to confess and be forgiven.

He slowly tells Simon about his life as a Catholic youth who joins the Hitler Youth and later the S.S. A particular incident continues to haunt him.

A year earlier, hundreds of Jews were herded into a small house at gunpoint. Soldiers hurled grenades through the windows. The house caught fire; orders were given to shoot anyone who tried to escape. Karl saw a father, mother and small child with black hair and dark eyes at a second floor window. The father, his clothes on fire, covered the child’s eyes and jumped; the mother followed. Other burning bodies fell and the soldiers fired.

During the hospital visit Karl has clasped the hands of the author. He begs Simon for his forgiveness. Simon says nothing and leaves. A few days later the nurse summons Simon and tries to give him a bundle Karl wants sent to his mother. Simon notes the Stuttgart address on top but refuses to touch the bundle
.
Simon is eventually liberated from the concentration camp. A few years later while in Stuttgart, Simon remembers the mother’s address and locates her.

He tells her he is bringing greetings from her son. She has the same bundle the nurse tried to give him. It contains some of Karl’s possessions.

He improvises a story and does not tell the truth about their encounter. He does not tell the mother what her “good” son confided in him.

For years the encounter with the Nazi soldier preyed on Simon’s mind. Had he done the right thing in remaining silent?

What would you have done?

In this edition fifty-three persons give their answers. Simon’s questions are not limited to the past. This book was first published in France (in German) in 1969 and first published in the English language in 1976.

The 1998 edition has added thirty-two responses. The respondents include theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, and victims of attempted genocide in Bosnia, Cambodia, China, and Tibet
.
Following are a few of the comments made by respondents:
Alan L. Berger, Chairman on Holocaust Studies, Florida Atlantic University.

“In literary terms silence is the principal character of this morality tale. And Simon was twice silent: once in the death chamber of the dying Nazi, and once in the presence of the dead man’s mother.
“Are the silences the same? Do they convey different meaning? ... Preserving his (the son’s) memory was a gift of true grace, the only such gift to have a proper place in this story. To have forgiven her son would have been a desecration both of the memory of the Jewish victims and of the sanctity of forgiveness.”

Karl had learned nothing; Bring me a Jew anyone will do. “His desire is to cleanse his own soul at the expense of the Jew.

“If the teachings of the Catholic Church were so radically deficient as to be unable to hold Karl to moral accountability, then shame on the Church. Shame on the murderer. And shame on those who ask forgiveness thereby requiring from others the moral integrity which they themselves so sorely lack. ... Granting the murderer forgiveness would have been the final victory of Nazism. Had he spoken to Karl, Simon would have sealed his own guilt.”

Robert McAfee Brown, Professor Emeritus of Theology and Ethics, Pacific School of Religion

“[In addressing evil deeds,] Jews and Christians usually cope with the dilemma by affirming that God, rather than being removed from evil, is found in the midst of the evil, identifying with the victims rather than the perpetrators. “But perhaps there are situations where sacrificial love, with forgiveness at the heart of it, can make a difference and can even empower, as when Nelson Mandela was released from prison and forgave his jailers. Thomas Borge, a Nicaraguan Sandinista fighter, was captured and brutally tortured. After the war he confronted his torturer.The court entitled him to name the punishment appropriate for his torturer. Borge responded, ‘My punishment is to forgive you.’

“I think I would have urged the young man (Karl) to address his plea directly to God, and throw himself on the possibility of Divine Mercy, something I am not permitted to adjudicate one way or the other.”

The Dalai Lama

“Forgive those persons who have committed atrocities against oneself and mankind, but do not forget.”

The Dalai Lama discussed the struggles of the Tibetan people to regain their freedom from the Chinese to keep their culture alive. A Tibetan monk came to him after spending years in prison and then escaping to India. The Dalai Lama asked him what was the biggest danger when he was in prison. He said, “what he most feared was losing his compassion for the Chinese.”

Matthew Fox, President of the new University of Creation Spirituality, Oakland, CA.

“I sense in the wisdom of Simon’s decision to walk out in silence a win-win situation. Simon kept his soul and the young soldier may have saved his soul. ...

“Simon held his hand, he swatted away flies, he listened These were acts of compassion ... Simon gave Karl a listening ear on his deathbed, and Karl gave Simon a vocation for a lifetime.”

Other contributors include Mary Gordon, Harold Kushner, Dennis Prager, Albert Speer, and Desmond Tutu. This book is part of the Tolerance Collection of the Newport Beach Public Library.

THE RELIGIONS NEXT DOOR:
What we need to know about Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam -- and what reporters are missing

Marvin Olasky is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas and editor-in-chief of World, a news weekly. He teaches a “Journalism and Religion” course.

The author was born into the Jewish faith but broke away from early Jewish instruction at age thirteen. He called himself an atheist and then converted to Christianity at age twenty-six.

He is very distressed at the way newspapers handle their religion stories. He and his students used the LEXIS-NEXIS data base to look at thousands of newspaper articles and came to various conclusions:

“Almost all stories about Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism are what we called type one articles: public relations for the religion, a presentation of the sunny side often emphasizing customs and ceremonies. Most stories about Islam also accentuate the positive, often as a counterpoint to animosity readers might feel because of terrorism. Some of the stories on Islam (and even more of Christianity) could be called type two stories that go beyond public relations to critiques of a religion based on today’s politically correct analysis. The truly rare stories are type three, going beyond happy talk or conventional analysis to a depiction of how the downsides of some religions may be imbedded in their positives.”

Olasky believes that newspaper writers need to know more about the religions they write about, that their comments are superficial and that they go under the assumption that religions “are all basically the same.” He does make suggestions for tougher religious reporting:

1. Leaders of all religions should be treated as human beings, not “plastic figurines.”

2. U.S. newspapers should cover religious groups as they cover political groups. They should report the debate: when a loose constructionist religious leader makes a statement, they should find a strict constructionist who disagrees with him, and vice versa.
They should not soft-soap theological differences between Hindus and Muslims or between Christians and Jews.

3. Newspapers should offer more realistic conversion stories.
Actually only a small part of this book is devoted to his findings of newspaper cover age of religion.

He does an excellent job of describing the basic tenets of the various religions and their major branches. I am grateful that the papers I read have a much better approach than those he cites. Also, though I think it very important that we know about and understand various faiths, it is vital that we emphasize common ground if ever we are to learn to live together in harmony and peace.

Bruce Chilton is Professor of Religion at Bard College and priest at the Free Church of saint John in Barry ton, New York. His works include Rabbi Jesus.

Rabbi Paul is the most comprehensive and readable work about Paul that-I have found to date. It is necessary, however, to have your Bible open to ~ and to refer frequently to the Epistles as you read. Also, using the maps in the text is helpful.

According to the author, “Paul is the most complex, brilliant, troubled figure in the New Testament. He speaks for himself - inviting us to trace his turbulent dramatic life. In Rabbi Paul I have focused on the places he went and the people he knew as well as the evolution of his vastly influential theology. The more we delve into the man and his thinking, the closer we approach the inner flame that once ignited a new religion.”

We meet Paul as a young man striving to become a Pharisee. At twenty-one, he travels by sea from his home in Tarsus to Jerusalem.
For four years he worships, prays, and studies and is a zealous devotee of Temple life. He was present at the stoning of Stephen, safeguarding the discarded garments of the judges who did the stoning. He was given the honored assignment of taking letters for the high priest to Damascus which ordered the arrest of Christians there. His young companions on the road called him “Rabbi Saul.” It is, of course, on the road to Damascus that Jesus appears to Paul and changes his life forever.

As soon as Paul recovered from his blindness he began announcing in synagogues that Jesus was the divine son - a very dangerous move; even Jesus’ followers were skeptical. Though Acts states that Paul went back to Jerusalem at this time, the author disagrees, for it would have been much too dangerous. Paul travels to Arabia, to the kingdom of the Nabateans (thought at that time to be the place of Moses’ vision when he was given the Torah. There is no reference in Acts to the next three years.

And so Chilton goes on to describe in rich detail the journeys of Paul, his relationships with Barnabas, Titus, Silas, and Timothy, his difficult d1fferences with James; the loving assistance of Priscilla and Aquila, who offered him safe haven in Ephesus; the backing of Chloe, Stephanus, and others.

The author stresses the importance of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, which has had a great and continuing influence on Christian thought and practice. “I Corinthians is indeed weighty - and brilliant to the point of genius. But alongside that undoubted achievement, Paul also managed to estrange himself from the very communities he tried to discipline ... He had the knack of going a good step or two too far when things went his way, and his attempts to legislate on behalf of the Spirit of God struck many as shameless, in sufferable, and arrogant.” “Despite his inexperience and disinclination [concerning marriage], he appoints himself the Ephesian Dr. Ruth.”

“In his overwhelming concentration on Spirit, Paul had a real problem with flesh: the ‘one flesh’ of a married couple, the flesh you eat, and female flesh. He fumbled with all these topics, experimenting with approaches as occasion demanded, never achieving consistency, convincing relatively few of his readers in his time or ours.”

Until the Gospels were produced and circulated, Paul’s letters were the only written source distinctive to Christianity. Timothy served as scribe and editor, especially for Ephesians, adding his own material. Others continued writing in Paul’s name, especially the Pastoral Epistles. The Epistle to the Hebrews not written by Paul, relegates Israel to a thing of the past, because “the Son’s authority is greater than that of the Scripture.”

“Paul did not think (any more than Jesus did) of Christianity being a separate religion from Judaism, but he relegated the Torah to a position very few of his fellow Jews accepted in his time, and the nearly two millennn1a since have not changes that.”

Paul was heroic, crude, cantankerous, brave, determined, and confusing, but above all, be was lit by the fire of faith inJesus Christ.
“Jesus is Christianity’s founder, but Paul is its maker.”

David Aikman is a full-time writer who formerly was Senior Correspondent for TIME.He has chosen to profile six people who all had a special and beneficial influence during the twentieth century. He claims to offer no new facts but to tell of the one overriding virtue of each. Billy Graham - salvation; Nelson Mandela -forgiveness; Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - truth; Mother Teresa - compassion; Pope John Paul II -human dignity; Elie Wiesel - remembrance.

He limited his selection process to those who were alive in the second half of the 1990’s, who had an impact on the world and who were known and recognized as outstanding human beings even by those who did not agree with their views. Finally, the author had to have met with them or have a good chance of meeting them as the book proceeded (He had met with all but Pope John Paul II and Mandela before he began writing this book)
.
I am assuming that the reader is familiar with the persons Aikman discusses. Extensive biographies make for fascinating and enlightening reading. Aikman does not omit the flaws and frailities of his subjects. I have tried to select a moment or moments, perhaps epiphanies, that helped shape the directions of each of their lives.
Billy Graham was born in 1918 to a prosperous Southern farming family of strong Christian faith. His conversion to “ardent Christian belief” took place at a revival crusade in 1934, the day before his sixteenth birthday. He rose from his seat near the front of the tent and moved forward to join others professing their conversion. He is quoted as saying: “I didn’t hear any thunder, there was no lightning. I saw a lady standing next to me and she had tears in her eyes. I thought there was something wrong with me because I didn’t feel worked up. But right there, I made my decision for Christ. It was as simple as that and as conclusive.”

He told his parents that night of his decision, “but he was not yet aware of any call on his life to Christian evangelism.” He began to sense that he had a calling to preach while attending the Florida Bible Institute. In 1938, after a year in Florida, he came back from one of his many long walks with a feeling that God wanted him to be an evangelist, not just a pastor or Bible teacher. He said later, “I now had a purpose, an objective, a call. That was when the growing up began, and the discipline to study.”

Nelson Mandela was born in 1918 in a small village in South Africa. Both his parents were of the Thembu tribe. His father, of royal blood, was intelligent, though illiterate, and valued education. Nelson’s mother, also illiterate, was the third of her father’s wives. She had become a Christian, and Nelson was baptized at the local Methodist church. After his father’s death when Nelson was nine, he had a guardian, a chief and acting regent of the Thembu people. At sixteen Nelson was sent to Wesleyan Methodist boarding schools and then to university. By the end of 1943 he completed two years as an articled law clerk.

He was beginning to realize that more and more he was directed toward political struggle against apartheid. “I cannot pinpoint a moment when I became politicized,” he wrote, “when I knew that I would spend my life in the liberation struggle. I felt no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments, produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people.

There was no particular day in which I said, ‘From henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people’; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise.” He spent over twenty-seven years in prison before his release in 1990.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was born into poverty in 1918, a year after the Bolshevik Revolution, in a health resort in the Caucasus. His father had been killed in a hunting accident six months before Aleksandr’s birth. He says later that he was comforted by an icon that looked down on him in his bedroom. In 1921 Soviet troops burst into a Russian Orthodox church where mother and son were worshiping, an event he never forgot.

Other crucial incidents from childhood included a cross being ripped from his neck by members of the Young Pioneers (Soviet version of Boy Scouts); a schoolyard scuffle over a knife that left a forehead gash that never healed; witnessing a close family friend arrested by the secret police and taken away. Later, he was imprisoned as a traitor and lived in horrible conditions. He did not have a sudden epiphany but “Instead, he experienced a slow, inexorable process of plumbing life’s greatest depths and bringing up a truth for which he had never consciously been searching ...since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world.

They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.”

Mother Teresa was born into a well-to-do and devout Albanian family in what is now modern Macedonia. She was baptized in the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Skopje. Her father died when Teresa was nine. Summer pilgrimages were made to Our Lady of Cernagore Shrine in Letnice. “It was at Letnice that for the first time I heard God’s voice...before Mary’s altar and with a burning candle in my hand, and singing with my heart about to burst I had decided. I want to belong to God.” Teresa really did not want to be a nun, but it was the only way for her to be a missionary. After six weeks at a novitiate in Ireland, she docked in Calcutta in 1929; she trained in Darjeeling and became a novice in the Sisters of Loreto. She worked in a mission hospital and taught school and became principal.

On a train to Darjeeling “I was quietly praying when I clearly felt a call within my calling. The message was very clear. I had to leave the convent and consecrate myself to helping the poor by living among them. It was a command.” She has never suggested that she heard an audible voice, but she was sure God spoke to her. Teresa died in 1997.

Pope John Paul II was born in 1920 in a small town near Krakow, Poland, to a very devout family. His father died when Karol was eight. He attended mass daily, was an altar boy, and made eleven pilgrimages to pray before the image of the Black Madonna. At fifteen he joined Marian Sodality, a brotherhood of young Catholics, and began a life-long sense of closeness to the Virgin Mary. During the German occupation of Krakow he found work in the quarry of a chemical plant. He wrote plays and poetry.

He joined a group of fifteen men leading a spiritual life of intense prayer and meditation. “I gradually became aware of my true path...The following year (1942 when his father died) in the autumn, I knew that I was called.” The Germans had banned all seminary teaching or ordination of priests. Karol secretly trained; he was ordained in 1946. He rose rapidly through the ranks of the Catholic hierarchy as a brilliant scholar, linguist, and thinker. In his first encyclical as Pope, he wrote: “The redeemer of mankind, Jesus Christ, is the center of the universe, and history.It is the church’s duty...not just to introduce ordinary people to Christ, but to honor at all times the unique individuality of every human being in his or her personhood.”

Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 in Sighet, Romania, (ceded in 1940 to Hungary by the Nazis and returned to Romania in 1944 under pressure from advancing Soviets). His father ran a small store. Elie attended synagogue with his father and was influenced by his grandfather, a Hasidic Jew. An avid reader, he studied Hebrew and the Bible, his life in Sighet revolved around the Sabbath. He had an intense desire for spiritual purity; he sought God everywhere.

Overdoing fasting, reading, and exercise in his study of the Kabala, he was in danger of becoming seriously ill (two other students were severely stricken). He says ironically that if the Germans had not entered in the spring of 1944 he would not have recovered: “Thus it was the killers who ‘saved’ me. . .Woe unto me, it is to them that I owe the fact that I was spared.” Fifteen-year-old Elie, his parents and three sisters were sent in cattle cars to Auschwitz. The day of arrival he saw truckloads of children and babies being dumped into flames; his mother and little sister were marched off to the gas chambers.

For eight months his father and he were slave laborers. Elie does not know why he survived; he had no special vision; he did observe Jewish prayers every day. In January of 1945 father and son were evacuated on foot by long march to Buchenwald where his father died. After liberation he was taken to France with four hundred orphans. Later he was reunited with two sisters who had survived. He found a life in writing and traveling and began a lasting friendship with the writer Francois Mauriac: “Because he (Mauriac) loved Jesus deeply he defended Jews deeply.”

Elie practically owed him his career. A near-fatal traffic accident in New York in 1956 gave him a sense of urgency in his writing. “Wiesel, in the end, does not appear to believe there is a source of evil independent of the human race or even independent of God. He does not, for one thing, believe in original sin, as Christians do.” Wiesel says, “...everything must be translated in spiritual terms, which means into quest for truth. We are here to search for truth about God, about human beings, about life.”

SPEAKING OF SIN
The Lost Language of Salvation
By Barbara Brown Taylor
Cowley Publications, 2000

The author, an Episcopal priest, holds a Chair in Religion and Philosophy at Piedmont College in Clarkesville, Georgia. She has written numerous books, and is a highly thought of preacher and lecturer. SPEAKING OF SIN focuses on sin, damnation, repentance, penance, and salvation and other words that may be “out of date” and that may make us uncomfortable.

“Abandoning the language of sin will not make sin go away. Human beings will continue to experience alienation, deformation, damnation, and death no matter what we call them. Abandoning the language will simply leave us speechless before them, and increase our denial of their presence in our lives. Ironically, it will also weaken the language of grace, since the full impact of forgiveness cannot be felt apart from the full impact of what has been forgiven.”

Taylor tells of her own experiences with the word and meaning of “sin, first as an infant baptized in the Catholic Church and her mother’s rebelling against the idea of her infant being sinful “through and through”; in the Baptist Church; in school in Alabama in 1960; in university worship, where “moral and ethical decision-making” was discussed and sin not mentioned; in seminary where academics in was taught; in the Episcopal church where she realized through the confession that the language was plural (“We acknowledge and bewail.-»our manifold sins”) and said on behalf of the whole species, a collective sin.

The author points out that in this post-modernist age “the threat of sin and the promise of salvation sound too much like part of the old control mechanism for keeping people inline. . .For the culture at large, religious language has been replaced by the language of spirituality, which uses gentler words such as stress-reduction, empowerment, and harmony. These words do not adequately describe the darker realms of human experience’.”

“Sin...is a name for the experience of being cut off from air, light, sustenance, community, hope, meaning, life. It is less concerned with specific behavior than with the aftermath of those behaviors...The point is to know the difference between light and darkness, and to recognize the pull of darkness when it comes.”

The ideas of Douglas John Hall, a Canadian theologian, are used to describe the reasons for the existence of the church: “The church exists so that people have a place where they may repent of their fear, their hardness of heart, their isolation and loss of vision, and where - having repented - they may be restored to fullness of life.”.
“While Jesus may have done the hardness work for us, some of us still long for a way both to engage the consequences of our sin and to have a hand in repairing the damage we have done. We want to participate in our own redemption, instead of sitting in a lawn chair while Jesus does all the work. We want to be agents of God’s grace.”

Barbara Brown Taylor writes in such delightful, clear and pithy language that I am tempted to quote the whole book! SPEAKING OF SIN packs a lot into a small one hundred page book. It can be found in our own church library.

KABBALAH - Three Thousand Years of Mystic Tradition
by Kenneth Hanson
1998, Council Oak Books

Kenneth Hanson has a Ph.D. in Hebrew Studies. His books include Dead Sea Scrolls, the Untold Story. He teaches university classes on the Scrolls and the Kabbalah. Kabbalah traces mysticism from early beginnings to the mystic strains of Judaism and Christianity. Hanson explores the meaning of Kabbalist mysteries and discusses the important writings and leaders of the movement.

The beginnings of Kabbalah (Kabbel means “to receive”) can be traced to the Apocrypha literature (“hidden things”). The authors are unknown “but propelled by the idea that God Is knowable, deeply and intimately, in spite of hardships and suffering.” In the time of the reign of Antiochus IV, the Jewish population was forced to join in pagan sacrifices; reading of the Torah and other sacred texts was forbidden; scrolls and loose parchments were seized. In secret, Jewish priests or “Hasidics” met to study and pass on the oral teachings of wise men.

Many mystical sages in those days ascribed their own writings to Daniel (who presumably lived long before) to lend more weight to the words. There was a veritable library of ancient books, most of which never became part of the canon. The Book of Enoch explains suffering and persecution by finding God in a new and intimate way, which is the lesson of Kabbalah .Angels as unseen presences are intermediaries between humans and the Divine. The stories of angels plus the Chariot and Throne themes are central to the development of Kabbalah
.
Another idea of early mysticism and the Kabbalah deals with the sacred name of God; pronouncing it was forbidden. Eventually only the high priests were allowed to and only once a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement .The precise pronunciation has been lost. The idea developed over centuries that YH-W-H was really the short form of the name of God, which is 42 letters. This information brings great and awesome power.

An anonymous mystic work called Jubilees was presented as direct revelation from God via Angel of the Presence who told it to Moses who wrote it down. Complex numerology became increasingly central. Other writers tell of “out of body” experiences. Over time the nature of what it means to be spiritual is redefined as a “calling” to be stewards. The job falls to those with insight. Everything is a process of developing a seasoned spiritual maturity. It took years to learn “the secrets of God.” (all were inscrolls). Unseen helpers, the angels or messengers of God, are servants of God and humans.
The basic function of angels is to instructing the mysteries of truth.” There are evil angels, also servants of God, who are exactors of divine wrath. Important scrolls discussed include “The Song of Sabbath Sacrifices” found in the Qumran caves, and perhaps the “missing link” in understanding the evolution of Kabbalah. The “War Scrolls” prophesy the battles between Song of Light and the Sons of Darkness waged in physical and spiritual dimensions. The final battle is won by God Himself along with His angels who intervene on behalf of the community. “It is a Kabalistic testimony which presages the Spirit of the New Testament, and acts as a literary bridge between the world of the Hebrew Scriptures of old and the developing world of Christianity. “When modern scholars examine the evidence it seems increasingly clear that the notion of the Messiah as a supernatural being (equivalent with the Divine Word and with true knowledge), present in the beginning with God, is not a later edition of Christian theology, but reflects an early layer of Jewish thought, in the form of Kabbalah!” When rabbis finally wrote down the teachings of the Sages which were collected and edited, a student of sacred text would stand and recite a passage from memory.

Another would expand and elaborate and so forth, a spirited debate over each point of law would ensue; the sixty-three separate tractates were known as the Talmud. It was officially set down around 500 A.D. Its editors were officially anti-mystical, but mysticism never totally disappeared. Only into private study sessions for the elite and only one on one was the “mysterious” revealed. The collected body of Talmudic Kabbalah was passed from Sage to Sage .The “Book of Creation” surfaced somewhere between the third and sixth centuries A.D., written in Hebrew in the common style of the 200’s AD.

In it are described the multiple paths to truth (32), the very intricate “spheres” which emanate from the center of the universe and represent physical creation; across the spheres are emanations of the divine. The study of the numerical value of letters is crucial; everything in the created world is governed by precise mathematical laws. Other and important works continued to be found or written.
Probably the most significant was “The Zohar” or “The Book of Splendor”. Moses Tov of Leon, Spain, around 1285 claimed it was written by Simeon ben Yokhai, a famous figure of antiquity. Shem Tov convinced many that he had just found it, a huge volume. Though a work written by Shem Tov himself, it was widely believed to be authentic. Based on the books of Moses and Kabbalah lectures, “A comprehensive, multi-volume work like Zohar gave the study of Kabbalah the literary grounding it needed. Moreover, the Zohar should have the same status of inspiration and authority as the Talmud and the Bible itself, perhaps even a higher standing?”
Space does not permit the listing of other works and important rabbis and other spiritual leaders, though Hanson takes the reader to the present time. This is a fascinating and comprehensive study. “Kabbalah as a discipline is perhaps uniquely suited to bringing together theoretical physics, philosophy, and theology .For Kabbalah not only approaches the mysteries of creation, but draws out the ethical implications of the Big Bang - namely, that we are all truly brothers.”
. . .
“It may be no overgeneralization to say that if there is a ‘religion’ behind modern astrophysics, we can call it Kabbalah.” It counsels spirituality without dogmatism. It admonished reaching for the stars while keeping one’s feet planted firmly on the ground.”

FINDING GOD IN THE QUESTIONS A PERSONAL JOURNEY
by Timothy Johnson
InterVarsity Press 2004
$13.30 at Amazon.com

Dr.Timothy Johnson is the medical editor for ABC News and reports on health care issues for “Good Morning America” and other programs. His medical credentials are numerous. He is associated with Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital. He completed seminary before medical school and is assisting minister of Community Covenant Church in Massachusetts.
The author tells the reader in a simple and convincing way how he has arrived at his religious beliefs as he has traveled on his spiritual journey. The book is divided into three sections: Does God Exist? What Is God Like? What Difference Does it Make? I have chosen to summarize his thoughts by using several telling quotations:

“...the God of truth expects us to be open to new ideas and new research, and honor the path of truth-seeking wherever it might lead.”
“I don’t see any discoveries of modern science, including natural selection, as a threat to the basic idea that there is some kind of intelligence at work in the unfolding of this incredible universe we inhabit... the more we learn, the less likely it seems that it could all have ‘just happened.’ ”
“...for me the most important ‘universal themes’ of Scripture come from the life and teachings of Jesus...those teachings become the key to understanding the rest of the Bible.
“I suggest that much of what Christians argue about among themselves often has little to do with what Jesus actually said or did.”
(Dr. Johnson prefers to call himself “a follower of Jesus” rather than a Christian.)
“It drives me back to the Gospel accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus as my spiritual guide; it doesn’t force me into explaining what kind of Christian I am or am not; it does not require me to defend the terrible misdeeds of some past representatives of the Christian religion...most important, calling myself a follower of Jesus urges me to pursue the kind of life portrayed and taught by Jesus in the Gospels.”
“I believe the phrase “born again” should be understood metaphorically to describe a dramatic spiritual change in a person’s life so dramatic that it is reminiscent of our initial physical birth.”
“...we don’t know...exactly who God is, but we can discover him by looking at Jesus.You could say that at the heart of the Christian faith is the view, not that Jesus is more or less like God, or part of God, but that the being we refer to as “God” was, and is, fully present, and fully discoverable, in and as Jesus of Nazareth.”
“...the many individual choices we make along the way start to build up in a collective direction that can ultimately make a dramatic difference, depending on those individual choices...if we make choices according to standards suggested by the Sermon on the Mount, we at least increase our potential for experiencing personal contentment of being blessed.”
“If I am to be true to the heart of God, I must discipline myself to be available in a more personal way to those in need.”
“I am convinced that when Jesus said being a servant is the way to the heart of God, he was telling the truth - not just mouthing platitudes or beautitudes.”

Translated and Edited by E. Allison Peers, from the Critical Edition of P. Silverio De Santa Teresa, C.D. Introduction by Benedict Ward.; Image, 1991.464 pages; paperback; $10.47 at Amazon.com

Saint Teresa, the great mystic, was commanded by her Dominican confessor to write her spiritual autobiography. She was not a professional writer and had no formal training. She wrote colloquial language in a simple and unaffected style to tell of the Holy Spirit at work in her life. “No mystical writer before her day ... nor any who has written since, has described such high matters in a way so apt; so natural and to such a large extent within the reach of all.”

Eventually she wrote five major works and seven minor ones. The originals of almost all her works survive, as well as letters and account books with her signature. According to the introduction of this edition, with Don Quixote the exception, no other book by a Spanish author is as widely known as the “Life” or the “Interior Castle of St. Teresa.” Initially published in 1588 (Teresa lived from1515-1582) many editions of her life followed, though many errors were included.

Much of the autobiography deals with St. Teresa’s approach to prayer. Early in her life she had trouble meditating and had used reading as a substitute. In order to help herself concentrate, she made inward pictures of Christ, especially the parts of his life when he was “alone and afflicted”, when he prayed in the Garden. She put herself there. She began to practice prayer without knowing what it was. She used the analogy of watering a garden: first she labored at the watering, making it a great burden, progressing finally to a Prayer of Quiet where the Lord helps the gardener and almost is the gardener. In the last stage the labor is accompanied by bliss and consolation, a state the soul wishes never to abandon; there is a divine union ... “the soul feels close to God and that there abides in it such a certainty that it cannot possibly do other than believe.“
As time passed visions became stronger and more frequent. Sometimes she saw the Lord-stands, his face, and his complete representation. In times of rapture or flight of the spirit, she felt her body being lifted from the ground and afterwards was in great distress; sometimes the rapture lasted many hours. Teresa thought of herself as weak and sinful and in need of the direction of spiritual advisors and always questioned whether devils might be leading her astray, she was convinced, though, that her visions could not be the work of her imagination. Sometimes Jesus showed himself in his resurrection body, sometimes in the Host. Sometimes he showed his wounds or was upon the cross. An angel vision seemed to pierce her heart with a long golden spear; she went about in a stupor, suffering great pain.

She experienced visions of the devil and was tortured physically and mentally. She found flinging holy water at him the best way to make him flee. At prayer one day she found herself in hell, “I realized that it was the Lord’s that I should see this place which the devils had prepared for me there and which I had merited for my sins.” she suffered excruciating pain, burning, dismemberment and despair. After like visions, some without experiencing pain, she felt benefited by them; all fear of tribulations and disappointments of this life disappeared She was strengthened and all seemed light.

The last part of her autobiography deals with the struggles to found a strict enclosed convent. Finally Saint Joseph’s convent was founded in 1562. She later traveled and founded other convents.
When St. Teresa presented her commanded account to Father Sarcia de Toledo, she asked that he not burn it before it had been seen by her three confessors. “...my intention and desire have been to be accurate and obedient and I have hope that through one some praise might be given to the Lord, a thing for which I have prayed for many years. And as no works which I have performed can accomplish this, I have ventured to put together this story of my unruly life, though I have wasted no more time or trouble on it than has been necessary for the writing of it, but have merely set down what has happened to one, with all the simplicity and truth at my command.” (She had not read it all through or revised it when de Toledo said she must send it “as is”.)

I have omitted the facts of St. Teresa’s life and concentrated on a few of her remarkable mystical experiences. Pope Gregory XV canonized her in 1662.

THE ROAD TO CANTERBURY
A Modern Pilgrimage -
By Shirley Du Boulay
Morehouse Publishing
Papaerback, 1995, Used, Fine, $10.95

Shirley Du Boulay, an Englishwoman and convert to Roman Catholicism in 1989, became enamored with the idea of pilgrimages, especially wanting to follow in the footsteps of past pilgrims.
This delightful book tells of her journey from Winchester to Canterbury with two walking friends and another who drove and met the walkers at each day’s end.

The path of “Pilgrims’ Way,” not named until the eighteenth century, was not on Ordnance Survey maps until the 1860’s. The way is not clear and straight. Each day of walking meant many choices - the best way to go to avoid motorways, built-up areas, and private land. Du Boulay found Hilaire Belloc’s book of 1904 The Old Road a valuable book. In it he mapped out all he could of “The Pilgrims’ Way.” His concern was to establish the “Old Road” route.There is evidence that the route had been used for thousands of years, maybe ten thousand years ago. Neolithic man, drovers, merchants, Romans, kings, courtiers, bishops and clerics have passed along this way.

The author’s journey, following the tradition of medieval pilgrims, began at St. John’s, the oldest surviving parish church in Winchester.
The Vicar read a short and ancient service, the “Itinerarium for Pilgrims.” He invoked the blessing of the Archangel Raphael and then read the Benedictus and a few prayers, including one for God’s protection. The walkers then went to the Cathedral of Winchester (where it is said that King Arthur’s Round Table resides).

With guide book and ordnance map in hand, the author takes us on her pilgrimage. We see so many fascinating sights and are given history lessons, and very human and comical happenings occur along the way.

Just a few include the following: the ruins of Waverly Abbey, the first Cistercian house in England, founded in 1128 by William Giffard, Bishop of Winchester, which was destroyed by Henry VIII’s commissioners in 1536; Moor Park House, home of Sir William Temple in the late 17th century in which secretary Jonathan Swift wrote “The Tale of a Tub”, now a girls’ school with many Japanese students; Watts Gallery outside Compton, which painter Watts’ widow Mary built as a shrine to his work and designed a Memorial Chapel using a labyrinth motif; a Georgian House, now the Burford Bridge Hotel, which had once greeted guests Lord Nelson and Keats; the nearby Flint Cottage, home of poet and novelist George Meredith; in Kent, the Coldrum Stones, a Neolithic long barrow in which the 1910 excavators found bones of twenty-two persons and animals, all gathered and placed in tombs with great care, pointed in an easterly direction - massive stones, four remain upright and in the center of a stone circle; the church at Charing, where a famous relic lies, supposedly the block on which the head of John the Baptist was struck off, brought from the Holy Land by Richard the Lion Hearted; Godmersham Park, its Palladian mansion often visited by Jane Austen, whose brother Edward inherited in 1797.

The pilgrimage ends with Evensong at Canterbury Cathedral, the place of Thomas Becket’s martyrdom. The journey has taken twelve days and has covered one hundred and fifty miles.

What were these modern-day pilgrims seeking?

“The thread that connects pilgrims throughout the ages is strong; pilgrims across the world are linked, even if divided by time and born into different religious cultures. The three of us, like earlier pilgrims, were seeking escape, change, and adventure; so too did we hope to find meaning and healing, ‘the sacred, the centre out there’ ...pilgrims are united in the search for spiritual nourishment.”

by Ann Belford Ulanov
A C.G. Jung Foundation Book 1993, Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Paperback, $9.95 at Amazon.com

In 1993 Ann Ulanov was Professor of Psychiatry and Religion at Union TheologicalSeminary in New York . She is a Jungian analyst and author. This book is a psychological study of four Old Testament heroines from Jesus’ family tree - Tamar, Rahab, Ruth,and Bathsheba. They are the only women mentioned by name in the Gospels’ genealogies.

This shows the author that they“impart something essential to the lineage of Christ.”Only Matthew (see Matthew 1:2-17) includesthe four women; Bathsheba is referred to notby name but “the wife of Uriah” and David’s mother.

Ulanov asks why we hear so little about these women and what explains their presence in the Tree of Life leading to Jesus. Her purpose is to examine these women, “to bring to their presentation in Scripture the resources of depth psychology in order to explore the symbolic meaning they carry for the feminine and its (t bearing on our understanding of Christ.” Certainly the four women were not great matriarchs like Sarah and Rebecca and Rachel, etc. One needs to be a serious student,of Jung in order to appreciate the detailedand deep interpretations and conclusions the author reaches. Since most of us are familiar with Ruth and Bathsheba, I will tell the stories of Tamar and Rahab.

TAMAR (See Genesis 38). Judah, son of Jacob, left his family and joined an Adullamite named Hirah in his country. Judah married a Canaanite who bore him three sons. First son Er married Canaanite Tamar, first of the ancestresses in the line of Jesus. Yahweh slays Er for his wicked ways. Judah sends his second son Onan to marry Tamar and raise a family in his brother’s name; Onan refuses to father children and thus enlarge his brother’s name; Yahweh slays Onan. Judah sends Tamar back as a widow to her father’s house and announces that he will give his youngest son Shelah in marriage to her when Shelah is old enough, but Judah begows to have second thoughts and fears for his son’s life.In the meantime Judah’s wife dies and isdeeply mourned. Tamar, realizing that the third son will not be her husband, removes her widow’s weeds, puts on a veil, and sits at a gateway on the road Judah must pass.

Obidah, thinking this woman a prostitute, lies with her and Tamar conceives. Judah wants to give her a kid from his flock as payment.
Tamar asks Judah for pledges and talks him into giving her his signet ring, his cord,and his staff until he returns with the kid.When Judah returns the next day, the woman is gone and no one remembers seeing her.

Three months later Judah learns of Tamar’s pregnancy and asks that she be burned as punishment. Tamar sends the pledges back to Judah with the message that these belong to the man who impregnated her. Judah says that Tamar is “more right than I” befcause he did not marry Tamar to his son Shelah.Tamar has twin boys. The first son is being born when his brother pushes him aside and emerges first. He, Perez, is a direct ancestor of David and Jesus.

RAHAB (See Joshua 2:1-24). Joshua sent two spies to map the territory of the Canaanite King of Jerico; they lodge with the harlot Rahab. She hides these spies when searchers seek them out. Rahab makes a deal with the men-t— save me and my extended family as I have saved you. When Joshua attacks, his army spares Rahab’s house and all inside. When Jerico falls, Rahab andher family alone survive and become citizens of Israel and believers in its religion.Rahab goes on to become the wife of Salmon, and the mother of Boaz, ancestor of David and thus a direct part of Jesus’ line.
In the stories of Tamar, Rahab, Ruth,and Bathsheba, the author finds similar motifs. “Audacity, lavish devotion, ini-titive, determination and endurance mark the attitudes of all.” “They teach us that the shady undersude is important in the life of the spirit as more obviously accepted virtues, that dependence on God does not mean blind, passive submission but rather the full, imaginative use of everything God gives us and the offering of it all back to God.”

“These women are examples of the unexpected means God uses to triumph over obstacles and to prepare the way for the Messiah. Their scandalous behavior both forecasts and supports Mary’s scandalous pregnancy.”

"Grandma, tell me why I should put a coin in the Blue Box?,” Alex said as he picked up the box. Because you are giving thanks,” I replied. “But, for what am I giving thanks?” he persisted. That is a question that I must answer carefully, because I really want this curious grandchild of mine to understand WHY?

“First, you tell me what are some things you are thankful for- you know- the things that you can’t imagine not having.” “That’s easy,” he said. “I can’t live without Mommy and Daddy and my baby brother Sean my Star Wars characters, my friends at preschool...”

“Ok, I get the picture -these are things that are very precious to you, right?” He nods and looks at me questioningly, “Then you could say, ‘I am thankful for these people and these things that make me happy’, couldn’t you?” “Yes, but why the Blue Box?” “Because,” I answered, “ It is a way of thanking God for letting these lovely blessings come into your life - of sharing these blessings by placing a coin in the Blue Box.”

“Where does the coin go? How does my coin help?” “Your coin joins other coins throughout the church and it becomes a part of a great pile of coins that become dollars. These dollars are then sent to places all around the world. They may be used for schools, community centers, churches and clinics to help people help themselves.

Shelters for the homeless and children, women and men who have been hurt are also helped by the money from the Blue Box,” “Here in the Los Angeles area, too,” he asks. “Yes, indeed!” I reply. “The Trinity Center on Melrose is one of the places that received a grant from UTO to help with the day-care program. They can serve many more children now.

“Where else does the coin go?” he asks. I walk over to the globe and give it a gentle spin. “Wherever the word of God is taken in the Anglican Communion, from Alaska to Zimbabwe, and all places in between. Your offering becomes a mighty prayerful thanksgiving as it joins with other offerings on its journey to aid our sisters and brothers in Christ.”

Q. What should I contribute to the parish?
A. Contributions of time are one way of supporting the ministry and program of the congregation. As for talents, special areas of interest are important “treasures” that can help the parish achieve its goals. But in many ways, the financial support for the mission of the Church can be the most effective and important form of support that members contribute.
Q. Why should I pledge?
A. If we believe that all things come from God, our pledge gives back a small percentage of what we have to do God’s will.
Q. How do I decide how much financial support I should contribute?
A. One of the best resources you have to help you decide is your relationship with Christ. The key to this resource is in private devotions and corporate worship. Prayerfully consider the gifts you’ve been given, and your response to those gifts.
Q. I know that this prayerful approach will help, but are there some specific financial guidelines?
A. The biblical standard is a tithe for financial stewardship. It has been the “minimum standard of giving for Episcopalians” according to resolutions passed by the General Conventions in 1998 and 1991. Each household is urged to base pledging upon a percent of income, known as proportional giving, and recognize tithing (10 percent) as the minimum standard of giving.
For most of us, giving a tenth of our income is not something we could easily do all at once. Like fitness, it is a goal that takes discipline and training to achieve and progress occurs in stages, over time. You can work toward tithing by giving an increasing proportion of you income over several years. You might, for example, increase your pledge by three percent of your income a year until you are tithing.The ability to tithe has more to do with faith than income. Studies show that lower income groups give a larger percentage of their income. We should see tithing in the context of committing our lives to Christ in a life-long pilgrimage. Tithing is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
Q. What is the range of giving in our parish?
A. From $10 per month to $30,000 per year.
Q. What percent of the parish makes a pledge?
A. About 60 percent of our families.
Q. Has the debt for the new parish hall been paid off?
A. No. Our debt is approximately $496,000, We currently have about $100,000 in our Building Our Faith bank account with another $200,000 in pledges outstanding.
Q. Is there a Scriptural basis for stewardship?
A. There are three main themes that apply. First, the call to love. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12). This is a call to build Christian community, to nurture people and share life.
The second is the call to service. ”When did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give you drink?” (Matthew 25:37-39). The mission of every Christian and of every congregation is service. It is a basic call to the Church. This is a call to help those in need of basics like food, shelter, employment, love, companionship andcare. At the heart of service are love and the realization that everyone has needs. It is our blessing to join with the Creator in caring for creation, especially other persons.
The third is the call to discipleship: ”Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:6-20) Jesus calls us to discipleship. Disciples are people who hear the word and learn to live the word. The apostles found new life when they came to know Jesus as the Christ. They answered his call and their lives changed. Their lives gained new purpose and so will ours as we respond to Jesus’ call.

This year’s Compass Rose Society mission trip was to the Diocese of Highveld in the province of Southern Africa. The objective was to gain some understanding of the dimensions of the HIV/AIDS problem in South Africa and the role of the Anglican Church in helping to ameliorate it. I had the privilege of going on this trip last October. In Johannesburg, I met a deacon in the Church named Lynne Coull, who is one of two AIDS coordinators in the Diocese. She told me about the need for funeral assistance for the poor who are dying of AIDS, and when I reported this to our “Praying our Goodbyes” ministry, they responded enthusiastically. I’ve reprinted below portions of a letter of thanks from Lynne to our parish.
-- Norris Battin

Many thanks for your November e-mail re ‘Praying Our Goodbyes”....[I saw from your Web site that] that the service held on 8 December 2002 was very moving and beautiful. Your homily must have touched many people.

I will be passing on the information to other clergy in our Diocese. There is such a need for this kind of service and ministry. Loss is so very much a part of life but people rarely talk about their losses which is sad. ... I find it worrying that so little time is given to adults and children who have suffered loss especially now with so many people in this country dying of AIDS related illnesses. …
I received a copy of a letter dated 16 January 2003 from John Peterson to [our] Bishop re cheques from you[r parish] totaling $475 for funeral assistance. John mentioned that this gift was given as a result of …the service in December. … Thank you for making this possible.

Please would you convey our grateful thanks and appreciation to members of your congregation for their kindness and generosity? The average cost of the coffin is around $50 - $70. We were able to assist a poor family with $40 that went towards the cost of burying their 18 month old daughter the week before Christmas.

With love and best wishes,

Lynne

The idea for a national cathedral is as old as Washington itself. In 1791, President Washington commissioned Major Pierre l’Enfant to design an overall plan for the future seat of government.

Included in the plan was a church, “intended for national purposes, such as public prayer, thanksgiving, funeral orations, etc.,and assigned to the special use of no particular Sect of denomination, but equally open to all.”

Largely through the efforts of Washington community leaders, plans for building Washington National Cathedral gained momentum. On January 6, 1893, Congress granted a charter to the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation of the District of Columbia, allowing it to establish a cathedral and institutions of higher learning. Signed by President Benjamin Harrison, this charter was the birth certificate of Washington National Cathedral.

On September 29, 1907, the foundation stone was laid. The stone itself came from a field near Bethlehem and was inset into a larger piece of American granite. On it was the inscription: “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).

With the laying of the cathedral foundation stone, the grassy, tree-shaded Close became home to the longest-running construction site in the nation’s capital. The first chapel, Bethlehem Chapel, was completed in 1912. Daily services have continued there ever since. By 1964, the central tower was completed.

In 1972, the cathedral nave was enclosed as the north and south walls met at the west facade. The completed nave was dedicated in 1976 in a series of ceremonies .
Construction stopped in 1977 due to a shortage of funds. In 1980, work resumed, and the Pilgrim Observation Gallery was completed and opened to the public in 1982. Then in 1983, the final phase of construction began with the setting of the first stone for the west towers.

The completion of the west towers in September 1990 marked the end of eighty- three years of construction . Since the first services were held in Bethlehem Chapel, Washington National Cathedral has opened its doors to people of all faiths as they have gathered to worship and pray, to mourn the passing of world leaders, and to confront the pressing moral and social issues of the twentieth century.

by Norris Battin

The Compass Rose Society, which takes its name from the symbol of the Anglican Communion, was formally established in 1997 so that individuals, parishes, dioceses, provinces, and organizations throughout the world can help provide the much-needed financial support for the work of the Anglican Communion.

The Anglican Communion is a worldwide family of Churches committed to helping its sisters and brothers in Jesus Christ throughout the world. There are more than 70 million Anglican Christians in 38 Provinces spread across 164 countries on every continent. Anglican Churches are united through their history, their theology, worship and their relationship to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Anglican history derives from the early Church and its separate identity was defined in the post-Reformation expansion of the Church of England, and later the Episcopal Church of the United States. The Anglican Communion upholds and proclaims the Apostolic faith and confesses the Catholic creeds. Scripture, tradition, and reason help its members understand the faith and proclaim and live it in their daily lives.

During a visit to the war-ravaged Province of the Sudan in 1994, Archbishop Carey discovered a tragedy seemingly forgotten by the media and the world. The story of the people of the Sudan needed to be told. As there were no funds to help communicate the Sudan story, the staff of the Anglican Communion Secretariat Office faced mounting frustrations in the effort to facilitate a response. The Compass Rose Society developed from the realities and challenges facing Sudanese Anglicans, and others in similar circumstances. The response from the Anglican family globally, both in prayer and financial support, was overwhelming.

Funds raised by the Society assist the ministry of the Secretariat and the Anglican Consultative Council as they respond to the growing needs of Provinces worldwide. Through annual dues, at least $400,000 per year is raised for the operating budget of the Anglican Communion Office, and an endowment of $20 million is under development.

The entire budget for the work of the Anglican Communion is surprisingly small. The primary source of finance is the contributions from the member churches of the Communion. This is an important matter of principle which recognizes that the ownership of the budget of the Anglican Communion must rest primarily with the member churches themselves.

Nevertheless, without Compass Rose Society support, many tasks would go undone for sheer lack of funds. In fact, the Anglican Communion depends upon the Compass Rose Society for a full 20 percent of its annual budget.

Over 130 individuals, families, parishes, cathedral chapters, dioceses, seminaries and other friends are now members of the Compass Rose Society. Beginning with just 25 members, it now looks forward to continued growth from members throughout the world. The Society helps the Anglican Consultative Council in three ways. First by raising funds for the ministries of the ACC, which include Mission and Evangelism, Communications, Ecumenical Relations, and Administration and Finance.
These funds are generated through new memberships, gifts from existing members, and earnings from the Compass Rose Endowment Fund.

Second, it specifies contributions for mission projects approved either by the ACC or the Board of the Compass Rose Society. These projects are often connected with visit made by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Secretary General or the Compass Rose Society. These projects include:

· A Compass Rose parish support for a school in Rwanda
· Parish support for Christ Church Episcopal Church in Nazareth
· Purchase of a much-needed pulverizer for a garbage dump ministry in Recife, Brazil
A grant to educate clergy in Burundi in the skills of reconciliation
· Contributions for building medical clinics in the bush and reconstructing churches in Kaduna, Nigeria
· Donations of $1 million to support the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, Palestine
· Approximately $100,000 donated for projects in the Diocese of Cuba

And finally, by building a community of persons and parishes who support the mission and ministry of the Anglican Consultative Council. This community will be built through the recruitment of new members, participation in the Compass Rose Society annual meeting, and mission trips. The network will also be built up by endorsing other mission initiatives for parishes and persons to engage in ministries that help strengthen the Anglican Communion spiritually. For instance, one initiative provides volunteer professional and technical expertise and humanitarian service in areas where they are needed.

Each year, members of the Compass Rose Society are invited to make mission trips to Dioceses and Provinces throughout the Anglican world. Field mission sites are selected by the Board of the Compass Rose Society, based on an invitation from the bishops of the dioceses to be visited. The diocese chosen are often considerable under stress: from poverty, repression from a political regime, or pressure from a hostile culture or religion.

These trips are not holidays or tourist jaunts: many are physically challenging and travel has been under some difficult circumstances. But the rewards are many and great: communion with brothers and sisters in Christ, learning from them, staying in their homes, eating meals together, giving them encouragement and assistance.
The 2002 mission trips will take us to the Diocese of the Dominican Republic in May-June and to the Diocese of the Highveld, South Africa immediately following the London annual meeting in October. Previous Compass Rose Society trips were to these Dioceses and chu