Being a Christian in Everyday Life

The Anglican Witness initiative, coordinated by the Anglican Communion Office, has produced a new video, Being a Christian in everyday life, to highlight current issues in churches in the Global South and North, with a view to a possible Communion-wide response through a focus on discipleship or Christian living. [ACNS]

Learn more here.

Gun Violence

In the face of so much gun violence in our society (mass shootings, children killing children, murder-suicides, and accidents), we need to ask what we can do to limit the carnage we see daily.

I found this article to be helpful:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-a-new-way-to-tackle-gun-deaths.html

What we need is an evidence-based public health approach — the same model we use to reduce deaths from other potentially dangerous things around us, from swimming pools to cigarettes. We’re not going to eliminate guns in America, so we need to figure out how to coexist with them. ~ Nicholas Kristof

(and if you think his statistics are wrong, go here: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/oct/06/nicholas-kristof/nicholas-kristof-gun-deaths-preschoolers-police/ )

He is right.  If we are going to live with them, we must decide the rules, and the current rules are ineffective...

“We will no longer be silent while violence permeates our world, our society, our Church, our homes and ourselves. Our faith calls us to be ministers of reconciliation, to give voice to the voiceless and to strive for justice in the name of our Lord.” Bishops Ian T. Douglas, James E. Curry and Laura J. Ahrens of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut

Learn more here: http://bishopsagainstgunviolence.org/

Changing the Narrative on Race

This is important and I found it to be very helpful, even if it is only a taste.  I look forward to more from Trinity Church and the Trinity Institute...

We indeed need truth and reconciliation here.

Mass Incarceration?

At General Convention this year, a resolution passed: A183 Recommended Book Study of the Triennium: “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander

You can read about it here.

There is a lively debate going on about this but there is no denying that mass incarceration exists.

From a conservative standpoint:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/415557/republicans-rethinking-tough-crime-michael-tanner

I am glad to see the author acknowledges the need to end the status quo even if he misses on some issues; yes, racism is real.  For profit prisons exacerbate the problem.  And choice is not all that its cracked up to be...

Looking at it through the lens of race and family:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/the-black-family-in-the-age-of-mass-incarceration/403246/

We will in 2016, begin our discussions at our parish on mass incarceration.

In the mean time, to just think about a piece of the larger issue of mass incarceration, here is John Oliver of HBO on public defenders (NSFW - language!):

A lively debate is happening here with some good back and forth:

http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/all/2015/09/debating-mass-incarceration/405694/

The Big Class: A Christian Response to Gun Violence

Episcopal Bishops Teach Free, Online Course: A Christian Response to Gun Violence
September 14 - 28

www.churchnext.tv > The Big Class

The grief around senseless killings involving firearms has put a pall over our nation, and many concerned Christians wonder what we can do. Join thousands of people from around the world for a free online class called "A Christian Response to Gun Violence."

The course is taught by Episcopal bishops Eugene Sutton (Maryland) and Ian Douglas (Connecticut), who are co-founders of Bishops United Against Gun Violence.

Register for free beginning Monday, August 31, go to churchnext.tv and click on The Big Class.

Then the course can be taken for free from September 14 - 28. It will take an average student
45 minutes to complete and no special software is required. The course is free to all!

Living into Marriage Equality for Christians

I came across two posts recently that look at the issue of Marriage Equality through the eyes of Scripture and the Sacraments. I believe Christians should be celebrating with our brothers and sisters who are LGBT and supporting them in their lives (more on that soon).

But for those on the fence or not sure what they should believe about all this, I invite you to look at these two articles (links below):

http://www.therebelgod.com/2015/08/homosexuality-and-why-you-cant-remove.html

In other words, their position —and this is by far the most common position among conservatives today— is essentially that it does not matter what you or I think, it does not matter what we can observe, it does not matter what gay people tell us... all that matters is what the Bible says. The Bible condemns it, that settles it. All we need to do, they argue, is to look to what Scripture clearly teaches about homosexuality, and regard this as the final and authoritative word on the matter.

As I demonstrate in Disarming Scripture, there is a major flaw in this kind of reasoning. Using this exact same approach to the Bible has lead Christians in the past to support both slavery and child abuse based on the “authority of Scripture.”

https://sojo.net/articles/same-sex-marriage-and-sacramental-unity

In 1963, William Stringfellow - movement theologian, Sojourners mentor, and gay man - had the following to say about mainline churches who were pondering whether to join the struggle for African-American civil rights:
The issue here...is not some common spiritual values, nor natural law, nor middle axioms. The issue is baptism. The issue is the unity of all humanity wrought by God in the life and work of Christ. Baptism is the sacrament of that unity of all human life in God.
We hear these words anew in the present moment in light of the contemporary public debate over same-sex marriage.

Events in recent months have highlighted same-sex marriage as an issue of full inclusion in both church and society. We receive this as a kind of kairos moment for Christian disciples, specifically those like ourselves who enjoy heterosexual privilege (including the rights of marriage), to act in public solidarity with gays and lesbians, particularly those in the faith, too long shunted to the margin.

- See more at: https://sojo.net/articles/same-sex-marriage-and-sacramental-unity#sthash.gi1NRGry.dpuf

In 1963, William Stringfellow - movement theologian, Sojourners mentor, and gay man - had the following to say about mainline churches who were pondering whether to join the struggle for African-American civil rights:

The issue here...is not some common spiritual values, nor natural law, nor middle axioms. The issue is baptism. The issue is the unity of all humanity wrought by God in the life and work of Christ. Baptism is the sacrament of that unity of all human life in God.

We hear these words anew in the present moment in light of the contemporary public debate over same-sex marriage.

St. Peter's Day (& St. Paul)

St. Peter
(sonnet by Malcom Guite)
 
Impulsive master of misunderstanding
You comfort me with all your big mistakes;
Jumping the ship before you make the landing,
Placing the bet before you know the stakes.
I love the way you step out without knowing,
The way you sometimes speak before you think,
The way your broken faith is always growing,
The way he holds you even when you sink.
Born to a world that always tried to shame you,
Your shaky ego vulnerable to shame,
I love the way that Jesus chose to name you,
Before you knew how to deserve that name.
And in the end your Saviour let you prove
That each denial is undone by love.

Prayer for Saint Peter and Saint Paul  ~  June 29
 
Almighty God, whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul glorified
you by their martyrdom: Grant that your Church, instructed by
their teaching and example, and knit together in unity by your
Spirit, may ever stand firm upon the one foundation, which
is Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the
unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Great article:  http://andrewmarrosb.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/peter-and-paul-the-churchs-quest-for-mimetic-unity/

Claiming Common Ground Against Gun Violence

This is a human issue, a political issue, a religious issue.

http://www.claimitgc.org/

Our Presiding Bishop elect:

https://www.facebook.com/EpiscopaliansAgainstGunViolence


Scenes from the event:

Addressing the issue at convention:

http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2015/06/28/general-convention-resolutions-target-gun-violence/

Saint of the Week: Bernard Mizeki

Bernard Mizeki

Catechist & Martyr (of Mozambique)

icon by Tobias Haller

Almighty and everlasting God, who kindled the flame of your Love in the heart of your holy martyr Bernard Mizeki: Grant to us, your humble servants, a like faith and power of love, that we who rejoice in his triumph may profit by his example; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

They begged him to leave, but he refused. He knew his life was in danger, but he would not leave those he had been teaching the Christian Faith, to those whom he had given his love. So he stayed, not knowing what would come next. His name was Bernard Mizeki. The year was 1896. Why did he stay?

An Anglican Bishop some 80 years later in an another part of Africa put it this way, “In Uganda, during the eight years in the 1970s when Idi Amin and his men slaughtered probably half a million Ugandans, "We live today and are gone tomorrow" was the common phrase. We learned that living in danger, when the Lord Jesus is the focus of your life, can be liberating. For one thing, you are no longer imprisoned by your own security, because there is none. So the important security that people sought was to be anchored in God.” (from Revolutionary Love by Festo Kivengere)

Bernard Mizeki was anchored in God. He was born Mamiyeri Mitseka Gwambe in 1861 in the Inhambane district of Portuguese East Africa which we know today as Mozambique. When he was about twelve years old, he left his home and went to Capetown, South Africa. In his 20s, he began to attend classes at an Anglican school. Under the influence of his teachers, from the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, he was baptized in 1886 and took on the name Bernard Mizeki. In his schooling, he mastered English, French, Dutch, and several local African languages.

After his baptism, he was trained as a lay catechist, one who taught the Christian faith to others. After graduating, he accompanied Bishop Knight-Bruce to Mashonaland, a tribal area in what is today Zimbabwe. In 1891 the bishop assigned him to Nhowe and there he lived among that tribe. He prayed the Anglican hours each day, tended his garden, and studied the local language so he could talk and pray and teach them in their own language, which also helped him cultivate friendships with the people.

With the chief's permission, he moved his huts onto a nearby plateau, next to a grove of trees believed to be sacred to the ancestral spirits of the Mashona. This angered the shamans when he cut some of the trees down and carved crosses into others. Although he opposed some of the tribal religious traditions, Bernard was attentive to the nuances of their religion and developed an approach that built on the people's faith in one God, and on their sensitivity to the spirit, while at the same time proclaiming Christ. In many ways, he reminds me of St. Patrick and what he did among the Irish, cultivating the faith in similar soil, helping them see the Christian faith in what they already knew.

Sadly, his life would not end so peaceably as St. Patrick’s did in Ireland. In 1896, when tensions reached a fevered pitch in Mashonaland, missionaries were ordered out for their safety. Bernard refused to go. On June 18, 1896, Bernard was killed by the local shaman and his huts and his mission destroyed.

And yet his work did not die with him. His pregnant wife survived and in fact, the first baptisms from that tribe followed his death, including his wife and child. He is revered among African Anglicans and is considered both a martyr and a saint.

In our reading from Leviticus, “The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to all the congregation and say: You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy. You shall not hate in your heart…You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”

This was true of the life of Bernard Mizeki. Who refused to go down the road of hate, even when threatened by the local religious leaders. He knew his anchor was in God, that Jesus guided him onward as he loved everyone he was with. He tried to live that holy life in prayer and in love to whom he was called. And like St. Paul, he understood that his work was not for himself…

“According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future-- all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.”

The foundation laid by Bernard Mizeki was built upon by many other Christians in African in the decades since his death. He knew he belonged to Christ and he wanted to share that with others, in their own language and customs. And he was trying to live as Jesus had taught. Many shrines were set up to remember his work and his martyrdom.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus said “You have heard that it was said, `You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”

Bernard tried to love his enemies even at the end, worrying more about his wife and those he taught, then his own life. He tried to be as Jesus said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

But of course, Bernard wasn’t, nor are any of us perfect. But Jesus calls us to work towards that perfection in how we live our lives. As one person has written on Bernard… “While attaining the highest, he yet comes within the comprehension of the lowest. He is not as saints and martyrs often seem to be – a being of a different order. He brings the crown of martyrdom within the compass of his people's understanding; he is bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh .... He stands for modern Africa. He stands true to type. In all the happenings of his life – save in the manner of his death – he recapitulates the story of countless thousands of his African brothers and sisters.” (Fr. Osmund Victor)

Today, we are called to have a like faith and power of love that Bernard Mizeki had in Jesus, who “proclaimed that he followed the Holy and Loving Spirit, whom we call God and because of this, he had lost all anxiety and no one could ever disturb his peace and happiness.” (from an eyewitness to one of his teachings)

Lowering the Toll of Violence

This is an important report on a study:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/06/12/gun-killings-fell-by-40-percent-after-connecticut-passed-this-law/

In the early ’90s, gang shootings gripped Connecticut. Bystanders, including a 7-year-old girl, were getting gunned down in drive-bys. “The state is becoming a shooting gallery, and the public wants action,” an editorial in the Hartford Courant said at the time.

So in the summer of 1994, lawmakers hustled through a gun control bill in a special session. They hoped to curb shootings by requiring people to get a purchasing license before buying a handgun. The state would issue these permits to people who passed a background check and a gun safety training course.

At the time, private citizens could freely buy and sell guns secondhand, even to those with criminal records. Connecticut’s law sought to regulate that market. Even private handgun sales would have to be reported to the state, and buyers would need to have a permit. [...]

In a study released Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health, they estimate that the law reduced gun homicides by 40 percent between 1996 and 2005. That’s 296 lives saved in 10 years.

And that is how it should be.  It is so sad that we can trace guns that kill back to places with lax laws and the inability to keep those guns out of criminals hands.

But this is just a start.  We need to be looking at violence in all of its manifestations...

Discussing Violence in Church by Sharon Pearson has some very valuable resources for our conversations, advocacy and action.

http://rowsofsharon.com/2015/06/15/discussing-violence-in-church/

Episcopal Flag/Seal

On Oct. 16, 1940, the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies adopted an official flag for the Episcopal Church. This was the 251st anniversary of the day the General Convention ratified the Constitution and Canons and adopted the BCP. It was designed by William M. Baldwin (d. 1942), a member of the Cathedral of the Incarnation, Long Island, New York.

The symbolism of the flag has been explained as follows: The white field represents the purity of the Christian religion. The red cross represents the sacrifice of Jesus and the blood of the martyrs. The red cross on a white field is the cross of Saint George, the patron saint of England, indicating our descent from the Church of England. The blue in the upper left-hand corner is the light blue of the sky, often used by artists for the clothing of the Blessed Virgin. It is called Madonna blue and represents the human nature of our Lord, which he received from his mother. The nine white crosslets on the blue field represent the nine original dioceses of the Episcopal Church in America in 1789: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, and South Carolina. They are arranged in the form of a St. Andrew's Cross to commemorate the fact that Samuel Seabury, the first American bishop, was consecrated in Aberdeen, Scotland, on Nov. 14, 1784. The colors red, white, and blue represent the United States and stand for the American branch of the Anglican Communion.

The same design is incorporated in the Episcopal Church seal, which was also adopted by the 1940 General Convention. The seal and flag serve as emblems of the Episcopal Church

(from An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church.)

Sunday (Church) School in 2015

I was able to participate in a workshop at the Episcopal Church in CT Spring Training & Gathering.  Sharon Pearson gave a wonderful presentation that looked at the history of sunday (church) school and asked some real good questions about it in 2015.

She posted them on her blog:

• Part 1: How Did We Get Here? 
• Part 2: Today’s Context 
• Part 3: A New Ecosystem 
• Part 4: Nurturing Networks
• Part 5: Where do we go from here? 

USA Today asked Has the sun set on Sunday school?

In part it says:

Yet it's worth noting that the reason MacNeil's kids don't attend Sunday school is lack of time. Instead of a day of rest, Sunday has become just another day for over-scheduled kids to be chauffeured from sports practice to music lessons or SAT tutoring. It doesn't help that parents themselves, so overwhelmed by life, are skipping church. 

Read the whole article here.

From Sharon's blog: "To help you get connected to others, I recommend the following curated websites that highlight best practices and share innovative ideas that are within our reach."

• Building Faith – articles from practitioners regarding Christian formation
• Forma – a network of creative Christian formation folks (lay/ordained, paid/volunteer, children/youth/young adult/adults) who dream big, have passion, and care helping others grow in faith
• Vibrant Faith Ministries – research and ideas for all generations
• Hope4ChristianEducation – a curated site of articles from a broad spectrum of denominations
• Key Resources – book and curriculum reviews, digital ministry ideas
• Worshipping with Children – resources and ideas for the inclusion of children in worship
• StoryPath – using children’s literature to share God’s Story, including pairings with the Sunday lectionary

Big Class: A Simple Path to a Deeper Spiritual Life

You don’t have to worry about being inspired. Just do the work of daily spiritual growth and the inspiration will come.

We are so excited for our next Big Class, which runs 3/22 – 4/5 with Becca Stevens, founder of Magdalene and Thistle Farms. In “A Simple Path to a Deeper Spiritual Life,” Becca will help us explore what the spiritual life really means: how to believe, to hope, to experience resurrection, to be inspired. In four lessons, she shares what she has learned in her years of ministry and service, and how this wisdom can enrich our own journeys. She reminds us about the importance of just showing up, of believing, of surrendering, of giving ourselves space. And that love heals and changes and brings about resurrection and justice.

This short, free course will be open to all from March 22 – April 5; registration opens this Sunday, March 15. We invite you to join us and to share this course with friends and neighbors. Our prayer is that, as we enter the season of Easter, this course may renew and inspire our journeys to resurrection.

https://www.churchnext.tv/school/catalog/course/the-big-class-a-simple-path-to-a-deeper-spiritual-life-with-becca-stevens/

Lent Begins!

The Season of Lent begins with Ash Wednesday.  To aid your journey, follow the links below:


40 Ideas for Lent 2015
http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/40-ideas-for-lent-2015

Litany of Penitence 
http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2015/02/litany-of-penitence.html

A Sonnet for Ash Wednesday
https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2015/02/17/a-sonnet-for-ash-wednesday-3/

Creating a Lenten Prayer Space at Home
http://www.buildfaith.org/2015/02/09/creating-lenten-prayer-space-home/

It’s time to… Stop, Pray, Work, Play & Love with SSJEhttp://ssje.org/ssje/time/

Lenten Challenge (Pray Worship Serve)
http://www.prayworshipserve.com/lenten-challenge/

Lent 2015

I invite you in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word...

Lent begins with our Ash Wednesday Services - 12 Noon & 7:30 PM - All are invited!

Our Discipleship Project - Lenten Challenge:

During Lent, I invite you to begin our discipleship project with the 20+1+5 Lenten Challenge. 20+1+5 is the challenge to pray 20 minutes a day, worship an hour a week and dedicate five hours through the course of Lent to serving your local poor.  Here are some tips and thoughts:

* Pray means to pray, at least in part, with scripture. Read one psalm (or more) a day, remembering that the psalter was Jesus' prayer book. You can start with Psalm 1 ('Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked...') and move forward. Don't be anxious about whether you're 'doing it right' or not. An ancient teaching of the church is that the Lord's Prayer includes all we need to say to God.

* One of the great saints of the Episcopal Church was Br. Paul Wessinger SSJE, who died last year. He told this story about worship: In his early days as a monk he was anxious because he noticed that his attention would wander a lot during worship. A wise elder told him to try to remember one word or phrase- that's all- from each service. It was sweet advice that helped him for the rest of his sixty plus years as a monk.

* From Robert Lupton's Toxic Charity: 'Listen closely to those you seek to help, especially to what is not being said- unspoken feelings may contain essential clues to effective service.'

(borrowed from the Restoration Project)

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Resources for keeping a Holy Lent:

From Ash Wednesday through Easter Sunday, Living Well through Lent provides daily readings and suggestions for reflection and action, inviting you to engage fully in your Lenten journey—with heart, soul, strength, and mind. Throughout the year, the Living Compass Faith & Wellness Ministry outfits individuals, families, congregations, and organizations with tools and training for the journey toward wholeness and wellness, helping to make Christ our compass in every area of our lives.

Join the Journey through Lent invites spiritual reflection through gentle humor and is a wonderful companion for the Lenten season. The 17" x 22" poster size is just right for hanging on the wall or keeping on a table for daily coloring.

Forward Day by Day (back of Church) and lenten pamphlets (side door) can also aid your lenten journey.

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Stop, Pray, Work, Play & Love: A Daily Word, Video, Question - #Lent2015

A Lent 2015 video series and accompanying workbook from the Brothers of SSJE designed to help people with their sense of time, achieve balance and embrace Sabbath wisdom.
The series asks people to think about how they relate to Time in their life over five weeks. The series begins on Ash Wednesday, February 18th 2015 and runs through to Palm Sunday. Each day there is a video, a provocative question and a call to reflect either in the workbook or via social media. Subscribe: www.SSJE.org/time

We will be using the SSJE Lenten Resource for our Wednesday Night Lenten Soup & Study with the Lutherans. (See the attached or the first week.)

Our first Lenten Soup & Study is Wednesday, Feb 25 @ 6:30 PM - at St. Peter's Church.  Workbooks available ($5 each) for those interested (or free online pdf).

20+1+5 - Lenten Challenge

Our Discipleship Project

There is a hunger in the lives of many people, both in and out of church communities, to be in deeper relationship with God.  This is precisely what is promised by Jesus and Christianity.  Jesus is the way to come to know God personally, intimately and reliably, like a loving parent…like a father or mother.

20+1+5 = three ancient practices, commended to all by Holy Scripture and perfected by countless years of human experience:

• 20 – Pray twenty minutes a day.
• 1 – Worship one hour a week.
• 5 – Serve fiver hours a month.

If you want to know God better and be a more faithful disciple, please join us and others around the country in this work. We are The Restoration Project: a movement dedicated to nurturing disciples of Jesus. This is an invitation to spiritual depth.

This Lenten Challenge is meant to introduce the three practices that are the core of a disciple’s rhythm of life.

Scarcity & Sabbath

(To see what we will be doing this Lent in regards to "Time" - go here.)

Over at the experimentaltheology.blogspot, the issue of Time & Scarcity has been blogged about in a very interesting and in my opinion, helpful way.  The three posts are:

1) The Biggest Obstacle to Spiritual Formation

What is that problem?

Scarcity.

Here's how Brene Brown describes scarcity in her book Daring Greatly, a quote I've shared before:

We get scarcity because we live it…Scarcity is the “never enough” problem…Scarcity thrives in a culture where everyone is hyperaware of lack. Everything from safety and love to money and resources feels restricted or lacking. We spend inordinate amounts of time calculating how much we have, want, and don’t have, and how much everyone else has, needs, and wants.

2) The Scarcity Trap

Why are we over-committed and addicted to busyness? Because saying Yes to everything makes us feel wanted, needed, important and vital.

In short, in our thirst for self-esteem--our drive to be noticed, needed or successful--we become over-committed and over-worked. Which causes us, at the end of the day, to become depleted and exhausted. The drive for success and significance, or the flight from shame and failure, exhausts us and runs us into the ground. Neurotic anxiety produces basic anxiety.

That is the scarcity trap, how our neurotic fears of failure and insignificance cause us to push harder and harder which, in turn, exhausts us.

The scarcity trap is how the shame-based fear of being ordinary tempts us into work and busyness depleting us of time, energy and resources.

The scarcity trap is how shame produces exhaustion.

3) The Therapeutic is the Political: Sabbath as Spiritual Warfare

Conservative Christians like to think that spiritual warfare is about the spiritual, psychological realm. Liberals like to think of spiritual warfare as being about the political realm. Both are missing the point.

Pay attention to what I'm saying here. The therapeutic is the political.

As Walter Brueggemann reminds us, Sabbath is resistance. Sabbath resists the spirituality of the principalities and powers--the capitalistic and consumeristic rat race--to nurture the physical and psychological resources to fuel further resistance, making us increasingly available for both community and prophetic ministry.

If shame is the fuel of capitalism then Sabbath is the fuel for the Kingdom of God.

But, and here's the big take home point, Sabbath-keeping requires shame-resilience. Sabbath requires relaxing into the "shame-based fear of being ordinary" as we allow the world to rush by as we settle into the humble, small and human rhythms of Sabbath. To practice Sabbath means to go quiet, to be less noticed, to rest into the ordinary. And it takes shame-resilience to do that.

The therapeutic is the political. 

Sabbath is spiritual warfare.

Read the blog, you will be glad for it.

Getting Ready for Lent 2015

Over the next five weeks, we look forward to delving together into the theme of Time, meditating on how we can make time to Stop, Pray, Work, Play & Love.

The first few days of this series serve as a time of introduction and preparation. In the four short videos, Brs. Geoffrey Tristram, David Vryhof, Curtis Almquist, and John Braught introduce some of the key concepts the Brothers will be discussing in the coming weeks.

We hope that you will use these opening days to view the four introduction videos, answer these initial questions, and read through the supplemental resources online at www.SSJE.org/time

This is a time to think deeply about your own relationship to time.  What is working well in how you use time, and what could work better?

Time: Redeeming the Gift – Br. Geoffrey Tristram

We are probably more aware than any previous generation of how we have polluted and exploited our beautiful planet. Every day, the news brings fresh evidence of the ravages humans have exacted upon the spaces we inhabit. We recognize now that we are in the midst of an ecological crisis.

What we are, perhaps, slower to recognize is that our ecological crisis also reflects a theological crisis. The earth we have polluted is none other than God’s creation. The Book of Genesis expresses in unforgettable language the great act of creation: With power and love, God brings forth dry land from the watery void, and in successive stages creates a wondrous world filled with every kind of plant and animal, and at creation’s climax, makes humankind. To these humans is entrusted the incalculably important task of caring for this dazzlingly complex and precious work of God. “Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”(1)

But Genesis goes on to describe in tragic verses humankind’s Fall from grace and its dire consequences. Humans, who were created to live in harmony with the whole of creation, were doomed to experience a profound sense of rupture and alienation: “cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.”(2) They would now live in a fundamentally ‘disordered’ relationship with all of creation.

Looking around us now, it is not difficult to see traces of this disordered relationship with creation in our lives. On a global scale, we see how our greed and insatiable appetite for more have encouraged us to plunder and exploit the earth’s resources in irresponsible and unsustainable ways, as we live with the consequent pollution and global warming. And in our individual lives, we are becoming aware that our disordered and unsustainable relation to the created order is a cause of malaise and great suffering.

Now, there is another gift from God, given in creation, which is equally fundamental to our well-being as our relationship with the Earth. This gift, too, has been abused and polluted, although the destructive effects of this abuse may be less immediate for us to discern. This is the gift of Time.

Read it all here.

Respecting the #BlueLivesMatter WITH Accountability

Across the country, 50 officers were killed by guns in 2014 compared to 32 in 2013, according to the website of the non-profit fund, which aims to increase safety for law enforcement officers.  The most deadly states were California, Texas, New York, Florida and Georgia, the group said. "Fifteen officers were shot and killed in ambush, more than any other circumstance of fatal shootings in 2014," the website said.

This is taken from an article: Gun deaths for U.S. officers rose by 56 percent in 2014: report

I have a friend who is a police officer who feels quite discouraged by what has happened in 2014.  I don't blame him.  Good police officers have been treated as if they were bad police officers.  Laws are passed that put police on the defensive.

Myths and Misconceptions About Indiana's New Self-Defense Law 

I can't imagine what it is to put on a badge (and gun), knowing that your duty to serve and protect, may put you in harms way.

http://www.abqjournal.com/520552/news/flagstaff-officer-killed-on-duty-laid-to-rest.html

That is what we ask of our police officers.  And we should pray for them:

O gracious God, watch over all police and law enforcement officers everywhere. Protect them from harm in the performance of their duty to serve and protect all citizens. Defend them day by day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give them courage to face the perils which beset them; and grant them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Even as we pray for them, police officers must be held accountable.  For too long, deaths at the hands of police officers were ignored or excused as being in our self interest. And yet, as the chart shows, police officers kill at least once a day in our nation.

Smug television broadcasts in Russia and China have wildly exaggerated the sickness of which Ferguson is a symptom. But it is real enough. The police in and around Ferguson have shot and killed twice as many people in the past two weeks (Mr Brown plus one other) as the police in Japan, a nation of 127m, have shot and killed in the past six years. Nationwide, America’s police kill roughly one person a day (see chart). This is not because they are trigger-happy but because they are nervous. The citizens they encounter have perhaps 300m guns between them, so a cop never knows whether the hand in a suspect’s pocket is gripping a Glock. This will not change soon. Even mild gun-control laws tend to fail. And many Americans will look at the havoc in Ferguson and conclude that it’s time to buy a gun, just in case.

This is from the Economist:

The Ferguson riots: Overkill Police in a Missouri suburb demonstrate how not to quell a riot

Not every person shot is a bad shoot.  But the old adage, "shoot first, ask questions later," seems to be the modus oprendi for many police forces. To use your gun should be the last resort not the first. In a country that seems gun crazy, it is up to our police officers to lead the way in responsible use of a weapon.   

I pray the numbers of death from guns goes down, way down, and we have some common sense brought into this very violent nation.

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The Problem is Guns

We continue to argue the merits of gun control in this country while too many people die because of the proliferation of guns and how easily criminals can get their hands on those guns.  Sadly we see this in the headlines:

Tracing the Gun Used to Kill 2 New York City Police Officers (from a Pawn Shop)

West Virginia felon, accused killer of 4 bought gun on Facebook

Matthew Warren Bought Unregistered Gun Online To Use In Suicide, Rick Warren Says

Too many see guns as a right rather than a privilege with responsibilities. And yet the purpose of guns is to kill, plain and simple.  We must ensure as a society that those who bear arms are:

1) Background Checked
2) Licensed
3) Trained
4) Weapons bought/sold traced

We do this with cars, we should absolutely do this with guns.  Sadly, though, all this will not prevent accidents and tragedies with guns:

The inside story of how an Idaho toddler shot his mom at Wal-Mart

How often do children in the U.S. unintentionally shoot and kill people? We don’t know.

And let us stop blaming it all on mental illness:

Stop blaming mental health for gun violence. The problem is guns.