Friday of Holy Week. Much time is set aside during this one week each year...at the church I serve we will observe Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday...each with a special worship experience. The week will begin with shouting and joy and a parade, center in on Jesus' intimate relationship with his closest followers, devolve into extreme cruelty and miscarriage of justice, and finally result in the incredible surprise of an empty tomb and the challenge of following Jesus Christ beyond even the darkest of life's experiences.
For pastors, and maybe for some parishioners, as well, the week can be tiring. It calls upon clergy to find several different ways to express the events of this week in our faith's history.
For several years, back in the day, I and three clergy friends would take the Monday following Easter Sunday off to go to a wooded area to play laser-tag. It was refreshing...it got us away from the responsibilities we had just exercised to lead several worship services the week prior.
This year I will most likely take some time to refresh in ways more fitting a man in his middle sixties. Whatever choice I make, it will be on this side of Easter...a reason for doing something special if ever there was one!

So much of what I hear and see on the 24-7 news outlets is negative, mean-spirited, even hateful. Now, I admit that I watch "my" 24-7 news channel, just as I am sure that others watch "their" 24-7 news channel. CNN seems to occupy what might pass as the middle ground among the 24-7 news channels; MSNBC holds down the left; FOX News claims the right.
No matter when you tune in to these channels, within a short span of time, it seems that someone is railing against someone or something. There is much in our country and our world that needs to be improved upon, of course, and heaven knows we ought to complain about what needs to change. But, I would like to hear less whining. Less bashing. Less name-calling. Less fear mongering. Less hate spewing.
Could we have a little more actual "news" and less "opinion." please. That's my request. It will likely go unheard.

Time Is On My Side

All around the big, big world (see the cow above for a picture of our big, big world) we all experience life differently. Young and old, male and female, haves and have-nots, northerners and southerners, easterners and westerners, me and you.
And one thing we all experience differently is time. We all have sixty minutes in every hour, and twenty-four hours in every day, and three hundred sixty-five (and 1/4 or in that leap year thing three hundred sixty-six) days in every year. But how we experience time is so very different.
And how we make use of time is so very different. I want to make the best use of my time, probably you do, too. However, I don't want to be a slave to time, probably you don't, either.
Here's a little contemplative routine that might help us work at making the way we experience time a bit more pleasant and productive. These questions are part of the spiritual discipline known as "Examen" as practiced by the Jesuits.
In a place of solitude and silence, ask yourself:
1) For what moment today am I most grateful?
2) For what moment today am I least grateful?
3) In what moments did I sense God's presence around me and in me?
4) In what moments did I fail to love?
Here's to a better use of the time that we have been given.

Silence, PLEASE!

The incredible tragedy that is the earthquake in Haiti, the poorest country in our hemisphere, deserves some awe, some horror, some human compassion, some financial and human-power assistance. So many lives lost. So much physical destruction. So many loved ones as yet unheard from. Might God help all involved and touched by this tragedy. Might the rest of us be prayerful and supportive and helpful.
And that goes for Rev. Pat Robertson, who blames this event on "a pact with the devil" he says Haiti made hundreds of years ago. He even recounted the actual conversation between those ancient Haitians and the devil!
And it also goes for Mr. Rush Limbaugh, who suggests that this tragedy will allow President Obama to look good because the President loves to serve those in misery.
Silence, PLEASE!

Its the first snow day for my daughter's school this winter. She is thrilled! I am happy she is thrilled...mostly because I started to remember the snow days (very, very infrequent) I experienced growing up in northwest Indiana...where the first words a child learns are "lake effect snow!"
I think I remember being happy that school was closed on a day it was supposed to be in session because it meant something out of the ordinary. Now that is an adult reflection on a childhood experience, but I believe it to be true. My daughter will be forced to go to the office for a few hours with me today, she won't see all of her friends, and my guess is that by midday or early afternoon I will hear her say something like "I don't know why we didn't have school today."
But the routine has been shaken up! That's the joy of a day like today if you are in the fifth grade.
Makes me wonder why I don't shake up my routine once in a while.

Holy New Zealand Cow!

Word is that there are several...maybe hundreds...of icebergs headed toward the coast of New Zealand! They have broken free from the polar ice and are being carried by the current to a place they ought not be going. Further evidence of global climate change, for sure.
Imagine the following conversation:
She (as breakfast is being prepared for the both of them): What does the weather look like today?
He: (smelling the brewing coffee and looking out the back door window): Well, it looks like a fine day out there. The view down the hill is clear today.
She: (taking her first sip of that coffee and beginning to really wake up): Can you see the beach?
He: (accepting from her his morning cup of joe): Sure can. Looks like a good day for a swim, maybe. (Pause.) Holy New Zealand Cow!
She: What? What is it? Are you alright?
He: There are icebergs out there! Icebergs! Dozens of them! Oh man, one just destroyed Johnson's fishing boat!
She: Take a drink of your coffee and wipe the sleep from your eyes. You're seeing things.
As for me, here in Central Indiana, for the first time in my life, I am thankful I don't live near a beach!!!

I Wish You Hadn't Told Me That

The U.S. is now on course to begin court trials for some of those persons detained for years in the military installation at Guantanamo Bay. The Gitmo prisoners are, no doubt, a collection of folk who were involved in the really nasty 9/11 events, and some folks swept up in our response to those events who may be innocent. We haven't known if this is true, about there being a mix of guilty and innocent folk at Gitmo, because we have refused to give those folk their "day in court" for several years now.
But the trials will be getting underway. Emotions will run high. People on the "right" and the "left" will be weighing in on what to make of the results that will be arrived at. There will be no end to the debate as to whether or not those tried in a civil court should have been tried in a military court. Much will be argued for and against ordering the death penalty for those accused of terrible crimes.
And, we will most likely learn some things about ourselves as a country that we might wish we hadn't been told. Torture ("Enhanced Interrogation Techniques", some say)and very inhumane activities will be discussed in a public forum.
Even more than "I wish you hadn't told me that!", "I wish we hadn't done that!"