crossroad emotions
Culmination is the order of the day.
Seniors are graduating, the program year is winding down, even our congregation’s Capital Campaign is rolling into the final inning.
The feelings that surround culminations are complicated and often tangled. To be sure there is relief and celebration. But also loss and grieving. Sometimes a sense of pride, sometimes too disappointment. And the inevitable anxiety of the new beginnings which await us. The emotions of extremes collide within us and vie for attention.
For this moment, though, it is gratitude which washes my spirit. A school year completed with amazing grace by teenagers. A capital campaign imbued with the spirit of our community and amazingly committed lay leadership. The beauty of the music shared by our church choirs is still dancing in my soul.
Undeniable too is the angst around the edges. Will the unfulfilled promises of yesterday be realized tomorrow? Can tomorrow’s joy meet and exceed that of yesterday? Will the unanswered drama of yesterday meet peaceful resolution tomorrow? Is the promise of another day a blessing or a curse?
My mind rushes between yesterday and tomorrow, struggling to stay in the moment. Grief of what is gone, fear of what is unknown, these emotions are familiar and comfortable. Gratitude and joy, the feelings of the moment, are more fragile and less familiar. Beautiful, but foreign.
As I hold the fragile beauty of the moment, I can hear the words that Nelson Mandela, in his Inaugural Address as South Africa’s President, quoted from Marianne Williamson. “We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?” Self-deprecation, doubt, insecurity are feelings that come easily for most of us. But Williamson wasn’t finished. She said, “Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.” Williamson’s thesis is that our fear is not our inadequacy but rather that we fear our success, our power, and our light. Mandela invoked Williamson’s wisdom appealing to his people, so long oppressed, to sit in the uncomfortable place of light and power. “We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
In the emotional tumult of the day, the sorrow of the past and the uncertainty of the future may provide comfort but it is the gratitude of the day that beckons. May we find the courage to embrace the beauty of the moment.
packing my gun
As we enjoy our newfound freedom to tote our handguns to the Grand Canyon, I find myself wondering where the line of political prowess ends and the deceit begins.
Rare are the times in my life when the American public rallied in self-defense against capitalism. In her book “Nickel and Dimed”, an insightful window into the plight of America’s working poor, Barbara Ehrenrich offered painfully clear evidence of the merit for wide scale worker revolt but concluded with a wistful acknowledgment that even the poorest Americans have largely been desensitized and, well, brainwashed by the lure of the dream believing that someday they too will win the economic lottery. But in recent days the caged bird has begun to sing, loudly and with a voice that is at once both haunting and clear. No doubt the exhale of this long held song was triggered in part by the debacle in the banking bail out, but whatever the cause the credit card companies provided ample story for the song.
The facts of credit debt in America are chilling. According to www.creditcardreform.org, Americans owe approximately $850 billion in revolving credit card debt. Although this number is not fathomable by most of us, the fact that most of us have cards and carry a balance on those cards is disconcerting at best. Worse is the fact that low- and middle- income households have an average of $8,650 in credit card debt! Put another way, assuming that our community is ‘average’, if we gave to the Capital Campaign what we owe to the credit card companies, we could easily tackle the entire Master Plan and have money left over.
To be sure, inasmuch as the public outrage is an attempt to shift the blame from debtor to debt holder it is misguided. Our spiritual and economic health rests in our commitment to claim a more responsible way of being in our world. Yet the tragedy is that the debt holder in this case is a major player in the crisis. Rates that rise exponentially for those who are struggling simply aren’t fair. Solicitations that fill our inbox with promises of free money don’t encourage responsibility. And companies that threaten to cancel cards that are sitting safely in our wallets simply aren’t playing nice.
With unanimity in the electorate, credit card reform was in reach. So where did the gun thing come in?
Not even credit card reform stirs the passion of gun control. It is the single purple issue in America, the one issue that folk will cross lines (and hell) to support (or denounce). I suppose as a distant relative in the passion wars, credit cards could tag along behind the guns but I can find no rhyme or reason that guns would want tag along with credit cards. They can create enough controversy on their own.
Except that in this case the authors of the gun amendment were trying to get their way while avoiding the controversy, taking the high road. Except that the high road is clear of debate only as it takes a hostage. Acquiesce isn’t support and the passage of this new freedom wasn’t free.
We may now have the legal right to carry our guns to meet Smokey the Bear, but that doesn’t give us the moral authority to do so.
choices
This Sunday presents one of the conundrums facing the members and friends of EUCC. Which service will I attend?
At the 11:00am service, the Chancel Choir and Instrumentalists will share Faure’s “Requiem”. This is an exquisite piece of music, and this sharing is dedicated to the honor of those who have gone before us in this faith community. Our forbearers in this community built our sanctuary in the midst of the Great Depression and the education wing in the fiscally modest years of the 1950’s; neither the roaring 20’s nor the 60’s church boom. As we engage our capital campaign in what surely will be remembered as the ‘Great Depression II’, we remember the timing of the buildings we are now called to tend. The timing of our forbearers was earnest but not easy. The timing for us is likewise.
So I would be tempted to sleep in and roll into the parking lot at 10:55am except for two problems. One is that the parking lot is full by then and I may not be in the mood to walk, especially if it rains! But more importantly, I would miss the 8:30am service.
At the 8:30am service this week we have the invitation to celebrate Gus’ baptism. Gus (August Thomas) is the youngest Soell baby, just celebrating his first birthday. Gus and his three adorable siblings will gather with parents and family and EUCC family to revel in the love of God remembered in the water. Our service will shift in format somewhat with a family message in lieu of a traditional sermon, an invitation to consider together the ways in which we experience God’s enveloping love in the context of our community. Celebrating the love of God made manifest, we recognize the very heart of our capital campaign. This is the ‘why’ of the ‘what’. Although the spirit dances as the spirit will, the early service promises to be a giant warm fuzzy.
Both services are in the ‘can’t miss’ category, so what does one do? Sometimes in life we have to make choices between equally compelling and worthy options.
Luckily, as the minister, I don’t have to choose. For that matter, neither do you! Join us on Sunday for one – or both! – of our worship experiences.
and when I was wrong…
Recently I was in a meeting where we were remembering events of the past together. My memory was sharp and keen, though my memory contradicted that presented by another person. I was vocal in defending the truth of my memory. And I was wrong.
In the good old days, before I had children and long before I crested the hill of mid life, my memory was indeed sharp and keen. Because I remember in stories, I had not only the detail of the event but the power of the emotion stored in the recesses of mind. In those days, the brain cells were limber enough to sift and sort and deliver the requisite information in a remarkably speedy fashion.
But those days are gone. The memory is cloudy and brain cells preoccupied. Though the memory of being sharp and keen is still vivid, not so much the actuality.
In fact the memories are exquisite. I remember the days when I would engage in a verbal battle with remarkable confidence. An infinite storehouse of facts waited at the tip of my tongue ready to prove my position de jour. Rarely did I pass on an opportunity to hone my skill and add a new notch to my belt.
What I rarely if ever paused to acknowledge in the glory days is that an admission of defeat is not necessarily the same things as being wrong. Because I could win the skirmish did not mean that the truth for which I battled was in fact truth, my victory did not necessarily mean that mine was the truer truth. My brain cells were quick and efficient in those days, but as they’ve slowed down I’ve become aware that their accuracy was never 100%. Speed and accuracy are different barometers. Sometimes, though I may have won the argument, I was utterly wrong. In those days, however, I never had to admit it.
But these days are different and I had not won my recent verbal battle, it had ended in a draw. So I had forayed into the books of history to prove my point. As I leafed through the records, searching for my vindication, I found an important piece of the elusive truth. Unearthed was a piece of the story that proved a part of my memory to be accurate but another aspect to be absolutely false.
As I was typing my apology with corrected information this week, having vigorously argued on behalf of a mistaken memory, I found myself grieving the days of yore. The good old days when I knew that I was right. Even when I wasn’t.
Yet as I shared a fuller and more humble story this week, I felt a wave of peacefulness that would have eluded me in the days when I was right. Which makes me wonder if the good old days were not necessarily as good as I remember?
gold rush blues
Each morning my electronic inbox offers a dozen pieces of correspondence. Some are personal, some professional. Some are educational, some inspirational. Some are junk, some are wolves passing in sheep attire. Yesterday’s mail contained all of the above, but it was the wolf-sheep that caught my attention.
“Join the Foreclosure Gold Rush” was the headline, the promise that follows, “Millionaires are being made right now mining foreclosure gold left behind in the housing downturn.” And the warning, “Don’t be left behind.”
To be sure with every person’s misery comes another’s opportunity. Funeral homes, divorce attorney’s, oncology specialists, and the Red Cross all make their business in the misery of others. Yet the invitation, nay imperative, to make my fortune on the back of someone’s foreclosure crossed a line for me.
Does it make a difference if the business is ‘for profit’ or not? Doubtful. The most gracious divorce lawyers often come at a steep price. A non-profit funeral home is an oxymoron. And though the Red Cross is a registered not-for-profit, many have made small goldmines in their service. To purchase a foreclosed home, the place of someone’s loss, is certainly neither immoral nor inhumane. To profit on that purchase is not inherently wrong and a case could be made that it is even good stewardship.
So wherein lies the rub?
Truth be told, the email demonstrated good marketing technique. I remembered the ad, I talked about it at dinner, I’ve even written about it. Which means that one more marketer has a job for one more day, which is a good thing in today’s economy.
Still, the ad makes me uncomfortable. The premise of the gold rush was the lure of previously unearthed, un-owned wealth. This modern day gold rush is more a feeding frenzy, with the prey still alive and gasping for breath. To be sure, the fabled gold rush of yore was filled with more than a few horror stories. The rush itself breeds a self absorption that I suspect undercuts the foundation of communal responsibility.
While there is certainly nothing immoral from buying a home that has been foreclosed (I have considered several!), I do wonder if there might not be a moral high ground in this crisis? For example, if we have the ability to invest in the gold rush, might we consider investing in mortgage assistance for the unemployed?
Our economy has risen and now fallen on the premise that self serving investments will ultimately profit the whole. Perhaps it is time to consider a new kind of investing. Perhaps it is time to redefine profit, to consider the quality of the gold that is gathered.
Such a suggestion, however, moves from preaching to meddling, which is never good for business.
