Gutters for our client on Bayou Woods road and building work schedules with Jessi, our Pearlington Village manager occupied most of my day today.
I had a nice experience. A few weeks ago I was surprised to hear from my friend at Pearlington Recovery Center that Mrs. Watters still needs a little help with final tasks on her home.
Mrs. Watters, if you recall, was the subject of my fourth essay that started this whole experience (see Down in Mississippi IV at the foot of this blog page). That experience in November, 2005, went well into darkness amidst the worst mosquito attack I've experienced.
Mrs. Watters has a home that is two mobile homes joined together. When I first saw the home, it was uninhabited, partially drywalled, and remnants of household items were strewn all over by Katrina. It was muddy. There was a small ditch filled with putrefying green liquid seeping towards the ditch out front.
This time when Jessi and I turn into the driveway we see her car. She is back from work. That ditch with the green liquid is gone. I knock at the door.
"Who is it?"
"I'm Henry with PDA, we came by to see what needs done to finish up your house."
The door opens and before I can introduce myself she sees Jessi and welcomes us in.
"Mrs. Ackers, its been almost three years since I've been in your home."
"What?"
"Yes, do you remember Dr. Bob from Knoxville? I was with his crew."
"Oh my! Yes, you remember my house wasn't quite set right?"
"Yes, the last thing we did was put siding on the ends of your home and those disjointed ends were a real challenge."
I look around. The ceiling is popcorn finished now, but I can see the ridge line in the dining room where we had to work really hard to fit the new drywall in. Standing in the hallway, I looked up at the high wall, remembering as if it was yesterday working with the guys to finish that wall.
Her boys are no where to be seen, one surely must be past high school but the other one is still in school. Sometimes.
The walls are nicely painted, there is furniture everywhere and it looks really nice. She shows us the kitchen counter. It is partially tiled. Completing that tiling will be our job. If there is time, we will install some cabinets in her laundry room.
We talk a while and then take our leave. As we leave we see a compressor of ours left behind by an earlier work crew. We decide to take it to my truck and back to the village.
As I back out of the drive and make a u-turn in the next driveway I wonder where her pit bull pups went.
A thought strikes me. It was so fulfilling back in 2006 to work on these homes, giving our time and getting so much in return. At the end of the day, all we faced was the great feeling of satisfaction of doing a job well.
It changed my life yet these days I have to struggle really hard to center myself and block out all the frustrations of a job, to seek a little humility in the comfort of doing a good job.
Ask, seek and knock at the narrow gate. It is pretty narrow gate and there isn't much room for baggage. Thank you, Mrs. Watters.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Day 393 - The Good Remnant
In every organization, even one that is grievously ill, good remains.
Do you know there is a move afoot to change our form of government? You can go to the links below on the proposed "new" form of government and see side by side changes of the simple and clear structure and decide for yourself if the changes are improvements or not, or just new “flowery language” to replace simple and direct statements of belief.
Some things aren't changed in it. The bottom line is a group of people elected for a short term (year or so) by the General Assembly are supposed to provide governing supervision to the operation of the Louisville organization. (You have to be in an organization about a year to truly add productivity and understand how it works.) It is called the General Assembly Council (GAC).
Our Problem
I've been a Presbyterian and an elder for about thirty-one years. Lately, I've been harsh critic of our organization, not our Church, because from my perspective by the way we select and operate our corporate office, we have allowed it to become a self-serving end in itself. Part of the story is how people motivated for good things eventually let pragmatic concerns replace compassion.
A General Assembly Council, composed mostly of short-term members, is supposed to run our church's affairs but unfortunately, the people that run that organization are our long-term employees who are members. They in fact run the church, neither the oversight body itself, nor us, its members run it because of the way it is structured.
Sure, part of the things they can’t change. If the General Assembly comes up with some odd directive, say “don’t eat at Taco Bell,” we can’t change that. The result is that three or four salaried staff end up running all the ministries of the church and present to the world by their actions what the world sees as our philosophy and belief. That is an important responsibility.
There are some very good people in the corporate organization but their voices are seldom heard. So when you throw out the bath water, let's save the babies.
It is important to understand how the Louisville operation works in relationship to the church at large. (I barely understand how the byzantine thing works myself, it is extremely hard to find detailed information on our PC (USA) web site. The only way I found even a partial bio on a staff person is to search press releases) You can go to this link or this one and try to sort it all out. You could go to the Book of Order, G13.0201. Try to sort it out an put names with your favorite mission activity.
Change Comes from Persistence
So much water goes over the dam and down the river before the stone yields to it. It is the good that is the freeing element and force for change. It is you and your fellow parishioners. You can ask for accountability.
Remember two things. The new leader of PDA has great promise, We need to support him. What he says to the public comes from information his subordinates give him. The problem is those subordinates appear to filter information for reasons unknown. It's a classic problem for leaders, they have to depend on subordinates who can embarrass them.
It can improve if you demand accountability and act on your faith. You, too, are the good remnant, fight for the good of the church and against lethargy. It isn't too late bothers and sisters.
This is my last boring complaint. I hope. From now on, until I leave the Gulf in a few weeks, I hope to tell you stories of your experience.
Peace and Grace
Do you know there is a move afoot to change our form of government? You can go to the links below on the proposed "new" form of government and see side by side changes of the simple and clear structure and decide for yourself if the changes are improvements or not, or just new “flowery language” to replace simple and direct statements of belief.
Some things aren't changed in it. The bottom line is a group of people elected for a short term (year or so) by the General Assembly are supposed to provide governing supervision to the operation of the Louisville organization. (You have to be in an organization about a year to truly add productivity and understand how it works.) It is called the General Assembly Council (GAC).
Our Problem
I've been a Presbyterian and an elder for about thirty-one years. Lately, I've been harsh critic of our organization, not our Church, because from my perspective by the way we select and operate our corporate office, we have allowed it to become a self-serving end in itself. Part of the story is how people motivated for good things eventually let pragmatic concerns replace compassion.
A General Assembly Council, composed mostly of short-term members, is supposed to run our church's affairs but unfortunately, the people that run that organization are our long-term employees who are members. They in fact run the church, neither the oversight body itself, nor us, its members run it because of the way it is structured.
Sure, part of the things they can’t change. If the General Assembly comes up with some odd directive, say “don’t eat at Taco Bell,” we can’t change that. The result is that three or four salaried staff end up running all the ministries of the church and present to the world by their actions what the world sees as our philosophy and belief. That is an important responsibility.
There are some very good people in the corporate organization but their voices are seldom heard. So when you throw out the bath water, let's save the babies.
It is important to understand how the Louisville operation works in relationship to the church at large. (I barely understand how the byzantine thing works myself, it is extremely hard to find detailed information on our PC (USA) web site. The only way I found even a partial bio on a staff person is to search press releases) You can go to this link or this one and try to sort it all out. You could go to the Book of Order, G13.0201. Try to sort it out an put names with your favorite mission activity.
Change Comes from Persistence
So much water goes over the dam and down the river before the stone yields to it. It is the good that is the freeing element and force for change. It is you and your fellow parishioners. You can ask for accountability.
Remember two things. The new leader of PDA has great promise, We need to support him. What he says to the public comes from information his subordinates give him. The problem is those subordinates appear to filter information for reasons unknown. It's a classic problem for leaders, they have to depend on subordinates who can embarrass them.
It can improve if you demand accountability and act on your faith. You, too, are the good remnant, fight for the good of the church and against lethargy. It isn't too late bothers and sisters.
This is my last boring complaint. I hope. From now on, until I leave the Gulf in a few weeks, I hope to tell you stories of your experience.
Peace and Grace
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Day 391 - Aphasia
The last volunteers left early this morning. Orange Grove is now history. Two of the Fairfax crew flew out yesterday and the other two left by van today. The Indiana crew left before I could get out of my RV to say good by.
It was a strange feeling yesterday, hard to explain. I went back to the tool trailer to organize the returned tools and realized, "why?"- they aren't going out again with a work crew. I did gather up some sanding poles and ends so we can make a big push in Pearlington next week on my project.
On my way to the dining tent I look at the totem poles with all the volunteer church signs. The thought of screwing the Penn State sign lying on the ground back onto the pole came to me but then I think, no one is coming back. I'll do it later.
Walking around the dining tent I settle in over a couple cups of coffee before a lazy breakfast of oatmeal and toast. Thoughts of past volunteers sweep through my mind. It is as if ghosts or auras are walking around the tent. It reminds me of the setting of Our Town...
I worry about the projects for next week but catch myself; there are no visits to work sites for next week to prepare for the incoming volunteers tomorrow. It's over, except for any task the work site manager or I go out to do to finally close a project or recover an errant tool.
Sitting at the dining table and reading the latest "Outlook" also is discomfiting. The articles are so out of touch with what is going on in the world, even the ones on relevant subjects have a plastic veneer to them, Talking Heads comes to mind. I see one on the staff cutbacks at the office in Louisville, boy it doesn't do justice to the facts.
I have to wait on my work site manager to get me his reports for the last week but my focus needs to turn fully to Pearlington.
I guess I'll fill up my truck with diesel leave and drive to Pearlington to drop off those tools, and on to New Orleans to catch up with my son Russell and his friend.
On the way over I'll think about what words I can't voice right now, maybe they will come later.
Peace,
Henry
It was a strange feeling yesterday, hard to explain. I went back to the tool trailer to organize the returned tools and realized, "why?"- they aren't going out again with a work crew. I did gather up some sanding poles and ends so we can make a big push in Pearlington next week on my project.
On my way to the dining tent I look at the totem poles with all the volunteer church signs. The thought of screwing the Penn State sign lying on the ground back onto the pole came to me but then I think, no one is coming back. I'll do it later.
Walking around the dining tent I settle in over a couple cups of coffee before a lazy breakfast of oatmeal and toast. Thoughts of past volunteers sweep through my mind. It is as if ghosts or auras are walking around the tent. It reminds me of the setting of Our Town...
I worry about the projects for next week but catch myself; there are no visits to work sites for next week to prepare for the incoming volunteers tomorrow. It's over, except for any task the work site manager or I go out to do to finally close a project or recover an errant tool.
Sitting at the dining table and reading the latest "Outlook" also is discomfiting. The articles are so out of touch with what is going on in the world, even the ones on relevant subjects have a plastic veneer to them, Talking Heads comes to mind. I see one on the staff cutbacks at the office in Louisville, boy it doesn't do justice to the facts.
I have to wait on my work site manager to get me his reports for the last week but my focus needs to turn fully to Pearlington.
I guess I'll fill up my truck with diesel leave and drive to Pearlington to drop off those tools, and on to New Orleans to catch up with my son Russell and his friend.
On the way over I'll think about what words I can't voice right now, maybe they will come later.
Peace,
Henry
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Day 389 - Parts of the Body
Paul's well know writing talks about us all being parts of the body of Christ and each having our role to play, each role just as important as another's.
Tonight the pastor of First PC, Bluffton, Indiana talked about that reading the next to the last night of our Village as we looked at the four timbers holding signposts for each church that has come to Orange Grove. We thought about each of those churches, many you would find a connection. We did, Winston Salem, Greensburg, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, Fairfax, VA, London, Ontario, New Bern, SC, and on and on.
Some one I would have never expected voiced a prayer that good Christian people will find their way back to help those of the families who are yet to be helped after we close the Village tomorrow, the poor, the widow, the alien in our land. The calls for help continue to come in day after day.
Our work, your work, is not done. I hope you will come on anyway. You can call one of the churches, UMCOR, or Salvation Army, or me to locate a place to stay. We can probably find a place for you, but it might be like it way the first few weeks and months after Katrina in tents somewhere. You'll have to bring tools, and maybe your tent.
A couple folks from UMCOR dropped by today. We began talking. I find one is a Presbyterian, he has joined up with the Methodists because no one in his church can get fired up enough to come.
"Fired up." Wow! It is near Pentecost.
Parts of the body...
Today I learned the Louisville organization is going to force us to take a week unpaid furlough in May or June because the Louisville budget is so short. They never thought to ask us if we'd all share the shortfall. Of course they do say they will not make the mission workers take it, if they work overseas. I guess we don't count here in America. But if I want to work anyway...
They tell us "No!"
"You can't use your phones, you can't use our tools, you can't even lift a finger to help someone."
You cannot conduct any "business" (of Christ), even if you want to work on your own time.
They call our work "business." They still don't get it. It is like they have never read Matthew. They probably will fire me for my opinion, or not look to see me back.
The funds that support us were given and designated long ago. Many of us are here because we felt a calling to serve at whatever price is demanded of us. I guess our effort in the Gulf to fulfill Christ's teaching doesn't count as mission work in some one's eyes...
A week of Sabbaths has been declared! No work, not even you goyim may work. It sounds a little like the rules of the Pharisees, doesn't it?
Now comes our challenge.
The church is healthy but parts of the body show signs of serious illness. I remain convinced that by act and deed many in the church bureaucracy, especially those who see the church as a place to climb the organizational ladder, have not fully grasped what has arisen in PDA, if they sense it at all.
Since we all are parts of the body and are all ministers, we can only heed the words, "Heal thyself, physician" and make it right.
Tonight the pastor of First PC, Bluffton, Indiana talked about that reading the next to the last night of our Village as we looked at the four timbers holding signposts for each church that has come to Orange Grove. We thought about each of those churches, many you would find a connection. We did, Winston Salem, Greensburg, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, Fairfax, VA, London, Ontario, New Bern, SC, and on and on.
Some one I would have never expected voiced a prayer that good Christian people will find their way back to help those of the families who are yet to be helped after we close the Village tomorrow, the poor, the widow, the alien in our land. The calls for help continue to come in day after day.
Our work, your work, is not done. I hope you will come on anyway. You can call one of the churches, UMCOR, or Salvation Army, or me to locate a place to stay. We can probably find a place for you, but it might be like it way the first few weeks and months after Katrina in tents somewhere. You'll have to bring tools, and maybe your tent.
A couple folks from UMCOR dropped by today. We began talking. I find one is a Presbyterian, he has joined up with the Methodists because no one in his church can get fired up enough to come.
"Fired up." Wow! It is near Pentecost.
Parts of the body...
Today I learned the Louisville organization is going to force us to take a week unpaid furlough in May or June because the Louisville budget is so short. They never thought to ask us if we'd all share the shortfall. Of course they do say they will not make the mission workers take it, if they work overseas. I guess we don't count here in America. But if I want to work anyway...
They tell us "No!"
"You can't use your phones, you can't use our tools, you can't even lift a finger to help someone."
You cannot conduct any "business" (of Christ), even if you want to work on your own time.
They call our work "business." They still don't get it. It is like they have never read Matthew. They probably will fire me for my opinion, or not look to see me back.
The funds that support us were given and designated long ago. Many of us are here because we felt a calling to serve at whatever price is demanded of us. I guess our effort in the Gulf to fulfill Christ's teaching doesn't count as mission work in some one's eyes...
A week of Sabbaths has been declared! No work, not even you goyim may work. It sounds a little like the rules of the Pharisees, doesn't it?
Now comes our challenge.
The church is healthy but parts of the body show signs of serious illness. I remain convinced that by act and deed many in the church bureaucracy, especially those who see the church as a place to climb the organizational ladder, have not fully grasped what has arisen in PDA, if they sense it at all.
Since we all are parts of the body and are all ministers, we can only heed the words, "Heal thyself, physician" and make it right.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Day 388 - Reminiscence and Anticipation
The past two weeks have been a difficult combination of decision, changes and memories. This is the last week we will have volunteers and active relief work in Orange Grove.
Two weeks ago I made my decision on seminary – I’m heading for Union PSCE in Richmond. I had been seeking to rent my home for the last couple of months but finally got tired of the waiting and listed it for sale two weeks ago. I got an offer last Saturday afternoon and by Sunday afternoon we had a handshake deal. They want a fast closing so at the latest by the end of May I will be houseless.
What makes everything more stressful is PC (USA) is forcing us to take a week of unpaid leave between the middle of May and the first week of June, even though we are mission workers.
* * *
This week we have a small group from Fairfax, Virginia who were here last fall. They have been down many times staying at Gautier early on in 2005 and at other villages. There is a similar group in Pearlington from Arkansas.
In Orange Grove last night, the Fairfax guys did a nice devotional. We ended up sharing stories of past trips. On their first trip down, either late in 2005 or early 2006 one of the guys said you still could barely drive down the streets of Gautier. On each side of the street stood piles of refuse up to eight or more feet.
The piles contained TV’s, refrigerators, dressers, washers and dryers, air conditioners, and virtually any other household item you could imagine. The piles seemed to grow rather than shrink as people slowly began the painstaking cleanout of homes.
There was a fellow driving an old rattletrap pickup picking at the piles. He told the fellows he had lived here but went up to Tennessee due to Katrina, penniless. His friends in Tennessee put together $600 to buy him the truck. He and his family drove back down.
His three-year old daughter was with him. He would pull out from the pile an old air conditioner and start to work stripping the copper tubing. Any useful metal ended up in the bed of the truck.
He called one of the volunteers over and pointed to the two grocery bags in the front seat.
“I made enough from scrap the last two days to buy these groceries. We will get through this.”
* * *
The group in Pearlington told an interesting story.
“We came down to Gautier, over between Biloxi and Pascagoula. It was about three months after Katrina. We stayed in tents on the grounds of a Presbyterian Church.
“We had a little controversy. The pastor wanted us to work only on church members houses and to avoid the rest of the community.
“That seemed so awfully wrong. We left before the week was up rather than do what he wanted. We’ve never been back. We go to Louisiana or Pearlington. This is our ninth trip.
“We hear you are closing down Pearlington. We will keep coming down as long as there is a place to stay. Whether its PC (USA) or not.
* * *
This week we are finishing the second bathroom of the foster parents’ home. It feels so good to finish a job and see the look of thanksgiving.
I’m excited about seminary, it is a chance to give back so many things I’ve failed to give so far; but I keep thinking of my dear clients in Pearlington whose house was messed up by the contractor and whether or not we will get them in the house before mid-June (see Day 251).
Can I leave in good conscience if it isn’t ready?
My mind is beginning to change its focus, now I’m thinking more about those clients and how much can I get done in the next six weeks?
I’m thinking how much we need you to pick up the phone, call the call center and sign up to get to Pearlington, to get your presbytery to press headquarters about why are they not fighting harder for this mission.
I’m thinking about how Hezekiah’s wife Ruth (Day 210) said, “Mr. Henry, you are going to come back down and see us ain’t you? You aren’t gonna forget about us are you when you get off to school?”
I’m thinking, well, I’m thinking about how good it is to see you all down here and hoping that if I don’t see you here you are doing this mission at home.
We have to do the home blessing for Hezekiah and Ruth this week.
Two weeks ago I made my decision on seminary – I’m heading for Union PSCE in Richmond. I had been seeking to rent my home for the last couple of months but finally got tired of the waiting and listed it for sale two weeks ago. I got an offer last Saturday afternoon and by Sunday afternoon we had a handshake deal. They want a fast closing so at the latest by the end of May I will be houseless.
What makes everything more stressful is PC (USA) is forcing us to take a week of unpaid leave between the middle of May and the first week of June, even though we are mission workers.
* * *
This week we have a small group from Fairfax, Virginia who were here last fall. They have been down many times staying at Gautier early on in 2005 and at other villages. There is a similar group in Pearlington from Arkansas.
In Orange Grove last night, the Fairfax guys did a nice devotional. We ended up sharing stories of past trips. On their first trip down, either late in 2005 or early 2006 one of the guys said you still could barely drive down the streets of Gautier. On each side of the street stood piles of refuse up to eight or more feet.
The piles contained TV’s, refrigerators, dressers, washers and dryers, air conditioners, and virtually any other household item you could imagine. The piles seemed to grow rather than shrink as people slowly began the painstaking cleanout of homes.
There was a fellow driving an old rattletrap pickup picking at the piles. He told the fellows he had lived here but went up to Tennessee due to Katrina, penniless. His friends in Tennessee put together $600 to buy him the truck. He and his family drove back down.
His three-year old daughter was with him. He would pull out from the pile an old air conditioner and start to work stripping the copper tubing. Any useful metal ended up in the bed of the truck.
He called one of the volunteers over and pointed to the two grocery bags in the front seat.
“I made enough from scrap the last two days to buy these groceries. We will get through this.”
* * *
The group in Pearlington told an interesting story.
“We came down to Gautier, over between Biloxi and Pascagoula. It was about three months after Katrina. We stayed in tents on the grounds of a Presbyterian Church.
“We had a little controversy. The pastor wanted us to work only on church members houses and to avoid the rest of the community.
“That seemed so awfully wrong. We left before the week was up rather than do what he wanted. We’ve never been back. We go to Louisiana or Pearlington. This is our ninth trip.
“We hear you are closing down Pearlington. We will keep coming down as long as there is a place to stay. Whether its PC (USA) or not.
* * *
This week we are finishing the second bathroom of the foster parents’ home. It feels so good to finish a job and see the look of thanksgiving.
I’m excited about seminary, it is a chance to give back so many things I’ve failed to give so far; but I keep thinking of my dear clients in Pearlington whose house was messed up by the contractor and whether or not we will get them in the house before mid-June (see Day 251).
Can I leave in good conscience if it isn’t ready?
My mind is beginning to change its focus, now I’m thinking more about those clients and how much can I get done in the next six weeks?
I’m thinking how much we need you to pick up the phone, call the call center and sign up to get to Pearlington, to get your presbytery to press headquarters about why are they not fighting harder for this mission.
I’m thinking about how Hezekiah’s wife Ruth (Day 210) said, “Mr. Henry, you are going to come back down and see us ain’t you? You aren’t gonna forget about us are you when you get off to school?”
I’m thinking, well, I’m thinking about how good it is to see you all down here and hoping that if I don’t see you here you are doing this mission at home.
We have to do the home blessing for Hezekiah and Ruth this week.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Day 384 - Where Two or Three Gather in My Name
Some background about Pearlington and the Mississippi Gulf Coast might help you appreciate this story.
Pearlington has seven churches. It has a Southern Baptist church, an African-American Baptist church whose sanctuary we have worked on, and who serve Pearlington volunteers (all volunteers) lunch. The pastor of the church is Rev. Rawls. His wife and our volunteers from our village have cooperated to serve lunch virtually every day since volunteers began coming to Pearlington in 2006. Besides these two, there is a United Methodist church, a Catholic church, a church which until recently was a Mennonite church and two more African-American churches; Seven churches in all.
Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States of America purchased a modest mansion in the area of Biloxi for his retirement. The house, originally called Orange Grove and then Beauvoir, was completed in 1852 by a wealthy plantation owner. Davis rented the house in 1877 and two years later negotiated its purchase. The structure withstood hurricane after hurricane until Katrina destroyed it in 2005. Recently it was reopened in a fully refurbished condition with the dedication "to preserving the legacy of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, and the Southern soldier."
* * *
This weekend I caught up on news from our Village Manager in Pearlington about the Easter weekend. She and a volunteer attended an early sunrise service at the former Mennonite church and then went to the Southern Baptist church on MS 604, a few hundred yards north of our village for the morning service. Prior to the service they engaged a woman member of the church in a conversation.
“It is really something remarkable about a community as small as Pearlington to have a faith community consisting of seven Christian churches.”
Almost before the volunteer had completed his statement the woman quickly corrected him.
“Oh no, that isn’t right. There are only four Christian churches in town, we have our Southern Baptist Church, the Catholic Church, the Methodist Church and the Mennonite Church.”
The black churches somehow conveniently dropped of the face of the earth. Nevertheless, they sat through the service at the church but left quickly afterwards.
The village manager continued to tell me their story.
“The pastor never mentioned Jesus’ rising. In fact, the word ‘Easter’ was mentioned not one time in the service. The service seemed to be a Good Friday service.
“If the service bulletin had not had ‘Easter Service’ printed on it you would never know you were attending an Easter service.
“ I had to look in the pew rack to confirm that they used the Bible.”
I can only wonder about this myself, remembering the debates of my childhood in my old Southern Baptist church about what to do if a black person tried to worship in our church. I have always thought, and hoped, that kind of thinking had breathed its last.
I guess I’d surmise the theology of that Pearlington church comes from Beauvoir, a couple or three score of miles east near Biloxi. I thought the distance in time though, one hundred thirty years, would have healed that wound.
Pearlington has seven churches. It has a Southern Baptist church, an African-American Baptist church whose sanctuary we have worked on, and who serve Pearlington volunteers (all volunteers) lunch. The pastor of the church is Rev. Rawls. His wife and our volunteers from our village have cooperated to serve lunch virtually every day since volunteers began coming to Pearlington in 2006. Besides these two, there is a United Methodist church, a Catholic church, a church which until recently was a Mennonite church and two more African-American churches; Seven churches in all.
Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States of America purchased a modest mansion in the area of Biloxi for his retirement. The house, originally called Orange Grove and then Beauvoir, was completed in 1852 by a wealthy plantation owner. Davis rented the house in 1877 and two years later negotiated its purchase. The structure withstood hurricane after hurricane until Katrina destroyed it in 2005. Recently it was reopened in a fully refurbished condition with the dedication "to preserving the legacy of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, and the Southern soldier."
* * *
This weekend I caught up on news from our Village Manager in Pearlington about the Easter weekend. She and a volunteer attended an early sunrise service at the former Mennonite church and then went to the Southern Baptist church on MS 604, a few hundred yards north of our village for the morning service. Prior to the service they engaged a woman member of the church in a conversation.
“It is really something remarkable about a community as small as Pearlington to have a faith community consisting of seven Christian churches.”
Almost before the volunteer had completed his statement the woman quickly corrected him.
“Oh no, that isn’t right. There are only four Christian churches in town, we have our Southern Baptist Church, the Catholic Church, the Methodist Church and the Mennonite Church.”
The black churches somehow conveniently dropped of the face of the earth. Nevertheless, they sat through the service at the church but left quickly afterwards.
The village manager continued to tell me their story.
“The pastor never mentioned Jesus’ rising. In fact, the word ‘Easter’ was mentioned not one time in the service. The service seemed to be a Good Friday service.
“If the service bulletin had not had ‘Easter Service’ printed on it you would never know you were attending an Easter service.
“ I had to look in the pew rack to confirm that they used the Bible.”
I can only wonder about this myself, remembering the debates of my childhood in my old Southern Baptist church about what to do if a black person tried to worship in our church. I have always thought, and hoped, that kind of thinking had breathed its last.
I guess I’d surmise the theology of that Pearlington church comes from Beauvoir, a couple or three score of miles east near Biloxi. I thought the distance in time though, one hundred thirty years, would have healed that wound.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Day 380 - The Tie That Binds
This week is another special week. Special can mean "good" and it can mean that something stands out in contrast to other experiences, regardless of its value label.
A few weeks back the group from Fountain City, TN came down to Pearlington, They are the folks who got me into this. They needed a home to drywall and I had a home that needed it. We put up drywall together again on and off the whole week.
This week, Trinity Presbyterian Church in Fairhope, AL has sent two volunteers, almost in spite of our process to take volunteers. This church invited me to preach and responded with an outpouring of zeal (see Day 308 - It's not Too Late Brothers and Sisters.)
This is a slow week, and I am desperate since next week is our last operating week wherein we help homeowners. Trinity is our only volunteers this week. and so again, I get the more intimate work and personal experience than normal.
We've been working on this family's home about 15 or so miles east of town for several weeks. We drive through a lot of typical Mississippi countryside to get there.
We pass large farms, stands of old clear-cut land with twenty-thirty year old pines. It seemed every plot of land has a pond or lake.
We see five or six churches, mostly free-will baptist churches. We see the infrequent restaurant planted in unexpected turns in the highway," Jamie's Diner and Catfish," "Sally's Gas and Deli" and automotive body shops - "Crazy Colors Auto Body" with three high bay roll up doors.
We pass very infrequently nicely done brick farm house ruling a nice horse or Heifer farm. I can drive maybe fifteen or twenty minutes with totally dead cell phone coverage. This is back country.
When we get to the house, we find a husband in his late 50's or 60's and a loving wife. They have six early teen and under children.
Several weeks back we went out to the house to check out what work is needed. When we get there we find a story behind the home. We find a seriously ill husband striving hard to keep all his woe from his wife's awareness.
The house is packed with "stuff." The yard is full of old cars. bicycles, RV's, tricycles, broken lawnmowers, it is just filled with the junk of time. I realize we live in the South and we have a characteristic to collect; but, even the out building is full of broken tools and machines. There is no place to sit and rest.
I walk trough the house out onto a deck raised maybe 30 inches above ground. The deck is covered with an old table saw, two fiberglass shower stalls, old clothes, scraps of wood and drywall.
Standing there on the deck, I notice a white PVC pipe running out about twenty or thirty feet where it stops in a watery pool of wet dirt. I realize it is the grey water line from the sinks and kitchen.
The chickens and ducks are peckiing around in this mess. A couple of sheep wander around and plaintively bah at us.
The deck wobbles, it is barely attached to the house. i note the house is set on pressure treated and already rotted telephone pole timbers. There is an above ground swimming pool planted among all this detritus in the back yard. It is full of dark green water that a pump is circulating continuously.
I notice one of the chickens has been pecked on badly and a good part of its feathers are missing. The skin of its back, where feathers once grew stands out as a reddened sore mass. I hear that when a chicken shows red or blood in a farm, the other chickens will peck it to death. I see a turkey with a damaged wing lunge at the wounded chicken and it runs for cover under the house. There are two filthy turkeys and they are doing this damage to the chickens.
Inside the house I find one bathroom in disrepair. It stands adjacent to a bedroom for two of the kids, The room is filled to the brim with the boys' junk.
The lving room needs new wall board and a ceiling. The bathroom on the parents' end needs rebulding also.
We find out these kids are foster children. I can only imagine the disasterous home situation that led to improvement by moving them here. But this couple is fully dedicated and as good as or better than any. They pour every ounce of energy into these children, turning disfunctional elementary-aged children from screaming, crying and terrified animals into loving, playful children. It really is a great accomplishment. I hear "yes ma'am", "yes sir," see smiles and hear laughs as the girls head off to ball practice.
So we dive into repair. The earlier team from New York, bless them, crawled around under the house among dead cats and all the refuse left behind by barnyard fowl to rebuild the plumbing, to connect the grey water to the septic tank and rebuild the children's bathroom.
This week we are finishing the final items in the house, installing moulding in the living room, trimming out the drywall in the hallway and applying door trim.
One of the Trinity volunteers is a woman with long experience with Habitat for Humanity, she jumps right in. The other woman is as eager and committed, if less experienced. She also jumps in and in two days we have completed the living room molding, painted it, patched drywall in the boy's bedroom and begun finishing the hallway between living room and bedroom.
We hear of some very sinister health issues of the husband who is keeping it from the wife. I will not go into it, but I'm worried for everyone.
Today we ask to look at bathroom #2 since we want to start on it this week to ensure the small final crew of next week can complete it. We find challenges. In order to get the shower insert into the bath we are going to have to tear down a wall in the bedroom and rebuild it. We find evidence of mold in the bathroom that signals problems behind the wall board. Can we do it in a week?
As I sit writing this, all I can think of are those small children, the lives they've been saved from, the unbelievable success these foster parents have had with them even with their tenuous health, how badly foster parents are needed to justify this situation and why these things happen to children. Why?
Why?
A few weeks back the group from Fountain City, TN came down to Pearlington, They are the folks who got me into this. They needed a home to drywall and I had a home that needed it. We put up drywall together again on and off the whole week.
This week, Trinity Presbyterian Church in Fairhope, AL has sent two volunteers, almost in spite of our process to take volunteers. This church invited me to preach and responded with an outpouring of zeal (see Day 308 - It's not Too Late Brothers and Sisters.)
This is a slow week, and I am desperate since next week is our last operating week wherein we help homeowners. Trinity is our only volunteers this week. and so again, I get the more intimate work and personal experience than normal.
We've been working on this family's home about 15 or so miles east of town for several weeks. We drive through a lot of typical Mississippi countryside to get there.
We pass large farms, stands of old clear-cut land with twenty-thirty year old pines. It seemed every plot of land has a pond or lake.
We see five or six churches, mostly free-will baptist churches. We see the infrequent restaurant planted in unexpected turns in the highway," Jamie's Diner and Catfish," "Sally's Gas and Deli" and automotive body shops - "Crazy Colors Auto Body" with three high bay roll up doors.
We pass very infrequently nicely done brick farm house ruling a nice horse or Heifer farm. I can drive maybe fifteen or twenty minutes with totally dead cell phone coverage. This is back country.
When we get to the house, we find a husband in his late 50's or 60's and a loving wife. They have six early teen and under children.
Several weeks back we went out to the house to check out what work is needed. When we get there we find a story behind the home. We find a seriously ill husband striving hard to keep all his woe from his wife's awareness.
The house is packed with "stuff." The yard is full of old cars. bicycles, RV's, tricycles, broken lawnmowers, it is just filled with the junk of time. I realize we live in the South and we have a characteristic to collect; but, even the out building is full of broken tools and machines. There is no place to sit and rest.
I walk trough the house out onto a deck raised maybe 30 inches above ground. The deck is covered with an old table saw, two fiberglass shower stalls, old clothes, scraps of wood and drywall.
Standing there on the deck, I notice a white PVC pipe running out about twenty or thirty feet where it stops in a watery pool of wet dirt. I realize it is the grey water line from the sinks and kitchen.
The chickens and ducks are peckiing around in this mess. A couple of sheep wander around and plaintively bah at us.
The deck wobbles, it is barely attached to the house. i note the house is set on pressure treated and already rotted telephone pole timbers. There is an above ground swimming pool planted among all this detritus in the back yard. It is full of dark green water that a pump is circulating continuously.
I notice one of the chickens has been pecked on badly and a good part of its feathers are missing. The skin of its back, where feathers once grew stands out as a reddened sore mass. I hear that when a chicken shows red or blood in a farm, the other chickens will peck it to death. I see a turkey with a damaged wing lunge at the wounded chicken and it runs for cover under the house. There are two filthy turkeys and they are doing this damage to the chickens.
Inside the house I find one bathroom in disrepair. It stands adjacent to a bedroom for two of the kids, The room is filled to the brim with the boys' junk.
The lving room needs new wall board and a ceiling. The bathroom on the parents' end needs rebulding also.
We find out these kids are foster children. I can only imagine the disasterous home situation that led to improvement by moving them here. But this couple is fully dedicated and as good as or better than any. They pour every ounce of energy into these children, turning disfunctional elementary-aged children from screaming, crying and terrified animals into loving, playful children. It really is a great accomplishment. I hear "yes ma'am", "yes sir," see smiles and hear laughs as the girls head off to ball practice.
So we dive into repair. The earlier team from New York, bless them, crawled around under the house among dead cats and all the refuse left behind by barnyard fowl to rebuild the plumbing, to connect the grey water to the septic tank and rebuild the children's bathroom.
This week we are finishing the final items in the house, installing moulding in the living room, trimming out the drywall in the hallway and applying door trim.
One of the Trinity volunteers is a woman with long experience with Habitat for Humanity, she jumps right in. The other woman is as eager and committed, if less experienced. She also jumps in and in two days we have completed the living room molding, painted it, patched drywall in the boy's bedroom and begun finishing the hallway between living room and bedroom.
We hear of some very sinister health issues of the husband who is keeping it from the wife. I will not go into it, but I'm worried for everyone.
Today we ask to look at bathroom #2 since we want to start on it this week to ensure the small final crew of next week can complete it. We find challenges. In order to get the shower insert into the bath we are going to have to tear down a wall in the bedroom and rebuild it. We find evidence of mold in the bathroom that signals problems behind the wall board. Can we do it in a week?
As I sit writing this, all I can think of are those small children, the lives they've been saved from, the unbelievable success these foster parents have had with them even with their tenuous health, how badly foster parents are needed to justify this situation and why these things happen to children. Why?
Why?
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Day 378 - Looking Backwards and Looking Forward
Correction: I miss the used-to-be-frequent editorial suggestions on my former editor/critic; they kept me thinking on my toes. My erstwhile editor passed on to me a correction this morning.
In my post on Day 372 - Words of War, I referred to Ray Croc as the founder of McDonalds. Actually Richard and Maurice McDonald founded McDonalds. Ray Croc bought it in 1954 and turned it into the fast food success it is today.
* * *
Happy Easter!
I struggled through to the end of Barth last night. He is a great example of operant conditioning. You slog through verbose page after verbose page, every once in a while being rewarded with a real gem of a reflection. It was somewhat interesting that I closed the book on the eve of Easter after I had made it back to Gulfport from Chattanooga. Barth reflected on the closing lines of the Apostle's Creed.
I went back and read a little of Miles' book, Christ , that contains a similar line of thinking. It is interesting to read Protestant thinking and then Catholic thinking on the subject. There is a remarkable similarity with a nuance or two I'm embarrassed to say hadn't really fully caught the first time through. The biggest difference is that Miles at best sidesteps that line "resurrection of the body" and Barth dwells on it.
Barth says, in my modernized, inclusive language, "A Christian looks back...at sin and failure. The Christian looks forward at death, dying, the coffin, the grave, the end."
"The person who doesn't take it seriously that we are looking at that end...who is not terrified at it, who has perhaps not enough joy in life and does not know to fear the end, who has not yet understood that this life is a gift of God...does not grasp the beauty of this life, (and) cannot grasp the significance of the resurrection."
Barth says our existence is always under this threat: "You cannot live. you can only believe in Jesus Christ...and not see. You stand before God and would like to enjoy yourself..yet every day experience how your sin is new each day."
"The Lord's Supper ought to be more firmly regarded from the Easter standpoint. It is not ...a mourning meal, but a joyous meal eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood in the midst of our life. We are guests at His table and no longer separate from Him. The Christian hope (after death) is...I am no longer at the point I can die; in Him our body is already in heaven. We already live here and now in anticipation of the eschaton."
Miles makes a similar comment about the Lord's Supper. "Paul's closing comment reminds his congregation that when they perform this ritual of remembrance, they look not just back to the ceremony the Lord conducted that night before he died but also forward to his second coming, when their participation in the resurrection will be realized."
Yet Barth reminds us of the mystery when we say , "I believe in the resurrection of the body."
For Barth, " We are not some butterfly-like soul that flies away at death to a secret place. Resurrection is life's completion."
Miles observes that Christ symbolically transformed himself into the Passover lamb that was slain and eaten on this New Passover. Christ extends the ritual (as the only one with authority to do so) to drinking and otherwise consuming the blood. This is an act forbidden by God of Israel; they are not to eat 'flesh with life (blood) in it.'
Miles describes this entire event, the meal, the Passion and the resurrection as an act of God and that only God could chose to do. Christ transcends the History of Exodus on every level and give us all, not just the Jew, a new identity.
God becomes the Priest's own sacrificial lamb,
God becomes Isaac and father Abraham holding the knife,
God becomes Abel and brother Cain spilling his blood,
God becomes Esau and brother Jacob stealing his own his birthright and blessing.
God becomes all these things in a transforming way that an only be seen as mystery.
Miles says, "This sacrifice captures the prerational hunger for human sacrifice and requires no further bloodshed. Nothing will be lost. Everything will be carried forward. And Yet everything will be transformed."
At the end God turned His entire Being in the life of Israel into opposition of all He had done as El Shaddai. He rescues the vision of Israel's victory at the infinite price of twisting it into His absolute submission as a man. On the cross He speaks the closing word of Psalm 22, "It is done."
The past is left behind. Let us look forward.
In my post on Day 372 - Words of War, I referred to Ray Croc as the founder of McDonalds. Actually Richard and Maurice McDonald founded McDonalds. Ray Croc bought it in 1954 and turned it into the fast food success it is today.
* * *
Happy Easter!
I struggled through to the end of Barth last night. He is a great example of operant conditioning. You slog through verbose page after verbose page, every once in a while being rewarded with a real gem of a reflection. It was somewhat interesting that I closed the book on the eve of Easter after I had made it back to Gulfport from Chattanooga. Barth reflected on the closing lines of the Apostle's Creed.
I went back and read a little of Miles' book, Christ , that contains a similar line of thinking. It is interesting to read Protestant thinking and then Catholic thinking on the subject. There is a remarkable similarity with a nuance or two I'm embarrassed to say hadn't really fully caught the first time through. The biggest difference is that Miles at best sidesteps that line "resurrection of the body" and Barth dwells on it.
Barth says, in my modernized, inclusive language, "A Christian looks back...at sin and failure. The Christian looks forward at death, dying, the coffin, the grave, the end."
"The person who doesn't take it seriously that we are looking at that end...who is not terrified at it, who has perhaps not enough joy in life and does not know to fear the end, who has not yet understood that this life is a gift of God...does not grasp the beauty of this life, (and) cannot grasp the significance of the resurrection."
Barth says our existence is always under this threat: "You cannot live. you can only believe in Jesus Christ...and not see. You stand before God and would like to enjoy yourself..yet every day experience how your sin is new each day."
"The Lord's Supper ought to be more firmly regarded from the Easter standpoint. It is not ...a mourning meal, but a joyous meal eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood in the midst of our life. We are guests at His table and no longer separate from Him. The Christian hope (after death) is...I am no longer at the point I can die; in Him our body is already in heaven. We already live here and now in anticipation of the eschaton."
Miles makes a similar comment about the Lord's Supper. "Paul's closing comment reminds his congregation that when they perform this ritual of remembrance, they look not just back to the ceremony the Lord conducted that night before he died but also forward to his second coming, when their participation in the resurrection will be realized."
Yet Barth reminds us of the mystery when we say , "I believe in the resurrection of the body."
For Barth, " We are not some butterfly-like soul that flies away at death to a secret place. Resurrection is life's completion."
Miles observes that Christ symbolically transformed himself into the Passover lamb that was slain and eaten on this New Passover. Christ extends the ritual (as the only one with authority to do so) to drinking and otherwise consuming the blood. This is an act forbidden by God of Israel; they are not to eat 'flesh with life (blood) in it.'
Miles describes this entire event, the meal, the Passion and the resurrection as an act of God and that only God could chose to do. Christ transcends the History of Exodus on every level and give us all, not just the Jew, a new identity.
God becomes the Priest's own sacrificial lamb,
God becomes Isaac and father Abraham holding the knife,
God becomes Abel and brother Cain spilling his blood,
God becomes Esau and brother Jacob stealing his own his birthright and blessing.
God becomes all these things in a transforming way that an only be seen as mystery.
Miles says, "This sacrifice captures the prerational hunger for human sacrifice and requires no further bloodshed. Nothing will be lost. Everything will be carried forward. And Yet everything will be transformed."
At the end God turned His entire Being in the life of Israel into opposition of all He had done as El Shaddai. He rescues the vision of Israel's victory at the infinite price of twisting it into His absolute submission as a man. On the cross He speaks the closing word of Psalm 22, "It is done."
The past is left behind. Let us look forward.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Day 375 - The Beast from the Abyss
I'm still reading Dogmatics in Outline by Karl Barth, as you might guess from the title of this entry. But...this has to do a bit with Gulf business and Chattanooga business.
Barth has an interesting discussion about Pilate (remember the Apostle's Creed?). I find some of his observations about "politicians" uncannily relevant to my current experience with organizations, not every leader and every organization, just a couple or three who seem stand as types.
I choose for this discussion to lump into that category of "politicians" not just governmental folk but many (some?) of us underlings in organizations who allow the role playing of "leader" in our private little domain to proscribe acting in the best interest of the state (organization).
Barth, I think, would say it is our obligation as Christians to seek the best for the state by "choosing and desiring to the best of their knowledge not the wrong, but the right State, the State which makes of the fact that it has its power 'from above', not, like Pilate, a dishonor, but an honor."
A caution is in order. I mentioned in an earlier blog entry on the Christian Realists that Barth's line of thinking can lead (and did lead) into some pretty difficult and pragmatic ground where we end up justifying the power of the state to promulgate or force our ideas of moral conformity on everyone and thereby to justify immoral action. One can take Barth's logic too far.
As a pedestrian example of the argument's insideousness, I remember one manager from my engineering days who always got caught up in a misreading of Paul, at least I hope it was a misreading and not a calculated reading. He often criticized certain of his employees for "not submitting to authority."
So read these following words and think about those 'petty politicians' (Barth's characterization) akin to Pilate who get it wrong in organizations. I remind you that Pilate handed Jesus over to his cohorts to enforce the decision of the religious Sanhedrin to put Christ to death, though had he ruled according to the strict law of the State he would have released Him according to His innocence.
Barth comments, "What does Pilate do? He does what politicians have more or less always done and what has always belonged to the actual achievement of politics in all times: he attempts to rescue and maintain order in Jerusalem and thereby at the same time to preserve his own position of power, by surrendering the clear law, for the protection of which he was actually installed." (Italics are my emphasis.)
He continues, "In the person of Pilate the state withdraws from the basis of its own existence and becomes a den of robbers, a gangster State, the ordering of an irresponsible clique. That is the polis, that is politics. What wonder that one prefers to cover one's face before it? "
He concludes, "The state so regarded...is the polis in sheer opposition to the Church and the Kingdom of God."
Having quoted all these hard words, I must add that there is a little politician in all of us, or as Groucho Marx said, "I resemble that remark!"
Peace and Grace.
Barth has an interesting discussion about Pilate (remember the Apostle's Creed?). I find some of his observations about "politicians" uncannily relevant to my current experience with organizations, not every leader and every organization, just a couple or three who seem stand as types.
I choose for this discussion to lump into that category of "politicians" not just governmental folk but many (some?) of us underlings in organizations who allow the role playing of "leader" in our private little domain to proscribe acting in the best interest of the state (organization).
Barth, I think, would say it is our obligation as Christians to seek the best for the state by "choosing and desiring to the best of their knowledge not the wrong, but the right State, the State which makes of the fact that it has its power 'from above', not, like Pilate, a dishonor, but an honor."
A caution is in order. I mentioned in an earlier blog entry on the Christian Realists that Barth's line of thinking can lead (and did lead) into some pretty difficult and pragmatic ground where we end up justifying the power of the state to promulgate or force our ideas of moral conformity on everyone and thereby to justify immoral action. One can take Barth's logic too far.
As a pedestrian example of the argument's insideousness, I remember one manager from my engineering days who always got caught up in a misreading of Paul, at least I hope it was a misreading and not a calculated reading. He often criticized certain of his employees for "not submitting to authority."
So read these following words and think about those 'petty politicians' (Barth's characterization) akin to Pilate who get it wrong in organizations. I remind you that Pilate handed Jesus over to his cohorts to enforce the decision of the religious Sanhedrin to put Christ to death, though had he ruled according to the strict law of the State he would have released Him according to His innocence.
Barth comments, "What does Pilate do? He does what politicians have more or less always done and what has always belonged to the actual achievement of politics in all times: he attempts to rescue and maintain order in Jerusalem and thereby at the same time to preserve his own position of power, by surrendering the clear law, for the protection of which he was actually installed." (Italics are my emphasis.)
He continues, "In the person of Pilate the state withdraws from the basis of its own existence and becomes a den of robbers, a gangster State, the ordering of an irresponsible clique. That is the polis, that is politics. What wonder that one prefers to cover one's face before it? "
He concludes, "The state so regarded...is the polis in sheer opposition to the Church and the Kingdom of God."
Having quoted all these hard words, I must add that there is a little politician in all of us, or as Groucho Marx said, "I resemble that remark!"
Peace and Grace.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Day 373 - Waiting
The first Sunday after the first full Moon after the Vernal equinox.
I'm sitting in my favorite black leather chair in my living room listening to "Let your loss be my lesson" on the album "Raising Sand" by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss when I look through the window at the moon about 15 degrees over the horizon of the eastern sky.
I am reading Karl Barth, "Dogmatics in Outline" aka "Kitty Dogmatics", but then I had picked up The Bulletin of the Institute of Reformed Theology and was reading "The Artist and the Preacher: Can both proclaim the Word" by William Goettler of Yale Divinity School and thinking on the sad state of affairs of one of "preachers of the word and sacrament" who turn from preaching and to pursue ego-related activities of church organizations. It's amazing how many of them are about my age and should know better. The subject of the article is preaching parables to a lazy congregation on parables. Parables that demand our attention to their assailing our own behavior, or a carefully deaf ear lest we do see and understand.
Karl Barth lived through the Nazi Holocaust. As a German, he found himself intimately tied into it. While unbelievable verbose, he really grasps some significant elements of our belief. In his dissection of the Apostle's Creed, he remarks "Everything heavenly, like everything earthly, is ultimately self-conditioned. It may meet us like the messenger of a mighty king, whom we might regard with astonishment as a great and mighty man, in the face of whom, we still know he is only a messenger. We know there is something higher...We have experienced the most frightful things [in World War II in Germany], but man is not broken by the lords who are not the Lord. "
He is speaking, of course, about God's only Son, "The ultimate revelation of God Himself" who mysteriously appeared as a man and as the Jehovah of the Old Testament, a man like us in space and time who has all the properties of God and does not cease to be human and submits to accusation, condemnation and Crucifixion, this man who is the Jehovah of the Old Testament."
I contemplate this watching the moon rise through my window, two days before 14:58 GMT April 9, 2009, when early in the morning GMT, it becomes full on a young Maundy Thursday, a day of grief, joy, wonder, fear, helplessness, hope, hopelessness, the end of the past, the beginning of the future, humility, humiliation, the fulfilment of the covenant with Israel and the world, the day an invaluable debt was paid in advance.
Hopefully even those preachers who have forsaken their obligation, their prepaid debt and their calling by that God-Man-Spirit Mystery to preach will hear and understand, and turn away from their foolishness pursuing their ambition of worldly status and power while standing on and holding down those they have entered a covenant to help.
Shalom
I'm sitting in my favorite black leather chair in my living room listening to "Let your loss be my lesson" on the album "Raising Sand" by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss when I look through the window at the moon about 15 degrees over the horizon of the eastern sky.
I am reading Karl Barth, "Dogmatics in Outline" aka "Kitty Dogmatics", but then I had picked up The Bulletin of the Institute of Reformed Theology and was reading "The Artist and the Preacher: Can both proclaim the Word" by William Goettler of Yale Divinity School and thinking on the sad state of affairs of one of "preachers of the word and sacrament" who turn from preaching and to pursue ego-related activities of church organizations. It's amazing how many of them are about my age and should know better. The subject of the article is preaching parables to a lazy congregation on parables. Parables that demand our attention to their assailing our own behavior, or a carefully deaf ear lest we do see and understand.
Karl Barth lived through the Nazi Holocaust. As a German, he found himself intimately tied into it. While unbelievable verbose, he really grasps some significant elements of our belief. In his dissection of the Apostle's Creed, he remarks "Everything heavenly, like everything earthly, is ultimately self-conditioned. It may meet us like the messenger of a mighty king, whom we might regard with astonishment as a great and mighty man, in the face of whom, we still know he is only a messenger. We know there is something higher...We have experienced the most frightful things [in World War II in Germany], but man is not broken by the lords who are not the Lord. "
He is speaking, of course, about God's only Son, "The ultimate revelation of God Himself" who mysteriously appeared as a man and as the Jehovah of the Old Testament, a man like us in space and time who has all the properties of God and does not cease to be human and submits to accusation, condemnation and Crucifixion, this man who is the Jehovah of the Old Testament."
I contemplate this watching the moon rise through my window, two days before 14:58 GMT April 9, 2009, when early in the morning GMT, it becomes full on a young Maundy Thursday, a day of grief, joy, wonder, fear, helplessness, hope, hopelessness, the end of the past, the beginning of the future, humility, humiliation, the fulfilment of the covenant with Israel and the world, the day an invaluable debt was paid in advance.
Hopefully even those preachers who have forsaken their obligation, their prepaid debt and their calling by that God-Man-Spirit Mystery to preach will hear and understand, and turn away from their foolishness pursuing their ambition of worldly status and power while standing on and holding down those they have entered a covenant to help.
Shalom
Monday, April 6, 2009
Day 372 - Words of War
Today I thought I would take a little respite from my Gulf-related stories (though in actuality I guess I am not since the subject of this entry draws people and many billions of dollars from relief efforts for the good of people).
In the mid-1980's Joan Croc, wife of the deceased Ray Croc (founder of McDonald's) published in the local San Diego paper a series of quotations on war from men who knew war all to well. Here they are to emphasize the historical repugnance of war, the words of three Presidents, a theologian, four generals who fought wars, statesmen and a new addition by a latter day wag, in chronological order:
"War is the greatest plague that can afflict humanity; it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys family. Any scourge is preferable to it." - Martin Luther 1569
"God is ordinarily for the big battalions against the little ones." Roger, Count Bussy-Rabutin, 1677
"I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another." Thomas Jefferson, 1794
"It is well that war is so terrible - we would grow too fond of it." Robert E. Lee, 1862
"Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, 1878
"There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but boys, it is all hell." William Tecumseh Sherman, 1880
"The first casualty when war comes is truth." Sen. Hiram Johnson, 1917
"War is much too important to be left to the generals." George Clemenceau, 1935
"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." Dwight D. Eisenhower, c. 1952
"War is always the same. It is young men dying in the fullness of their promise. It is trying to kill a man that you do not even know well enough to hate. Therefore, to know war is to know that there is still madness in the world." Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966
"Vietnam is what we had instead of happy childhoods." Michael Herr, 1977
"Iraq and Afghanistan - will we never heed the lessons of history?" Henry Paris, 2009
Shalom
In the mid-1980's Joan Croc, wife of the deceased Ray Croc (founder of McDonald's) published in the local San Diego paper a series of quotations on war from men who knew war all to well. Here they are to emphasize the historical repugnance of war, the words of three Presidents, a theologian, four generals who fought wars, statesmen and a new addition by a latter day wag, in chronological order:
"War is the greatest plague that can afflict humanity; it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys family. Any scourge is preferable to it." - Martin Luther 1569
"God is ordinarily for the big battalions against the little ones." Roger, Count Bussy-Rabutin, 1677
"I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another." Thomas Jefferson, 1794
"It is well that war is so terrible - we would grow too fond of it." Robert E. Lee, 1862
"Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, 1878
"There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but boys, it is all hell." William Tecumseh Sherman, 1880
"The first casualty when war comes is truth." Sen. Hiram Johnson, 1917
"War is much too important to be left to the generals." George Clemenceau, 1935
"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." Dwight D. Eisenhower, c. 1952
"War is always the same. It is young men dying in the fullness of their promise. It is trying to kill a man that you do not even know well enough to hate. Therefore, to know war is to know that there is still madness in the world." Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966
"Vietnam is what we had instead of happy childhoods." Michael Herr, 1977
"Iraq and Afghanistan - will we never heed the lessons of history?" Henry Paris, 2009
Shalom
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Day 368 - Fathers and Sons II
Hezekiah, Ruth and Samuel obtained their certificate of occupancy yesterday! (See day 210) The last little bit of work took almost three weeks, complete plumbing, install cabinets, finish trim... We were fortunate to have three crews from Bayside PC in New York finishing the remaining items on the punch list. We still have some cosmetic trim work to do, and refinish the floors, but the house can be lived in with the certificate of occupancy..
It seemed the closer we got, the slower the work went. I drove by last Friday to see if the house passed inspection but no one was there. I went back Monday afternoon and found all three of them there. Samuel and Ruth were working on the flower beds, resetting the brick border, planting hydranga and other shrub and Hezekiah was in the housepainting trim molding.
The inspector had come out and found a couple of small items. The mechanical contractor had not filled gaps between the air handler and ceiling, and the gap around the condensor lines in the outside wall with fireproof caulk. Hezekiah went ahead and fixed those and yesterday morning early I called the code and inspection office for a revisit.
The call from my work site manager came about 2:30PM - they passed. What a relief! The last I heard Samuel was sanding the oak floors with a sander we rented for him.
We have put a lot of people back in their homes and the joy I share with the happy home owner is always the same. I feel satisfaction, relief, pressure to get onto the next house before we leave..a potpourri of conflicting emotions that bleed over into my whole life.
I know I'll be working hard in Pearlington in a couple weeks and soon thereafter, on to seminary. I will not get to see what Ruth's home looks like when it is fully replanted. Unless I come back.
If I do, I wonder what it will feel like to drive into town knowing the Village is gone and see a blue roof. I imagine my first urge will be to drive back to that Village and get my record book to visit the house...
Six month can seem like a long time. It is time enough to develop close friendship but too brief a time to enjoy it fully. A year is hardly long enough.
It seemed the closer we got, the slower the work went. I drove by last Friday to see if the house passed inspection but no one was there. I went back Monday afternoon and found all three of them there. Samuel and Ruth were working on the flower beds, resetting the brick border, planting hydranga and other shrub and Hezekiah was in the housepainting trim molding.
The inspector had come out and found a couple of small items. The mechanical contractor had not filled gaps between the air handler and ceiling, and the gap around the condensor lines in the outside wall with fireproof caulk. Hezekiah went ahead and fixed those and yesterday morning early I called the code and inspection office for a revisit.
The call from my work site manager came about 2:30PM - they passed. What a relief! The last I heard Samuel was sanding the oak floors with a sander we rented for him.
We have put a lot of people back in their homes and the joy I share with the happy home owner is always the same. I feel satisfaction, relief, pressure to get onto the next house before we leave..a potpourri of conflicting emotions that bleed over into my whole life.
I know I'll be working hard in Pearlington in a couple weeks and soon thereafter, on to seminary. I will not get to see what Ruth's home looks like when it is fully replanted. Unless I come back.
If I do, I wonder what it will feel like to drive into town knowing the Village is gone and see a blue roof. I imagine my first urge will be to drive back to that Village and get my record book to visit the house...
Six month can seem like a long time. It is time enough to develop close friendship but too brief a time to enjoy it fully. A year is hardly long enough.
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