Blessed are the Peacemakers

            I got a couple of cases of old things down out of the attic this week.  The weather was cold enough to want to stay inside, so we began the process of sorting out many years of pictures, letters and much else.  We are hoping to get things into some sort of shape so that the kids don’t have a monster on their hands someday.  Rosie found a lot of letters that she wrote to me when I was in the army; many others that were written to us and by us over the years.  It is quite a history.

            Rosie and I have been married for fifty-eight years, have three wonderful daughters who have grown into remarkable adults.  They have provided us with their own families; grandchildren and great grandchildren whom we love with all of our hearts.  They have created their own lives.  One is a nurse-practitioner, another is a professor in one of our local universities, and one is an able leader in a parish in a poverty stricken section of Cleveland where she has been an inspiration and a help to many people.  We are very fortunate to have what we have, and the record of it is in all of those things that we found upstairs.  I thank God daily for what we have been given, and I want to give back as much as I possibly can. What is amazing to me about all of these things that we have found in the attic is how many people we have touched and who have touched us.  It is an incredible  story.

            I love the lesson in the fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus goes up on a small hill to tell his disciples and the crowd what he has in mind for all of us.  These are the beatitudes, those small things that we all can do to take care of each other, but more especially how we are all viewed by our loving God.  Blessed are the poor in spirit, he begins, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. What a startling statement!  I would think that the preachers that we have among us might think that the “poor in spirit” are destined for another place rather than the Kingdom of Heaven.   Jesus goes on to say blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Good Lord, the meek!  How are they going to inherit the earth when they can’t really speak because they are so shy?  Obviously these are observations that only God can make with any authority.  Both of these statements make a joke out of the loud and obnoxious among us who are so quick to judge others; but this is a common trait among the religious in our society. 

            One of the worst things that we do as human beings is to judge each other.  It keeps us apart and creates political divisions that make chaos of our common life.  After the President’s State of the Union address, three of his opponents took to the airways with pre-recorded “rebuttals” that didn’t particularly help us.  They only reinforced their own political points of view in their attempt to undermine what the president had said.  We do this all the time.  I do it, you do it, and we ought to stop it.

            What Jesus did for us in his ministry was to listen and to teach us to listen.  That is the foundation of community.  The reason that we have become so divided is because we have lost the ability to listen to each other and to hear another view.  We listen until we don’t agree, then we shut down the listening and begin the judging. That is when our community disintegrates into chaos.  If we want community, we need to learn to accept each other the way that we come.  When we do that, we can find common ground and get to a place of agreement.  Probably the most important of the beatitudes is the one that says blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.  Let’s make peace and be God’s children, for God’s blessing is what we all seek and what we need.

A Life of Prayer

             When it comes to prayer, I am an amateur.  I have been in places where   ministers delivered eloquent prayers at the beginning of meetings, and I was struck by how easily it came to them.  Mostly, these prayers were instructions to God as to how we were all to be enabled to serve.  I don’t do that very well.  All of my seminary training has brought me to a place of awe when it comes to God.  My own experience of God’s magnificent love also tells me that God knows very well what we all need and will provide it, no matter what our instructions to God entail.

            We Episcopalians have what we call The Book of Common Prayer (BCP).  It began with Thomas Cranmer during the rule of Henry VIII at the time of the English Reformation and it has come down to us with changes from that time.  I have always found it to be helpful when I am trying to find a way to communicate with God.  The BCP has in it well written prayers for everything we need: for the hungry, the oppressed, for children and adults, for our families and for prisoners.  All of the ways that our Lord instructed us to work in this world can find voice in the prayers in this book.  It also contains rituals for things that we need to do as individuals and as a church in the community.  There is a service of baptism, both for the community of the church, and for individuals who can also baptize.  There are forms for prayers for the sick and for the dying and we are encouraged to use them in our ministries to each others.

             In a hospital, I was once summoned into a room by a group of Greek people who wanted me to anoint their mother lying in the bed.  Apparently, the Greek priest had refused to come for one reason or another, and they wanted their mother to be anointed before her certain death, which I am sure happened within a couple of days.  I struggled with this at the time, but I made the sign of the cross over her, put some oil on her forehead and offered prayers for her soul to God.  When I was doing this, the family huddled at the foot of the bed and continually crossed themselves and joined with me in their own prayers for this woman.  Afterwards, they thanked me profusely.  Moments like this for me are what extemporary prayer is all about. 

            In our Eucharist, there is a place for what we call the Prayers of the People.  There are six forms in the BCP and each of them provides places for each of us to either silently or aloud to offer our prayers to God for what we need.  The reader of the prayer lists the names that have been provided before the service and many, many others are added by the people in the pews.  This time for me has always been a wonderful exercise in community with the people exercising their ability to offer private prayers to God in the middle of a community worship service. 

            My own private prayer life is fairly simple.  I gather prayers during the day by looking at the world that I inhabit.  I read Facebook and the messages that I get on my computer and by interaction with others through the day.  I offer these needs to God at quiet moments during the day and before I sleep at night.  I know that God is present in my life and I am certain that God is also present in the lives of the people around me.  My prayer is always evolving and I continue to learn.  I think that is what God has in mind for all of us.

Neighborliness

            There is a ritual in our condominium complex that goes on every week.  On Tuesday, we have to take our garbage cans and our recycling material down to the corner so that the truck can pick it up.  The next day, the cans need to be brought back to their owners.  Most of the people who live in our plan are little old ladies (somebody dubbed the place “Widow’s Peak”) and it is hard for them to get their own cans, particularly in the winter when the snow and ice comes and the roads are slightly treacherous.  There are those in the plan who take it upon themselves to get the cans back to their owners.  We are all appreciative of this.  I do it, whenever I can.

            This is a small, small thing, but it is the essence of community.  None of us are expected to live our lives by ourselves.  We are nestled into relationships that are hopefully fulfilling to us and we live in neighborhoods where there are other people who can be of a help to us.  That is and has been the way of humanity for ages.  It isn’t a necessarily religious thing, but it is of the essence of God.  I know that we are all meant to be neighbors, because we all run into things in our lives that we can’t do by ourselves.  It is necessary for us to find others who can help us. 

            The mechanic who works on my car loves to ride his dirt bike.  He is sixty years old, but he loves the feel of the trail under him and he does this frequently.  A couple of months ago, he was riding his bike up a particularly steep hill and the bike turned sideways and then fell on him breaking his leg.  There he was up the hill, in the woods, far from help.  He had left his cell phone at home.  He did what he could, wrapping his scarf around his leg and a broken tree branch to form a kind of a splint and he wormed his way down the hill where he found a house where he could get help.  He got to the hospital and is currently recovering from his broken leg.  What could have been a terrible tragedy was helped immensely by the help of a neighbor. 

            Every week in the Post-Gazette there is a column detailing what it calls “Random Acts of Kindness.”  These are always stories of how someone helped another person who had lost a wallet, a phone or something and had it restored by a stranger who really didn’t have to do anything at all.  These are always stories of gratitude and I love to read them.

            This is what it means to be a neighbor.  We all make the world a better place when we practice our neighborliness.  It doesn’t cost much and it gives an enormous gift.

The Weather and God's Promise

             When I was a senior in high school in 1950, we had a monster storm around Thanksgiving that dumped over three feet of snow on Pittsburgh.  I made a lot of money that week, shoveling sidewalks for 75 cents and driveways for $1.50.  I loved it.  I have no idea what I did with the money, but it was fun.  I have remembered that storm this winter, while we have been listening to what I call WOMG! radio and television spin horror stories of what terrible things the weather was going to do to us over and over again.  They love to do this because it raises them to a level of importance that nothing else will bring them.  They have even invented words to accompany their stories:  Snowpocalypse and Snowmageggen, just to be sure that they get our attention.  Somehow the media has gotten the idea that in order to impress its audience, it needs always to project a crisis of some sort.  We hear Breaking News! proclaimed much more often than we need to hear it.  It even gets to the point that we don’t pay a lot of attention to these stories.

            This past week we had an arctic front move through Pittsburgh that brought with it temperatures well below zero and we worried about driving and what was going to happen outside.  We got through it pretty well; there were some accidents, fires and a few frozen water pipes, but mostly, we got through the weather intact.  The weather was “breaking news” for a couple of days.

            This is the First Sunday after the Epiphany, the Sunday that we remember our Lord’s baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist, and the message from God that accompanied that event:  This is my Son, My Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.  It would be difficult to get a better recommendation on a résumé.  I also like the passage from the Acts of the Apostles that talks about the history of Jesus’ ministry and how it came to an end by “they put him to death by hanging him on a tree,” but that God raised him from the dead on the third day and he appeared to and ate with those of us who were his witnesses.  What a powerful statement of God’s presence here on earth, in the middle of our lives, no matter what it is that happens to us.

            In 2005, Rosie and I were living in Charleston, WV and I had a diagnosis of a large tumor on the left frontal lobe of my brain.  I went into surgery for it and I remember the moment before they gave me the anesthetic, how I prayed to God to be with me through it, and knew beyond a doubt that no matter how it all turned out, that I would be all right.  I had no fear of death at that instant, although certainly death was a distinct possibility.  It took me about three years to recover from the surgery, but recover I did, and by God’s grace I am here continuing my ministry.  I thank God for my life, and for being present with me in moments when all could have been lost.  But I think that is what God does:  We are assured that things will be all right, even when we have no idea of the outcome.  God raised Jesus from the tomb, and God will keep us safe also, no matter what it is that happens.  That doesn’t mean that we all escape death (that will happen to all of us); but even in death, there is eternal life.  We must never forget that magnificent promise.  In the context of God’s love, it really doesn’t matter much what the weather brings.

God's Call to All of Us

             We have had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas and the new year.  This time has been oriented very much toward our family.  We celebrated my birthday the week before Christmas and the kids gave me an IPAD, which I am still figuring out.  I thank God that I have grand kids and great-grand kids who will be able to shepherd me through the things that I will never understand with this thing.  We spent New Year’s Day by going to Cleveland and visiting our youngest daughter.  Our two oldest went with us and we had a great day with them.  We love these kids and the family that we have become.  I was sitting at the table in Cleveland thinking that if Rosie had never come to my radio booth at the Indiana County Fair in 1954 and requested me to play Hey There by Rosemary Clooney, that none of this would have happened.  I thank God for what we have been given over these years.  It is wonderful to begin 2014 with all of them and wonder what this year will bring.

            Jesus’ birth was into turbulent times.  Herod was threatened by the news of a new King of the Jews and reacted by creating a threat for the new child.  Mary and Joseph, warned in a dream, took his family to Egypt until the wicked Herod died and it was safe for them all to come back.  This is also, according to literal Matthew, how Jesus got to Nazareth to keep the prophecies straight.  Many scholars believe that Jesus was born in Nazareth and that the Bethlehem excursion was provided to attune the birth to what Isaiah had said, but no matter, it all comes out all right with the Lord of Lords taking up his work to save us all. 

            I’ve never had an actual angel come and speak to me, but I have felt the call of God in other ways.  When the television station that I was working for went bankrupt, I knew that there was nothing for me to do except go to seminary and become a priest.  I know, that doesn’t necessarily follow from logic, but the call was there.  I had a wife and three kids who stayed with me through all that it involved, and it is another of the reasons that we were able to celebrate this new year in such a wonderful way.  I have had a great career as an Episcopal priest and I am grateful for every moment of it.  The parishes where I have worked have taught me a lot about this profession and I am thankful for every person who has been a part of it.

            May God bless all of us and bring us peace in this coming year.  I hope that all of you who read this blog have a wonderful year.