Adam and Ever were the first humans with God given souls or so I was taught in a relaxed modern RC way of looking at ancient history, literature and dogma.
In a way the story of Adam and Eve, not appreciating what was given to them, is a story that describes mankind to this day.
God created a beautiful, intricate world and mankind is only lately content to harm and destroy it. Climate change would cost money and even beyond that make some abandon the extremes of greed, and ignorance attached to blatant greed, all over the planet.
One only has to see the pollution cloud constantly over some major cities on this planet to know that progress has its price. To step back and try to imagine as God imagined a pristine world, one knows that God, against his better judgment, created man and let him have, by default, dominion over this planet.
There is a saying these days in mod language WWJD – What would Jesus Do? Well I have been thinking too much and HDGF – How does God Feel? – about what man has done and is doing to harm the environment of this gift to the human race.
I think that God feels sad about at least part of the bargain in his creation of the human race, through evolution, within the framework of his greater creation plan for the universe and not just earth.
There is a hidden clause in the contract of this whole creation thing and man in relation to God and his planet. That clause is that you only get one planet and once you use it up – the intelligent design of the whole matter is that mankind, in spite of a kind gesture of a living creating God, becomes extinct.
Intelligent design is common sense to some and should be looked at with a lot more intricate side effects than wishful bible thumping thinking. Don’t expect miracles along with mythical raptures to clean up this dirty planet any time soon.
Some religions preach a middle way. This middle way is supposed to not reach to extremes of belief one way or another. Extremes also apply to practices.
As I observe the secular American world, I have to say that a middle way is not visible. The extremes of Secularism or throwing out the rule book by those who should have known better is what has brought our economy to great waste.
Rather than point fingers, I have to say that a godless adherence to the goodness of greed is what we in America suffer from - too much extreme secularism at the moment. Being your brother’s keeper is not considered very often on a micro or macro level these days. The secular myth destroys the sacred myth time and time again in practice.
Economic bubbles popping may slowdown the human race’s sprint to self destruction. Which bubble next to pop – Gold and precious metals once corporations start “investing”? Perhaps there is a silver lining to this present “great recession”.
What I keep coming back to is the fact that no banker or mortgage finance company higher up has ever sat through the process of making an old fashioned mortgage, its paperwork, from inception to closing. This is one of the core reasons for the present economic meltdown worldwide – a dependence on note paper that is not even kept in the original mortgage file anymore so to speak. The servicers of loans have outsourced clerical oversight overseas on this one as well and all to save human scale costs and boost bonuses – greed – greed- greed.
As a person who use to loan process and all the way to close with a title company, I cannot believe any of these turd bankers have a clue. The back office has been outsourced to Asia and the front office has nothing better to do but get drunk on greed while Rome burns.
Greed Yes. Incompetence Yes. But where does this mess finally play out. Slowly over a decade or does this thing unravel more quickly. And beyond that is the environment that cannot sustain us forever if we choose to ignore common moral sense in the management of this world.
These big bank bandaid solutions in Greece, Ireland, Portugal are only time killers and not solutions. They are only indications of a half assed approach to common sense or secularized versions of right and wrong in everyday living. A balanced budget, a middle way, should be a moral budget in the scheme of things. There is a place for sacred and or moral approaches to secular problems.
The danger of more bubbles bursting in the speculative investment world are nothing compared to the great plagues and ultimate destruction of our planet that is supposed to be prophesized here and there in sacred literature and dogmatic myth. Mankind in its enlightened position can change the equation dramatically when necessary. It is possible to change a negative future into more things positive.
We are what me make. We are what we are able to keep of the bounty of nature. Nature seems to be tired and worn out. A current climate change conference in Mexico is not likely to change any government or corporation’s mind about how we should treat the environment in order to keep it a sustainable life giving force to humanity.
One can pray and ask God to put men and women of courage into public office. Like I said miracles are not likely to happen soon in our extremes of the need for proper caretaking of this earth.
In the end of the old story, Adam and Eve are thrown out of Paradise for not thinking, for not obeying a rule book, for ignoring their situational common sense. God was perhaps not unreasonable for creating free will and testing it. From the beginning, He knew that the human experiment was just a crap shoot. He seems to be something of a gambler and the stakes are always high.
But hey, He is God and He has a plan. Hopefully the children of earth wake up soon and decide on a middle way between the extremes of Secularism and Religion and recreate the world in the image of God – betting too on what He saw as our potential and not what He undoubtedly knew were our failings.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Condom Head No More ?
I have to suppose that in dealing with the Roman Church, that traditions or rituals that are thousands of years old must outrank ideas from a modern age.
No doubt a lot of internal shouting from bishops to the seat of Peter within the very thick walls of the Vatican has finally registered a small amount of modern common sense on a pontiff steeped in the past.
The pope, far from changing any official church doctrine, has in a way and in an unofficial sense commented on the use of condoms to prevent the spread of disease, as in the case of Aids in Africa where it is of epidemic proportions in some areas.
Without changing anything, everything changes on the comments Benedict XVI make in an upcoming book due out this week - Peter Seewald - The Light of The World.
Pope’s remarks on condoms
No doubt a lot of internal shouting from bishops to the seat of Peter within the very thick walls of the Vatican has finally registered a small amount of modern common sense on a pontiff steeped in the past.
The pope, far from changing any official church doctrine, has in a way and in an unofficial sense commented on the use of condoms to prevent the spread of disease, as in the case of Aids in Africa where it is of epidemic proportions in some areas.
Without changing anything, everything changes on the comments Benedict XVI make in an upcoming book due out this week - Peter Seewald - The Light of The World.
Pope’s remarks on condoms
It seems a turnaround from the pontiff’s stance on the issue in March 2009 during a visit to Africa, when he went as far as saying that condoms “aggravated” the Aids problem.
“In certain cases, where the intention is to reduce the risk of infection, it can nevertheless be a first step on the way to another, more humane sexuality,” the head of the Catholic church said, giving as an example a male prostitute having sex with a client…
“I think it is very good that the pope sees the discussion in the worldwide church and he listened to other bishops who said there had to be discussion about condoms when we speak about Aids,” Florian Flohr, spokesman for the Catholic church of Lucerne, told swissinfo.ch.
“It’s very important now that the pope says the same thing.”
Can the pontiff’s remarks be regarded as a revolution? “It’s going too far to say it’s a revolution, but it’s a change of view. There is no more taboo of speaking about it and I think that is very good because the condom is not the most important thing,” he said.
“The most important thing is that people are responsible for their sexuality and that they think about it.”
Sunday, November 21, 2010
New Dark Age Here in America?
I have been trying to not be too political lately in this blog but this is what is on my mind of late from observation of all things TV and NET.
Are we in a Dark Age and don’t know it?
I called several times the other day to get a doctor’s appointment. Get put on hold forever, hung up, next time the phone rolls over to a message service and (thank God not a robot answering machine).
The telephone thing bothers me. We have been putting up with it for a few decades now. Time was when progress and technology was thought of as a good thing. Creates jobs.
I heard a stat from Olbermann the other night that nearly everyone in Congress is a millionaire or close to it. That on a day that the f*cks in the GOP shot down an UI extension. Perhaps the history books will label this Congress “the millionaires’ Congress” in retracing the events that lead up to riots and the downfall of yet another Versailles.
Are we in a Dark Age?
The Chinese are upping banking reserves in response to Quantitative Easing QE2. Too much “hot money” from speculators is suddenly showing up on Chinese shores coincidently with the recent QE2 from Bernanke. That easing is supposed to cause inflation which is a “good” thing as opposed to deflation which is a “bad” thing. Economists are such professional bullshit artists and ponzi masters IMHO. The money eased up by the Fed is supposed to trickle down to be loaned out to American businesses to create American jobs. Yeah right.
Getting back to robots such as telephone answering systems, you have ATMs, no more human tellers, and of course the computer (another robot of sorts) which eased millions of American jobs into being outsourced overseas. Local talent is obsolete these days especially if it needs healthcare as an benefit. A very unchristian attitude toward local workers and their families IMHO.
Just a few gripes from a person old enough to remember when without robots, the systems and the factories and the people worked and idiots with Ivy League degrees did not pretend to run the boardrooms, the FED or the nation.
Is the term "globalization" just a technical term for system rot and or "Dark Age" for some (most) ?
Are human beings obsolete in this brave new corporate (non-producing/spreadsheet) world? If obsolete, what do we do with them ???
Are we in a Dark Age or what?
We here reading know that the first and second world of looking at things is dominant. There is a whole third and fourth world still out there as well.
Perhaps my fear of a dark age is my own slipping into a lower level of everyday economic hell caused by the present faux "great recession" - (real depression).
At one time I had this futuristic vision in terms of all our communications being a unifying thing for the planet. I had envisioned European shows with English or English subtitles being shown in America. But all we get here are a few Brit Coms, decades old, and BBC America which is sanitized of indelicate items.
These to compete on cable with Fox and MSNBC. I see this fascination and ratings with something like "Dancing with the Stars" as some throw back hunger for people TV - like the fifties and sixties and like what I have witnessed of some Euro-vision programming... mine is not a complete window to see and or comment on these things?
Now the GOP and their "moat around America" mentality seems closing in with the new Congress. I fear the lights are going out all across America and they shall not be turned back on in my lifetime.
To me, despite all the possibilities of a golden age, it is a new dark age here in America.
Are we in a Dark Age and don’t know it?
I called several times the other day to get a doctor’s appointment. Get put on hold forever, hung up, next time the phone rolls over to a message service and (thank God not a robot answering machine).
The telephone thing bothers me. We have been putting up with it for a few decades now. Time was when progress and technology was thought of as a good thing. Creates jobs.
I heard a stat from Olbermann the other night that nearly everyone in Congress is a millionaire or close to it. That on a day that the f*cks in the GOP shot down an UI extension. Perhaps the history books will label this Congress “the millionaires’ Congress” in retracing the events that lead up to riots and the downfall of yet another Versailles.
Are we in a Dark Age?
The Chinese are upping banking reserves in response to Quantitative Easing QE2. Too much “hot money” from speculators is suddenly showing up on Chinese shores coincidently with the recent QE2 from Bernanke. That easing is supposed to cause inflation which is a “good” thing as opposed to deflation which is a “bad” thing. Economists are such professional bullshit artists and ponzi masters IMHO. The money eased up by the Fed is supposed to trickle down to be loaned out to American businesses to create American jobs. Yeah right.
Getting back to robots such as telephone answering systems, you have ATMs, no more human tellers, and of course the computer (another robot of sorts) which eased millions of American jobs into being outsourced overseas. Local talent is obsolete these days especially if it needs healthcare as an benefit. A very unchristian attitude toward local workers and their families IMHO.
Just a few gripes from a person old enough to remember when without robots, the systems and the factories and the people worked and idiots with Ivy League degrees did not pretend to run the boardrooms, the FED or the nation.
Is the term "globalization" just a technical term for system rot and or "Dark Age" for some (most) ?
Are human beings obsolete in this brave new corporate (non-producing/spreadsheet) world? If obsolete, what do we do with them ???
Are we in a Dark Age or what?
We here reading know that the first and second world of looking at things is dominant. There is a whole third and fourth world still out there as well.
Perhaps my fear of a dark age is my own slipping into a lower level of everyday economic hell caused by the present faux "great recession" - (real depression).
At one time I had this futuristic vision in terms of all our communications being a unifying thing for the planet. I had envisioned European shows with English or English subtitles being shown in America. But all we get here are a few Brit Coms, decades old, and BBC America which is sanitized of indelicate items.
These to compete on cable with Fox and MSNBC. I see this fascination and ratings with something like "Dancing with the Stars" as some throw back hunger for people TV - like the fifties and sixties and like what I have witnessed of some Euro-vision programming... mine is not a complete window to see and or comment on these things?
Now the GOP and their "moat around America" mentality seems closing in with the new Congress. I fear the lights are going out all across America and they shall not be turned back on in my lifetime.
To me, despite all the possibilities of a golden age, it is a new dark age here in America.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Secularism, Sadducees, Age to Come
I am using a Year C lectionary for the twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost and the Gospel passage Luke 20:27-38 to scribble a few thoughts.
If anything, the historic Jesus did not like all the rules, the written rules of the old Judaism. It is not surprising that he gets into conversation with members of the Sadducee sect that some say was more a political party than a true branch of religious belief. They only believed in Mosaic Law and did not believe in what they could not see.
You might say that the Sadducees were the prime Secularists of Jesus’ time and place.
Anyway, this sect did not believe in resurrection of the soul after death. To make a point, they pose a question to Jesus about seven men married to the same women over time, dying and having no children. The question is which husband will have the woman at his side in the next life if resurrection is real.
Jesus replies that there is no marriage in the next life. The resurrected are “like the angels” meaning they have no sex or permanent body in the “age to come”. The spirit or the soul is without exact matching human or earthly qualities. We become “children of the resurrection” to God the Father.
This is where Jesus is the real deal. He does not write things down. He responds with the insight of the divine side of his nature and seeing a different way of looking at the great beyond is born. This is a paradigm shift in western thought.
Those of Islam will say “the Koran teaches us that…”. No Angel Gabriel is needed to deliver a written message to Jesus’ crowd from the Almighty over and beyond what is already written through the generations since Moses. Jesus is the word made flesh.
Jesus is the real deal and discloses, reveals, looks through the veil that separates us from our ultimate nature in close proximity and union with God.
So too, the nature of a timeless eternal God is revealed in that we may view history through the lens of our mortality - As for God:
The Resurrection and Marriage
27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
If anything, the historic Jesus did not like all the rules, the written rules of the old Judaism. It is not surprising that he gets into conversation with members of the Sadducee sect that some say was more a political party than a true branch of religious belief. They only believed in Mosaic Law and did not believe in what they could not see.
You might say that the Sadducees were the prime Secularists of Jesus’ time and place.
Anyway, this sect did not believe in resurrection of the soul after death. To make a point, they pose a question to Jesus about seven men married to the same women over time, dying and having no children. The question is which husband will have the woman at his side in the next life if resurrection is real.
Jesus replies that there is no marriage in the next life. The resurrected are “like the angels” meaning they have no sex or permanent body in the “age to come”. The spirit or the soul is without exact matching human or earthly qualities. We become “children of the resurrection” to God the Father.
This is where Jesus is the real deal. He does not write things down. He responds with the insight of the divine side of his nature and seeing a different way of looking at the great beyond is born. This is a paradigm shift in western thought.
Those of Islam will say “the Koran teaches us that…”. No Angel Gabriel is needed to deliver a written message to Jesus’ crowd from the Almighty over and beyond what is already written through the generations since Moses. Jesus is the word made flesh.
Jesus is the real deal and discloses, reveals, looks through the veil that separates us from our ultimate nature in close proximity and union with God.
So too, the nature of a timeless eternal God is revealed in that we may view history through the lens of our mortality - As for God:
37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”Luke 20:27-38 (New International Version)
The Resurrection and Marriage
27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
Monday, November 1, 2010
Sabbath Tales
I have met and know of some remarkable men in my life.
The man who baptized me or more accurately the man who was founder and pastor of my parish in Philly was a fanatic of sorts. He started out life as an Episcopalian, changed Christian registration to R.C. when in the seminary and went on to start a new R.C. parish. The parish was sort of in between a lot of other established parishes and the land in between those other churches began to be developed, houses built, and there was a need for a new church, school etc. in the first decades of the twentieth century in that part of Philly.
Let me call this man Father Ed. He was of the old “God is to be feared” school of beliefs. He was an Old Testament kind of guy.
He was dead by the time I reached first grade. I have heard stories about him. One from a home inspector who related the story about being an altar boy in my parish and being five minutes late for mass. Father Ed ranted into him at the end of service about how you can’t be late for God. The priest also made the boy serve everyday for a year at 6:00 a.m. mass as punishment. That priest made an impression on that guy but I don’t think that Father Ed made a friend.
Then, as it happens sometimes in life, a lady knocked on the door and said that she had been raised in our house and asked if she might get a quick nostalgic view inside. She then got into some stories about the neighborhood. The one story I remember most was about Father Ed.
There was a Russian tailor in our neighborhood. He also did dry cleaning and his store was a block away from our house. We did business with the man. In the story of the visiting lady we finally understood why some of our neighbors took their dry cleaning three blocks away and not use the local guy. The Russian was also a Jew and a good tailor I might add. My parents, for working class, were flaming liberals. Being Jewish did not matter to them. That and my father liked to haggle.
The lady went on to say that as a child, she and her friends used to taunt the man. Let me say anti-Semitism was rampant in America back then in the 1930's, at least in this neighborhood. Well Father Ed got wind of the fact that some of his parishioners and children were harassing the man and boycotting his business. Father Ed made it a point to visit the tailor and bring his dry cleaning four blocks from the rectory. In good weather, Father Ed sat on the store stoop and smoked a cigar together with the tailor as a means to make a statement of sorts to the neighborhood. Apparently Father Ed and the tailor became good friends as the result of this local anti-Semitism.
Which leads me to the story of my next door neighbor in Arizona. Perry had a remarkable life. Left home and dairy farm in Minnesota when he was fifteen in the middle of the depression and headed west. He wanted to be a cowboy and that he became for some years. Then when World War II broke out he went up to Canada and joined the fight. He hit Juno beach on D-Day as a lieutenant in the Canadian army. He married a Brit, brought his war bride home and settled into life in Arizona B.A.C. (before air conditioning).
Perry joined the post office and then worked his way up to postmaster before retirement. I got to talk to him over the fence as a neighbor. Good stories. Went into his house a few times and vice versa. All in all, he was a great neighbor.
Then one day his wife came to us to tell us that Perry had skin cancer, that they did some necessary surgery but that the disease may have spread. I am not sure how all this got started. Perhaps my neighbor’s wife was talking to my wife and then the topic came up about me being an elder in a local church. Apparently Perry had no religious ties. I would have assumed that he might have attended church in his youth in Minnesota. His wife asked if I would talk to him.
I went over to the man in his house and tried to give comfort. I don’t think he wanted me there. Perhaps he was in denial of his own mortality. No doubt he sensed how green I was in giving comfort. I admit it. I couldn’t do him any good. Between his resistance and my inexperience, I did not serve his needs very well sad to say. Perry died suddenly about two weeks later while working in the garden. We went to give comfort to the wife next door that night and then we attended a graveside service a few days later.
This is where I get some reality checks put into my little bubble world of beliefs. I met Episcopal nuns at the graveside. I never knew such an animal existed. They had educated Perry’s children. There were lots of neighbors, relatives and co-workers from the post office. The most interesting person I met was a female Rabbi. Perry was Jewish?
I was a bit taken aback. I had heard the story about how Perry and his war bride had built the second house in this desert housing community in 1948. When I closed on the house next door, I got my deed of title or whatever and included in the paperwork was a covenant of restrictions set on the property when it was built.
That covenant was of course stamped with a label “Null and Void under Federal Civil Rights Act of...” The nasty thing about that covenant was the few pages that made it quite clear in a long range of specifics that no ...”Jews, negroes or dogs...” were allowed in this housing development etc.
As it turned out, Perry had no religious affiliation. His wife was Jewish. I chuckled about how a man like Perry, this cowboy, this war hero, this postmaster must have laughed at the WASP covenant of restrictions. Here was a real individual. Here was an old fashioned American. Here was a man.
Perry had made arrangements with the rabbi to be buried in solidarity with his wife’s belief system. Was Perry a believer, an atheist, an agnostic? I don’t know. In retrospect I don’t care. I knew the man. He was good ethical man. I prayed for him.
Part of being a cultural Christian is that you can embrace people of other beliefs, respect them and still retain you basic feel for yourself and not compromise your basic faith.
America’s greatest strength is and has always been its diversity.
Amidst this eclectic graveside audience, I had an epiphany. I also think that that paradigm shift thing happened.
It was fascinating to hear the twenty third psalm read in Hebrew. I am not certain that the Kaddish was said there but I realized something about my own belief systems. Christianity is wrapped up in a lot of layers of traditions, sacred tradition, faith, grace, propaganda, love, hate and on an on.
There under a blistering Arizona sun, prayers for a Jew were said in the desert. Were these the similar prayers that Joseph of Aramathea read over Jesus’ broken and lifeless body on Good Friday at twilight, eve of Sabbath?
You could be surrounded with stone cathedrals, and stained glass and the gospels could be read from a Gutenberg bible and the minister could be wrapped in gold cloth. But could you get any more from prayers at the end of your life than my neighbor got that day or when Jesus was interred and they rolled the stone in front of the tomb?
It makes you think. It made me think.
http://thisculturalchristian.blogspot.com/2008/06/sabbath-tales.html
June 13, 2008
The man who baptized me or more accurately the man who was founder and pastor of my parish in Philly was a fanatic of sorts. He started out life as an Episcopalian, changed Christian registration to R.C. when in the seminary and went on to start a new R.C. parish. The parish was sort of in between a lot of other established parishes and the land in between those other churches began to be developed, houses built, and there was a need for a new church, school etc. in the first decades of the twentieth century in that part of Philly.
Let me call this man Father Ed. He was of the old “God is to be feared” school of beliefs. He was an Old Testament kind of guy.
He was dead by the time I reached first grade. I have heard stories about him. One from a home inspector who related the story about being an altar boy in my parish and being five minutes late for mass. Father Ed ranted into him at the end of service about how you can’t be late for God. The priest also made the boy serve everyday for a year at 6:00 a.m. mass as punishment. That priest made an impression on that guy but I don’t think that Father Ed made a friend.
Then, as it happens sometimes in life, a lady knocked on the door and said that she had been raised in our house and asked if she might get a quick nostalgic view inside. She then got into some stories about the neighborhood. The one story I remember most was about Father Ed.
There was a Russian tailor in our neighborhood. He also did dry cleaning and his store was a block away from our house. We did business with the man. In the story of the visiting lady we finally understood why some of our neighbors took their dry cleaning three blocks away and not use the local guy. The Russian was also a Jew and a good tailor I might add. My parents, for working class, were flaming liberals. Being Jewish did not matter to them. That and my father liked to haggle.
The lady went on to say that as a child, she and her friends used to taunt the man. Let me say anti-Semitism was rampant in America back then in the 1930's, at least in this neighborhood. Well Father Ed got wind of the fact that some of his parishioners and children were harassing the man and boycotting his business. Father Ed made it a point to visit the tailor and bring his dry cleaning four blocks from the rectory. In good weather, Father Ed sat on the store stoop and smoked a cigar together with the tailor as a means to make a statement of sorts to the neighborhood. Apparently Father Ed and the tailor became good friends as the result of this local anti-Semitism.
Which leads me to the story of my next door neighbor in Arizona. Perry had a remarkable life. Left home and dairy farm in Minnesota when he was fifteen in the middle of the depression and headed west. He wanted to be a cowboy and that he became for some years. Then when World War II broke out he went up to Canada and joined the fight. He hit Juno beach on D-Day as a lieutenant in the Canadian army. He married a Brit, brought his war bride home and settled into life in Arizona B.A.C. (before air conditioning).
Perry joined the post office and then worked his way up to postmaster before retirement. I got to talk to him over the fence as a neighbor. Good stories. Went into his house a few times and vice versa. All in all, he was a great neighbor.
Then one day his wife came to us to tell us that Perry had skin cancer, that they did some necessary surgery but that the disease may have spread. I am not sure how all this got started. Perhaps my neighbor’s wife was talking to my wife and then the topic came up about me being an elder in a local church. Apparently Perry had no religious ties. I would have assumed that he might have attended church in his youth in Minnesota. His wife asked if I would talk to him.
I went over to the man in his house and tried to give comfort. I don’t think he wanted me there. Perhaps he was in denial of his own mortality. No doubt he sensed how green I was in giving comfort. I admit it. I couldn’t do him any good. Between his resistance and my inexperience, I did not serve his needs very well sad to say. Perry died suddenly about two weeks later while working in the garden. We went to give comfort to the wife next door that night and then we attended a graveside service a few days later.
This is where I get some reality checks put into my little bubble world of beliefs. I met Episcopal nuns at the graveside. I never knew such an animal existed. They had educated Perry’s children. There were lots of neighbors, relatives and co-workers from the post office. The most interesting person I met was a female Rabbi. Perry was Jewish?
I was a bit taken aback. I had heard the story about how Perry and his war bride had built the second house in this desert housing community in 1948. When I closed on the house next door, I got my deed of title or whatever and included in the paperwork was a covenant of restrictions set on the property when it was built.
That covenant was of course stamped with a label “Null and Void under Federal Civil Rights Act of...” The nasty thing about that covenant was the few pages that made it quite clear in a long range of specifics that no ...”Jews, negroes or dogs...” were allowed in this housing development etc.
As it turned out, Perry had no religious affiliation. His wife was Jewish. I chuckled about how a man like Perry, this cowboy, this war hero, this postmaster must have laughed at the WASP covenant of restrictions. Here was a real individual. Here was an old fashioned American. Here was a man.
Perry had made arrangements with the rabbi to be buried in solidarity with his wife’s belief system. Was Perry a believer, an atheist, an agnostic? I don’t know. In retrospect I don’t care. I knew the man. He was good ethical man. I prayed for him.
Part of being a cultural Christian is that you can embrace people of other beliefs, respect them and still retain you basic feel for yourself and not compromise your basic faith.
America’s greatest strength is and has always been its diversity.
Amidst this eclectic graveside audience, I had an epiphany. I also think that that paradigm shift thing happened.
It was fascinating to hear the twenty third psalm read in Hebrew. I am not certain that the Kaddish was said there but I realized something about my own belief systems. Christianity is wrapped up in a lot of layers of traditions, sacred tradition, faith, grace, propaganda, love, hate and on an on.
There under a blistering Arizona sun, prayers for a Jew were said in the desert. Were these the similar prayers that Joseph of Aramathea read over Jesus’ broken and lifeless body on Good Friday at twilight, eve of Sabbath?
You could be surrounded with stone cathedrals, and stained glass and the gospels could be read from a Gutenberg bible and the minister could be wrapped in gold cloth. But could you get any more from prayers at the end of your life than my neighbor got that day or when Jesus was interred and they rolled the stone in front of the tomb?
It makes you think. It made me think.
http://thisculturalchristian.blogspot.com/2008/06/sabbath-tales.html
June 13, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)