City Called Heaven

The images collide in a disturbing way. Santa Claus with a gun? The Christmas Eve killings in Covina, California, are shocking in so many ways. The numbers alone, ten dead and two wounded. A peaceful home invaded, a holiday celebration turned to mayhem. And Santa Claus, that icon of good cheer, and generosity, possessed by vengeance and dealing death. Yet those are not the only colliding images. On the one hand, the prophet Isaiah foresees his nation’s restoration, where only extravagant poetry will begin to evoke the joy of this hoped-for deliverance. The nation and its people are envisioned as a bride and bridegroom, dressed in their finest, with garlands and jewels, the best possible for the best possible occasion. And the long-sought vindication, for which the people burned, is described as a burning torch. Perhaps it is more shocking because we know people like these, we recognize the house they live in. The killer was a church usher who had recently lost his job. The dreams of br...

Best wishes and thanks to you for fellowship this year, and in hope for the year to come. Christmas has a marvelous way of focusing on what is most important. Peace on earth. Good will. Gifts given from God to us, from one to another. And that tiny little baby, a sign of light and life. May your Christmas be blessed with peace, and Immanuel.

I heard on the radio this morning about comments made by Pope Benedict that gay, lesbian, and transgender identity and sexual behavior are threats to the survival of humanity. Reuters, Deecember 22, 2008 : Pope Benedict said Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction. The Church "should also protect man from the destruction of himself. A sort of ecology of man is needed," the pontiff said in a holiday address to the Curia, the Vatican's central administration. International Herald Tribune The Daily Telegraph : Pope Benedict XVI has denounced gender theory, warning that it blurs the distinction between male and female and could thus lead to the "self-destruction" of the human race. Daily Telegraph This comes on the heels of the announcement that Rev. Rick Warren will be giving the invocation at the innauguration of Barack Obama to be the 44th President of the United States o...

Lord of heaven and Lord of earth, your heart is grieved at terror and violence. Watch over the city of Mumbai at this hour. Protect, we pray, those lives still at risk. We pray that captives be released, that those seeking to do further violence be restrained, and the lives even of the authors of violence be held safe from harm. Nurture and cherish those many lives affected by these attacks: especially those of the victims and those close to them, witnesses, and responders. And in a city with great wealth, let us remember the poor, that the shalom of the city which we seek be not simply the end of violence, but renewed health and hope for all who shelter there. In Jesus name, we pray for deliverance and for peace, trusting in thy great mercy. Amen.

One of my peak spiritual experiences came when I volunteered with United for Peace and Justice to work at a big anti-war march. It was planned before the Iraq invasion but took place just after the armed conflict began. Through the random (or Spirit-led) workings of their fairly-anarchic organization, I got assigned to the security detail. About twenty people stationed on Broadway in the lower 20s with plastic tubs and sacks, and one guy with a bullhorn asking for donations to support the work and the next march. Surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, there was little need for actual security to guard the money, what I mostly did was thanked people. "Thank you for coming out today!" "You folks are awesome!" shouted a few hundred times, to some subset of the 250,000+ people who filed by. I can scarcely tell you how good I felt doing that. At the closing of what is probably his earliest letter in the Bible, St. Paul urges his friends "Be joyful always; pray ...

"In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope." -- Barack Obama, Nashua, New Hampshire, January 8, 2008 There are a great many things that can be said today, and people all over this nation and the world are saying them. IT'S BEAUTIFUL! There's a woman I know who has spent most of her life in Jersey City in Ward F - you know, the part of town that Martin Luther King Drive runs through. Janice has raised kids and grandkids, often without much to go on. She is ecstatic. She, like me, has had a crazy smile on her face all day! She told me how, last night she didn't want to leave the TV even to go to the bathroom, and when she finally ran out and came back, Obama had gone from 100-something to 200-something and she knew she was about to witness something big. She talked about the people crowded into Grant Park and Times Square, how they were black and white and every color. She stayed up until 3am, crying and laughing and s...

I've spent the past few weekends in Pennsylvania, along with other volunteers from NJ (and elsewhere). It has been a heartening and moving experience. I've heard remarkable things. The woman in East Stroudsburg who was laid off in June. Her husband's salary is not enough to make their mortgage payments. I met older people concerned about health care and Social Security and younger people in college concerned about whether they will have jobs and how hard they'll have to work to pay off debts (personal from college loans and national from Bush's deficits). In the Poconos I talked to a "typical redneck" who's convinced we need a change so badly he's ready to try "that guy" - Obama. There was the working class guy at the Chinese restaurant in Allentown. "I'm a Republican," he said, "but we can't take any more of this." He asked for an Obama button and went out wearing it. I met a pregnant woman whose husband is a ...