The Last Week

The Last Week by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan is an excellent introduction to the origin of Holy Week. The book tracks the Gospel of Mark, which gives us a day by day account of the last week in the life of Jesus. I leaf through it each year at this time, to help me remember why Holy Week is so important to me. Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest and nationally acclaimed preacher and author says, "It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this volume for students of the Bible, especially those who mean to follow the Prince of Peace."

Charles

More books

Fingerprints of God
Barbara Bradley Haggerty
Riverhead Books, 2009

This is a terrific book about science and religion in 21st century America. I have read it twice and made notes on every chapter.

Barbara Bradley Haggerty is the religion correspondent for National Public Radio.

She takes as her departure point The Varieties of Religious Experience written by the famed Harvard scientist William James in 1901. James concluded that while science could never prove or disprove the existence of God “Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.”

Haggery explores those “potential forms of consciousness entirely different” by tracing her own spiritual journey, describing the latest scientific explorations of the human brain, near death experiences, the effect of western and eastern meditational practices on the brain, speaking in tongues and the diversity yet unity in the great religious traditions of the world.

She writes clearly about science, religion and her own journey. She observes that “Scripture is metaphorical, explaining the world in a way that humans could understand at the time it was written, thousands of years ago. I do not think it was meant to be freeze-framed for all eternity.” p.282.

Haggerty concludes that there is no one way to God and that a transforming encounter with another type of reality is not confined to one religious expression.

Good Quote: “...the universe is stitched together not just by infinite intelligence but also by love and justice and beauty....We have all about us the fingerprints of God.” p. 284-5


We Took to the Woods
Louise Dickinson Rich
Lippincott, 1942

A calm, humorous and gently reflective book by a one time school teacher who met a divorced Harvard engineer while hiking in Maine in the 1930’s. A best seller when it came out during World War II, the book continues to have marvelous staying power. It describe what it was like for two educated people to live in the backwoods of Maine without electricity or running water, while raising a son, six Huskies and a skunk.

My grandfather owned a copy, which I first read when I was 12. I reread it every five years or so. I dont know what happened to my grandfather’s book but mine came from a used book sale at the Stanford library and has the book plate to prove it. “Gift of Dr. Raymond Jadarola”. I feel sure I would have liked Dr. Jadarola.

Good Quote: “The three weapons to use against axe cuts are: [a] sense enough not to get cut, [b] a good working knowledge of how to apply a tourniquet, if the worst occurs, and [c] a philosophical attitude.” 245.

Charles

What I am Reading

From time to time I will be posting short snippets about what I have been reading, just in case you might enjoy the same kind of things that seem to interest me. Or not. As the case may be.

So here is a short list of things I have been working on. I read the hardest things early in the morning because that is when I am freshest in mind and spirit and the lighter things at night, when I have had enough of the day and want to wind down. Perhaps like you, I often have several books going at the same time. And I am afraid I have to confess that I don't finish everything I start.

The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
By Dr. Francis S. Collins, Free Press, 2006

A graduate of the University of Virginia with a PhD in Chemistry from Yale, an MD from the University of North Carolina, and the leader of the Human Genome Project, Dr Collins is one of the most distinguished scientists in America. He is also a Christian.

The Language of God traces his own spiritual journey from atheism to agnosticism to a life of faith based on the teachings of Jesus. In his view science can answer the great questions of physical reality but is not equipped to answer the great questions of human meaning.

Dr Collins writes cleanly and is particularly helpful in describing the limitations of Creationism and Intelligent Design.

His first exposure to Christianity came when his agnostic parents encouraged him to join an Episcopal boy’s choir. They told him it was a great way to learn music but he shouldn’t take the theology too seriously.

Good Quote: “Life is short. The death rate will be one person for the foreseeable future. Opening one’s self to the life of the spirit can be indescribably enriching.”

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The Moon’s a Balloon and Bring on the Empty Horses
By David Niven, 1971 and 1975

Born in England, a graduate of Sandhurst and a decorated officer in the British Army in World War II, David Niven was also a famous movie star in Hollywood and played the lead in “Around the World in 80 Days”. Who knew that he was a gifted writer with an acute memory and a sharp pen?

Both books were international bestsellers in their day. For good reason. Funny. Poignant. And occasionally tragic. The first is the best. Easy to read in bits and pieces. Catnip for all but particularly if you are interested in the great movies of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Apt Quote: “I apologize for the ensuing name dropping. It was hard to avoid it.”

A Check for $10,000

Last week I wrote a personal check for $10,000 payable to the Organ
Fund at the Church of the Good Shepherd.

I have never written a larger check in my life, unless you count
tuition payments for Sarah and Andrew when they were in college and I
was in seminary and that is such a financially painful memory I would
rather not go there.

I had hoped to write the check to the church in a leisurely and
reflective moment. Instead I scribbled it out in haste just before
racing out the door to make an unexpected visit to the hospital.

And yet, once again I discovered the power and the pleasure of giving.
Throughout the day and indeed ever since, that check has given me
intense satisfaction. I have been able to make a contribution to the
welfare and well being of the people of Good Shepherd for years to
come. I savor that thought and taste it every day.

Don't get me wrong. I could have used the money in countless other
ways. Through the vagaries of family history I have come to own a 116
year old house on an island in northern Lake Huron. I love it. Its
been in the family since 1921. Four generations of my family have
lived, squabbled, loved, worked and played there. Each summer when I
walk in the front door I see my grandparents, my parents, my brother
Mike, all dead now, yet still present in the very wood and furniture
that hasn't been changed significantly since, oh, 1928. I sometimes
think I care for that house more than life itself. And, yes, $10,000
would do a lot to keep the old place going.

I am also finding that at this stage in life, my personal savings are
well, personal. Hard to acquire, harder to replenish.

Yet writing a check to the church for the largest gift of my life is
perhaps the finest, most lasting pleasure I have ever known.

Who knows? Maybe Jesus was right.

I rather suspect he was.

Joyously yours,

Charles

Building for a Strong Future at Good Shepherd

For over fifty years, Good Shepherd has been a caring community that cares for real people in real places in real ways.

During the past five years, Good Shepherd has been growing. Quietly, sometimes fitfully, but nevertheless steadily, our community has grown, even as our founding generation has died.

As a caring community we have grown in depth as well as breadth. In our own distinctive way we care for each other and for the world: for our kids in their education as young followers of Christ; our teenagers as they take their faith into the world in Central America and South Dakota and Harlan, Kentucky; for our spiritual development as adults in EFM and at Good Shepherd and the World; for our growth in the Holy Habits of tithing, prayer, study and Sabbath time; for our compassionate care for our members through Stephen Ministry and Eucharistic Visitors, Martha’s Kitchen and the Men’s Club; for the hungry who need food and get it from Fish, for the homeless who need shelter and get it through Family Promise, and for public school teachers who simply need friendly supporters. Good Shepherd cares.

Now the time has come for us to care about our own home and to build strongly for our own future as a worshipping congregation.

During the past six months the vestry has studied the real needs of a beautiful church that was built in the 1950’s. We love our home but as one vestry member said, its an old house. Our church now needs the loving care we have always shown to others.

During the year ahead, we will give our church the care it needs and deserves. That care will take many forms, from building new supports to protect our wonderful stained glass windows, to making the altar accessible for those who prefer not to use stairs, to insuring that when its hot we stay cool and when its cold we stay warm, to finding and repairing the persistent leak in the entrance way and parish hall and oh yes, repaving the parking lot. These and other tasks are important for the future of the church.

But the single most important investment we can make in the future of Good Shepherd is to invest in a high quality organ.

Churches grow because they have great music, great teaching and great preaching.

Although Christian worship will always honor silence as a means to approach God, for nearly two thousand years, great worship has been led by great music.

Because of the configuration of our A frame interior, installing a pipe organ, new or historic, in our present space has turned out to be difficult and perhaps impossible. But we can acquire, install and enjoy a high quality electronic organ to lead our worship now and well into our future.

Recently an informal group of vestry members and friends of music have listened to electronic organs in Knoxville and Atlanta. They have recommended that we buy an Allen Q 350 organ. The Q 350 has acoustic qualities that even Jim Rogers admires. Jim says that it has a remarkable sound and Jim is a demanding musician.

You can read about the Allen Q 350 either in the literature available in the church or online by clicking here. But the bottom line is that it costs $70,000 and if we order by Christmas we can probably have it installed by Easter. While $70,000 may sound like a lot, even a small pipe organ would cost twice that amount, not including annual maintenance.

I believe so strongly that acquiring a high quality organ is a critical investment in the future of Good Shepherd that I have pledged $10,000 from my personal savings to help buy it. [this is in addition to my personal pledge of $10,000 for the year 2012 as a tenth of my anticipated total income and benefits before taxes] I am not alone. Others have now pledged an additional $30,000. With a current total of nearly $40,000 we are over half way there.

If you too wish to help take a strong step into the future of the church, the vestry invites you to make your own contribution—in any amount—to the purchase of the new organ. You may make a contribution in any way and over any period of time that makes sense to you. After all, we are in this for the next fifty years.

With peace and blessings at Advent,

Charles

Want to Help Give Good Shepherd a REAL Christmas Present?

Our electronic organ is twenty years old and badly needs to be replaced.

We have found the right new organ. Its an Allen Q350 50 Stop Three

Manual Console electric. 

Cost installed at Good Shepherd: $70,000.

 Judy Burnette, Jerry Vail, Nancy Harless, Jim Rogers and I traveled to Atlanta recently so that we could listen and Jim could test and play the Q350.   Jim can describe the technical aspects.  For now its enough to say that Judy, Jerry, Nancy and I agreed its a great instrument with a wonderful sound. Jim tells us that it will sound 50% better installed and tuned.  During the year ahead we will be taking a number of other important steps to renew the parish for the next fifty years. There is no doubt that we will have to find prudent and timely ways to address the real life challenges of an aging building and a parking lot that needs resurfacing.  Nevertheless, I know of no other single project more important to the future of Good Shepherd than the purchase and installation of a high quality instrument to help lead us in worship.  I was so impressed by the instrument-- and the importance of proceeding as quickly as possible while the price is still in effect--that I told the group I would contribute $10,000 to the purchase price, in addition to my annual pledge of $10,000 for 2012. I am taking the money out of my personal savings and will pay it to Good Shepherd later this month. I had not planned to make such a contribution but I am doing so because I know this is an important investment in our future as a community of worship and faith.

 I hope others will join me. In fact several others have already done so.   We now have $34,250 in pledged support. That leaves $35,750 to go.  If we can raise the money before   Christmas, it would be a wonderful Christmas present to the entire parish. And we could have a wonderful new organ in time for Easter. 

 We have glimpsed the promised land.  

With thanksgiving for your presence at Good Shepherd and for your support of the work of God in this special place.  

Charles  

If you would like to know more about the Q350, here is the link:  

http://www.allenorgan.com/www/products/q350/q350.html

70 Oreo Cookies

When I was a child, General Dwight Eisenhower was worshipped. Not only
had he led the free world to victory in World War II, Eisenhower had
been elected President, twice. Because he had been both the supreme
military and civilian leader of America, Eisenhower spoke with unique
authority on those places in our national life where military needs
collided with civilian necessities. Here is what General Eisenhower
said as he concluded his eight years as President of the United States:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are
not fed....."

Bold words. Few of our leaders today seem willing to recognize, along
with Eisenhower, that when we do not feed our hungry and do not care
for our poor but use that money to make guns, launch warships and fire
rockets, we rob ourselves. Yet according to the non-partisan Office of
Management and Budget, 63% of our discretionary budget for 2011 is
spent on our military and veteran affairs. Our national military
budget is now $700 billion dollars a year.

Ben Cohen, the co- founder of Ben&Jerry's, uses a stack of Oreo
cookies to illustrate the immensity of $700 billion dollars. If one
Oreo cookie represents $10 billion dollars, then the Pentagon's budget
is a stack of 70 Oreo cookies. In comparison to that stack of 70, the
federal government spends just 4.5 Oreos on education, half an Oreo on
alternative energy sources and a fraction of an Oreo on Head Start. If
we took just 7 Oreos from the Pentagon's stack, we could provide
health care for all the poor kids who currently don't have any at all,
offer Head Start for all the kids who need it, and eliminate our need
for Mideast oil by developing new energy efficiencies.

The United States has an ocean on each side and two friendly allies on
the north and south. We now spend 5 times more on weapons than the
next country that is not our ally and that country is China. While our
concern for terrorists is real, the vast majority of our national
military budget is not spent for defense against terrorists but for
the guns, warships and rockets that General Eisenhower warned would
rob us of our ability to care for our poorest members.

Our national budget is a moral statement, a statement about what is
important to us as a society. As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
wind down and as Congressional debates heat up, those of us who try to
follow Jesus have an opportunity to ask "What would Jesus cut?"
Perhaps Jesus might look at a military budget of $700 billion dollars,
or 70 Oreo cookies if you will, and suggest that the time has come
for us to follow the advice of General Eisenhower and use a fraction
of that vast amount to help those who cannot help themselves. Jesus
would understand the need. The haunting question is why don't we?

In faith,

Charles