I AM MUSLIM!

As Trump's racists advisers spread rumors and dissensions between the people of this nation, I feel compelled to respond proactively.

THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN AMERICAN!

Trump land: Racist ALL

 The Church of Our Savior in Silver Spring, Maryland had a sign announcing the time of a Spanish Language service slashed this past Saturday night and the words about crudely written on the back.

 By the time I drove by on Sunday afternoon the words had been replaced with two poster both reading "Loves Wins".  The Bishop of the Diocese of Washington came to the service to worship with the congregants.  She's a class act.

The Bishop also wrote a letter to the Diocese:

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ:

Last night at Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Hillandale in Silver Spring, Maryland, both a sign advertising the Spanish-language Mass and the wall of the parish's memorial garden were vandalized with the words, "Trump Nation. Whites Only." I am heartsick, and can only imagine how the people of Our Saviour, one of the most culturally diverse parishes in the diocese, feel.

I will be with Our Saviour's Spanish-language congregation for Mass at 1 pm, and I invite as many of you as are able to join me there. In your services this morning, I hope that you can include prayers for the people of Our Saviour and let your congregations know of the invitation to gather with them in solidarity at 1 pm today.

Faithfully,

Bishop Mariann

Historic St. Mary's Parrish - ECUSA

St. Mary's City, Maryland is one of the most interesting and beautiful places in America.  In 1633, it was the home of a Piscatawy Indian village and year later, it was the home of the first permanent settlement in the colony of Maryland.  The colonists purchased the land from the natives who were already planning on relocating due to recent incursions by more aggressive tribe belonging to the Susquehannocks in the north.  A rare example of a win-win in early colonial history.  Today the area is made up primarily of two entities: An every expanding living history museum made up authentically reconstructed structures and artifacts and the most beautiful of public honors Colleges, St. Mary's College, in the nation.  And then there is also this Episcopal Church!  

 The church has been around for a very long time and predates all the interest in and reconstruction around the Historic St. Mary's City buildings.  This is important only in that the original State House was built in the middle of what today is the parish cemetery.

 In side the humble structure is a humble church.

 ...with some amazing stained-glass.

 My favorite window is this one that shows the Sts. Peter and Andrew with their dog, Romeo!

 During this visit, I noticed this new raised garden in the open lawn in front of the church.  Upon inquiry, my friend was too happy to share it with me.

 It is there new columbarium!  Wow.  So wonderful.

 One of the first inhabitants was a retire priest who sometimes served at the parish in a pinch.  Father Charles Demeré and his wife Margaret.

 Any columbarium approved for sun bathing by such a beautiful little skink is okay in my book!

 The cemetery is not only full...there are as many graves whose markers have been lost in the past 400 years as those still standing...  And also there are historical markers and monuments.

 This one commemorates the site of the original state house completed in 1676

 This one near the little precipice overlooking the estuary commemorates the two little ships that brought the settlers.  The Ark and the Dove.  The Ark was designed for the passengers and the much smaller dove tagged along madden with supplies.  Not to mislead, the Ark was no larger than the much acclaimed Mayflower of the pilgrims.

 The views across the little estuary are always stunning.

 Look to the right and you see the beautifully groomed lawn of an estate that could as well have been an early 19th century slave-holding plantation.

 Looked to the left and you are thrown back 150 years to a little dock and a replica of the Dove...

Today's Sermon

from MY GARDENS

If I could put my woods in song,

And tell what's there enjoyed,

All men would to my gardens throng,

And leave the cities void.

In my plot no tulips blow, --

Snow-loving pines and oaks instead;

And rank the savage maples grow

From spring's faint flush to autumn red.

My garden is a forest ledge

Which older forests bound;

The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge,

Then plunge to depths profound.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803 - 1882

Today's Sermon

ODE TO TOMATOES

The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth, recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.

~ Pablo Neruda, 1904 - 1973

Today's Sermon

PITTSBURGH

I burn your Highland Park. I acid your Carnegie
car dealerships. Your Squirrel Hill, sheer terror
in winter. But most of all, I hate your Liberty Avenue,
the last place, one night, I saw my closest friend
saying, Wait here, outside the after-hours club. I wait,
hating your Strip, half your Shadyside, all of Bloomfield,
the bluffs and flats where my friend trades himself.
I wait hours, then trace your Mexican War
Streets looking for his car, so I could declare a truce
in the battle he was fighting against himself. Your Hot
Metal, your Fort Pitt Bridge that leads headfirst
into the Monongahela. In the morning, he’s home.
He cannot tell me where it hurts. I help him shower
off the Duquesne residue, the priesting old world
shame. Pittsburgh, you’re all grit and gristle turning crystal
track marks, turning a man meth mouth. I feed him,
put him to bed. I’ll keep watch tonight in a cable car
ascending Mt. Washington, your smokestacks
blowing clouds over the confluence until all you are,
Pittsburgh, is a sleepless shimmer I will watch
diminish down to the savaged seed of morning,
as impossible to watch as you are to name.

~ James Allen Hall, 

Reverend ME! Who Knew!?

A friend and I were talking and in the conversation it happened that he was looking for someone to marry him and his boyfriend. He has an Uncle who is ordained and might be doing it, but needed a backup, and well, two people talking shit and all and well I'd be as good a minister as any for such an occasion, right? And don't get me wrong, I am totally honored to even be considered a worthy presider over such a wonder event...but I needed to establish my credentials.

After all Sir Ian McKellan did it for Captain Picard, right? So I explored the same avenue and sent off my application to the good folks at the Universal Life Church Monastery.

Low and behold, a couple of weeks later my ordination papers arrived. Talk about the separation of Church and State--it's all there. Even a letter of good standing should there be any issues. To be honest, (and ministers should always be honest) it is a bit overwhelming. When I think about all of the coursework in dead languages, and ass kissing, and hoop jumping that some of my friends engaged in in order to be ordained in churches that are DYING! That ought to have been thanking their God for men and women still interested in prolonging their demise...well, I'm humbled that it was so easy. I have no desire to preach or form a congregation. But it is nice to know that I can officiate a wedding or a funeral just like my friends, and the state will not intervene on the civil document side of such things.

My Newest Hero!

Did you know that in many American cities it is illegal to give a homeless person food?  You could become a criminal if you so much as roll your window down and hand a Kit Kat chocolate bar to an indigent Veteran begging for work at an intersection.  This completely incenses me.  Of all the shit that needs to be flushed in this country, feeding hungry citizens who don't even have a place to sleep is insane.

Conservative, mostly Republican city counsels and mayors have passed this legislation--but not exclusively--not by far.  I won't call any of them Christian, because apparently persecuting homeless people in the most fundamental and life-threatening way is justified in their minds.  It doesn't jive with Christ's thought, "I tell you truly, in so far as you did it to one of these my brothers, even to the least of them, you did it to me." - (Matthew 25:40b) either.  How it is that the majority of citizens in these cities who ARE Christians accept and vote for representatives who pass immoral laws like this is beyond me.  The list includes a lot a big cities (Here's a partial list):

ALABAMA: Birmingham

ARIZONA: Phoenix

ARKANSAS: Little Rock

COLORADO: Denver

CALIFORNIA: Los Angeles, Pasadena, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Ventura

FLORIDA: Daytona Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Gainesville, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, Sarasota, St. Petersburg, Tampa, West Palm Beach

GEORGIA: Atlanta

INDIANA: Indianapolis

IOWA: Cedar Rapids, Davenport

MARYLAND: Baltimore

MISSOURI: Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield

NORTH CAROLINA: Charlotte, Raleigh

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Manchester

NEW MEXICO: Albuquerque

NEVADA: Las Vegas

OHIO: Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton

OKLAHOMA: Oklahoma City

OREGON: Portland

PENNSYLVANIA: Philadelphia

SOUTH CAROLINA: Columbia, Myrtle Beach

TENNESSEE: Chattanooga, Nashville

TEXAS: Corpus Christi, Dallas, Houston

UTAH: Salt Lake City

WASHINGTON: Olympia, Seattle

Dove tail this into the latest conservative craze: Religious Freedom Laws.  These laws allow people to void other laws IF those laws go against their strongly held religious beliefs.  They are primarily aimed at allowing "Christians" to persecute Gay Americans by denying them access to goods and services provided by these "Christian" people.  Without this law, such persecution would be a hate crime and they would be in deep doo doo.  But the rub is that they don't admit to this in the laws.  The laws are written in such a generic way to allow this outcome without preventing other outcomes and interpretations.  If they were written as intended they would be patently UNCONSTITUTIONAL. 

Enter one good Samaritan named Joan Cheever.   She is my new HERO.  Here is her story.

Joan Cheever, a San Antonio woman who’s been feeding the homeless for the past decade, is arguing that Texas’ religious freedom law should protect her from the $2,000 fine she’s facing for her charitable work. Cheever was cited by police last week for handing out food in a local park. She argues the Religious Freedom Restoration Act legalizes her activities. 

According to the San Antonio Express News, which we saw via Raw Story, Cheever, a chef, runs a nonprofit food truck called the Chow Train, promising healthy, gourmet meals to the hungry. She says she’s been feeding people at Maverick Park since 2005 without incident, until last week, when four bike patrol officers ticketed her for providing food out of a vehicle other than her food truck.

Cheever told WOAI she believes that both the Constitution’s provisions on free exercise of religion as well as Texas’ fifteen-year-old Religious Freedom Restoration act—enacted well before it became a national trend—should protect her feeding the homeless. She claims the police disagreed: “One of the police officers said, ‘Ma’am, if you want to pray, go to church,’ And I said, ‘This is how I pray. When I cook this food and deliver it to the people who are less fortunate.”

Cheever’s citation carries a fine of up to $2,000. Her court date is in June; she’s said she’ll cite the RFRA in her defense.

Unlike, say, homosexuality or abortion, Jesus had a great deal to say about feeding the hungry. From Matthew 25: 

Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

Presumably, though, when Jesus handed out loaves and fishes during his speaking engagements, he had all the proper permits in place.

Blessed Easter Vigil

Back when I was a participant in Christianity, I had a favorite holiday. It was not one that I came to love when I first started my sojourn through the pantheon of theological possibilities. I began my journey as a Methodist. Methodists are generally speaking kind people, and their churches are milk toast. If you like being treated nicely, you will like being there. They make very few demands upon you, and are appreciative of your presence and input. It's not a bad place to start.

But like any gateway drug, you want more. I found more in an Evangelical setting. It was my private college: A mish mash of faiths where Methodists, Nazarenes, Wesleyans, Free Methodists, American Missionary Church-ers, Salvation Army kids (Sallies), and Disciple of Christ-ers all intermingled. There were even Pentecostals in our midst. And eventually I migrated in their direction. Yes, I was once a member of the Assemblies of God denomination--and No, I didn't "speak in tongues". I liked the emotional high I would get from participating in the worship. I loved the emotional presence of my fellow AG friends. But even the well-grounded and sincere mentorship of a wonderful pastor couldn't overcome the blatant hypocrisy they tolerated or my ultimate need for intellectual integrity. A need that pointed me in the direction of ritual. So like all good things, the pendulum swings...

And before I knew it, I was immersing myself in liturgy. I continued my journey in the Episcopal church. It's a great place to experience ritual through liturgy AND they take anyone into their fold. Nothing scares them. Not even refugees from denominations that make no sense to them at all! And there I learned about Church history in a contextual way that took what I had already experienced in Church as Fellowship and Church as Catharsis to Church as Ritual via Liturgy. I hung my hat there for a long time. I was confirmed at the National Cathedral (and through a comedy of errors--multiple times by multiple bishops!--but that's another story.)

After all of that, I finally realized that as ubiquitous and pernicious as Christianity is in the life and governance of this nation, it simply is just an institution. One way to believe. Nothing special. Yet, there are times when I think back on my participation in this cultural behemoth and hold fond memories. So back to my original sentence. My favorite holiday was Easter. My favorite service: Easter Vigil. Why? I loved the fire, and I loved that moment when you shake those bells for all you're worth and fill the sanctuary with a cacophony of metallic noise!

Blessed Easter Vigil to my Christian friends. Shake those bells!

Today's Sermon

ON DEATH

I think it is a good thing
to think about death
on a regular basis. Not
too often, but enough so
the idea is not awkward. After all,
you don't want to be caught
so completely off guard
that it's nothing more
than a
fright.

Not that anyone
gets the opportunity
to approach it casually.
I can't imagine it's like
deciding to flip a switch--well,
not for most of us, anyway.

I think I'm probably like most people.

I don't want it to be too painful--
it doesn't seem realistic
to imagine that there
will be no pain, right?
And if
I have the piece of mind
when my death comes, I would
so like to be able to smile.

Of course, laughter would be better,
but I don't want to be greedy.

~ R. William Ash

Friday Snowing Buddha

Today's Sermon

THE END OF THE WORLD

has already happened 

is happening 

here it is 

what to prove 

nothing 

here it is 

no other 

than 

the small coiled teeth 

of mollusk radula scraping granite tidepools 

clean 

seen correctly 

every bush 

is a burning bush

~ Meredith Stricker

Today's Sermon

OPEN THE BLIND

Nests in the eaves stir at dawn
Ephemeral as our peace
Morning prayer
Grace before food
I understand
The endless sky the small earth
The shadow cone
Your shining
Lips and eyes
Your thighs drenched with the sea
A telescope full of fireflies
Innumerable nebulae all departing
Ten billion years before we ever met

~ Kenneth Rexroth, 1905 - 1982

Today's Sermon

WATCHING SANDHILL CRANES

Spirits among us have departed—friends,
relatives, neighbors: we can’t find them.
If we search and call, the sky merely waits.
Then some day here come the cranes
planing in from cloud or mist—sharp,
lonely spears, awkwardly graceful.
They reach for the land; they stalk
the ploughed fields, not letting us near,
not quite our own, not quite the world’s.

People go by and pull over to watch. They
peer and point and wonder. It is because
these travelers, these far wanderers,
plane down and yearn in a reaching
flight. They extend our life,
piercing through space to reappear
quietly, undeniably, where we are.

~ William Stafford,  1914 - 1993

Today's Sermon

THE FIRST DAYS

The first thing I saw in the morning
Was a huge golden bee ploughing
His burly right shoulder into the belly
Of a sleek yellow pear
Low on a bough.
Before he could find that sudden black honey
That squirms around in there
Inside the seed, the tree could not bear any more.
The pear fell to the ground,
With the bee still half alive
inside its body.
He would have died if I hadn’t knelt down
And sliced the pear gently
A little more open.
The bee shuddered, and returned.
Maybe I should have left him alone there,
Drowning in his own delight.
The best days are the first
To flee, sang the lovely
Musician born in this town
So like my own.
I let the bee go
Among the gasworks at the edge of Mantua.

~ James Wright, 1927 - 1980

A Thought About Pope Francis

t's no secret, I am not impressed with Pope Francis. I admit, the idea of Pope Francis is intriguing, but so much of what he's been doing has only been dicking around with words. When he's tried to do real things, he's gotten his ass handed to him on a shiny golden paten. Well, until recently--I have noticed how he's been replacing recalcitrant, belligerent, conservative Bishops with younger, hipper, more genial men. It's a start.

Then I stand impressed by his behind the scenes detent in brokering rapprochement between the United States and Cuba--for this I am on his side to win the next Nobel Peace Prize.

And now a kick ass homily not only directed at the pack of old farts at the Vatican, but TO them? You have to at least say this, anyone who calls these conservative assholes out as having "existential Schizophrenia" and "spiritual Alzheimer's," and of practicing the "terrorism of gossip" while wearing "Funereal faces" is a guy who knows how to turn the tables and take no prisoners. He does have a food taster, right?

While I am no more interested in theism--that's a settled issue for me; I am much more interested in what he does with his belief in "god". He now has my attention.

Today's Sermon

WINTER GRACE

If you have seen the snow


under the lamppost


piled up like a white beaver hat on the picnic table


or somewhere slowly falling


into the brook


to be swallowed by water,


then you have seen beauty


and know it for its transience.


And if you have gone out in the snow


for only the pleasure


of walking barely protected


from the galaxies,


the flakes settling on your parka


like the dust from just-born stars,


the cold waking you


as if from long sleeping,


then you can understand


how, more often than not,


truth is found in silence,


how the natural world comes to you


if you go out to meet it,

its icy ditches filled with dead weeds,


its vacant birdhouses, and dens


full of the sleeping.


But this is the slowed-down season


held fast by darkness


and if no one comes to keep you company


then keep watch over your own solitude.


In that stillness, you will learn


with your whole body


the significance of cold


and the night,


which is otherwise always eluding you.

~ Patricia Fargnoli, 1937 - 

Today's Sermon

I Corinthians 13:11

When I was a child, I spoke as a child.

I even had a child's disease.  I ran

From the Doberman like all children

On my street, but old men called me

Special.  The Doberman caught up,

Chewed my right knee.  Limp now

In two places, I carried a child's Bible

Like a football under the arm that didn't

Ache.  I was never alone.  I owned

My brother's shame of me.  I loved

The words thou and thee.  Both meant

My tongue in front of my teeth.

Both meant a someone speaking to me.

So what if I itched.  So what if I couldn't

Breathe.  I climbed the cyclone fence

Like children on my street and went

First when old men asked for a boy

To pray or to read.  Some had it worse--

Nobody whipped me with a water hose

Or a phone cord or a leash.  Old men

Said I'd grow into my face, and I did.

~ Jericho Brown

Today's Sermon

Brady Street, San Francisco

for Roberto Muñoz

The apartment

is still standing, still about to fall.

It's circled now in Technicolors of

competing graffiti

more artful than we were to

stay in love.

Our names in cement are long gone.

It's my first time back since the news.

From the street

nothing seems to have changed.

My mind too has trapped the action in mid-flight:

how I hid in the closet (naked) the

first morning your family descended unannounced

and told your father we'd had

balls for breakfast when my Spanish slipped on

eggs.  You shot your

one-note nasal laugh and spun on your heel,

but I'd cracked the shell of tension.

You mother sat on the couch--

a miniature goddess of plenty, her feet

not touching the floor--and adopting meå

in her knowing smile.

Here's a junk drawer more of memories:

an orange cat that lived through an air-shaft fall;

the Twin Peaks fog from our bedroom window bay;

snacking on Stevie Wonder and your skin;

the double mattress we had to carry home

on our backs because

it cost every cent we'd saved.

After the first fight over nothing you

slammed into the street.  I screamed

from the third floor into the dark I'd

die if

you didn't love me; you cried and

crept back up the stairs creak by

indolent creak.

We stayed together.

That time.

And when the loving was over--

three years, two apartments,

and a continent later--

no one died.  Not

altogether.  At least not

right away.

We left behind the odor of queers in the carpet,

the grease from our last

cooked meal,

a hole I punched in the plaster with my anger

and covered with the Desiderata so

the landlord wouldn't howl.

You see, it only takes a score of years

to make the bitter memories sweet,

like lemons in a sugar glaze.

I'd eat an orchard of them for you now

if you could be alive again to see me try.

~ Michael Lassell, 1947 - 

You Can't Put New Wine Into Old Wine Skins

I just don't understand why anyone thinks that this Pope is going to effect any change of consequence in the Catholic Church. When he starts inviting the Ultra-Conservative Cardinals to dinner, and then they sudden die of a "heart attack," I'll believe. That's the way change happens at the Vatican--"divine" intervention from the stronger hand. Ask the only true reformer's ghost in my lifetime, Pope John XXIII.
-----------------------
VATICAN Watch: BULLSHIT CHECK 101:

In a report Monday, the Vatican had said that gays and lesbians have "gifts to offer" the Christian community and acknowledged that same-sex couples can give "precious support" to one other.

The statement, an interim report from a closely watched meeting of Catholic clergy here, was widely praised by liberals. It is believed to be the first time the Vatican has said anything positive about gay relationships.
One longtime Vatican journalist called the statement a "pastoral earthquake."

"The message has gone out that this is what the synod is saying, this is what the Catholic Church is saying," said Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, referring to the special meeting of Catholic clergy gathered here through Saturday.

"It's NOT what we're saying at all."

The Vatican backtracked on Tuesday. In a statement, it said the report on gays and lesbians was a "working document," NOT the final word from Rome.

The Vatican also said that it wanted to welcome gays and lesbians in the church, but NOT create "the impression of a positive evaluation" of same-sex relationships, or, for that matter, of unmarried couples who live together.
----------------------------------------
Same old bunch of repressed, psychologically damaged white men pretending to be God.