You are always there for me (a remembrance)

 

You are always there for me

 

You are there when I need you
You are there when I call
Whether from long distance
or only down the hall

 

I find you with me always
In life’s challenges and joy
You are embedded deep within my heart
Giving me confidence to employ

 

I am so lucky to have you as my dad
I give thanks every day
You are never very far away
Have a happy father's day!

 

Righteous Slaughter

         Throughout Human history humans have engaged in what we might rightly call ‘righteous slaughter” – killing their enemies in the name of God.  We can read about such incidents in our Bible as well as in many other religious texts. We are all familiar with the stories of Joshua slaughtering every one in the city of Jerico; They killed everyone, men and women, young and old (Joshua 6: 21), and the slaughter of the priests of Baal by the Prophet Elijah following the contest on Mt. Carmel (I Kings 18” 37-40)   

         Killing people in the name of God has continued throughout religious history. During the Crusades one historian records the Crusaders  defeat of the Moslems In Jerusalem resulting in the blood of the enemy running up to the stirrups of the Crusader’s horses.

         In modern warfare there are numerous incidents of killing the enemy in the name of God. Recently  the video news  showed accounts of the Isis warriors  cutting off the heads of their enemies,  again in the name of God.

         Today the “Laws of War” established by the United Nations do not permit such barbarian behavior. . We regard our nation’s use of   violence as strictly “defensive”  Yet our nation is the largest supplier of high technological weapons to dozens of countries which are not as constrained by our moral standards and are sometimes used causing the death of thousands of innocent civilians.

         We are also reminded that “righteous slaughter” continues to go on in our own country because many of  our  fellow Americans, citing Second Amendment rights, advocate the unfettered sale of military style weapons to anyone regardless of the  often tragic result  by some who hear the ’”call of God” to rid the nation of its enemies?

         We normally regard our Christian religious faith as a call to peace and non-violence. We refer to Jesus as the Prince of Peace. Consequently we cannot ignore or pretend these contradictions do not exist in our land. For the followers of Jesus, Righteous Slaughter  is never an option. And peacemaking  is our response to the Lure of God.

 

A Prayer for today

    Loving God, you fill all things with a fullness and hope that we can never comprehend. Thank you for leading us  from following leaders of falsehood and into a time where more of reality  and truth is being unveiled for  all to see.    We pray that you will take away our natural temptation for cynicism, denial, fear and despair. 

    Help us have the courage to awaken to greater truth, greater humility, and greater care for one another. May we place our hope in what matters and what lasts, trusting in your eternal presence and love.      

    Listen to our hearts’ longings for the healing of our suffering world. Knowing, good God, that you are hearing our hearts better than our words, we offer these prayers in all the holy names of God. 

Amen.

Transforming Time

         I recently read an essay by Czeslaw Milosz, a polish writer, diplomat and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, who wrote of changing one’s past by acts we undertake in the present.  It had always seemed to me that our present acts might change our future, but not our past. But now, I have come to realize that time measured in personal and not merely in linear terms, is a dynamic that changes life continually in all directions. 

         God is an eternal and dynamic spiritual Reality for whom time is our human invention for measuring temporal existence which can be totally transformed in every direction – past present, future, - by our awakening to the eternal dimension of Spirit that “comes and goes where it wills”…and we see &  hear only its effects. 

         We can forgive ourselves of our past sins – God does – and thus transform our guilt over past errors as well as our future choices.  This flexibility of time has social as well as personal implications. “Reparations” is a current call to repair the social wrongs of the past  (slavery & racism) through present acts, thus leading into a forgiven past & a more humane future for all. 

         Christians should be at the forefront of changing both the past and future by awakening in the present to the transforming power of the Spirit of Love & Forgiveness in our past, present & future personal and collective lives.