SpiritBlog

In 1996 I spent 10 days in Port-au-Prince working to help build an orphanage.  Today, the work we did then and the children we helped are in mortal danger.

On the right of this blog is a link to Doctors Without Borders and their relief effort in Haiti.  Please give.  I did.

“Beware of the scribes, who like to go about in long robes, and love salutations in the market places and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”  Luke 20:46 – 47

I raise money for a living.

It’s easy to get caught up in the romance of this profession.  We brag to others about how we are ‘enabling’ charitable acts and ‘facilitating’ good works.  We enjoy partaking of the trappings of the wealthy:  expensive meals, parties at exquisite homes, conversations with those who are at the center of one power base or another.  It’s heady stuff.

Just as easy is our tendency to forget that there are people in our universe who can’t give lots of money – for whom a $25 gift is a sacrifice.  “We have to pay attention to the 90 – 10 rule” we say.  “90 % of the money will come from 10% of the donors.  So, we have to spend 90% of our time with those wealthy 10%.”  It’s  easy to forget that the other 90% exist at all.

Jesus does not condemn the rich because they are rich.  He condemns those whose station in life has become so meaningful to them that they put aside the need to behave in a gracious and Christian manner.  In exhorting us to ‘love our neighbor as ourselves’ He identifies the linchpin that is the difference between between grateful for the bounty of God’s grace and hording the gifts God grants us to the exclusion of others.

It’s really OK to be a ’scribe’.  We just can’t let it go to our head.

In truly a sad moment for the boys, New York City and all who have heard their wonderful performances, the Boys Choir of Harlem is no more.

Listening to the beauty they gave us helps mitigate the personal and corporate tragedy of the scandals that brought the choir down. And, while listening to their music alone cannot repair the lasting damage that abuse caused for the affected children, their music can, however, restore a sense of hope and open horizons.  Indeed, the experience of hearing and performing with the Boys Choir of Harlem was, for many, a transcendent moment, propelling them out of the desert of their daily lives.

This transcendence is the core of the artistic experience and all children should be able to experience it.  The Boys Choir is going the way of many arts programs in this country as we set them aside in favor of more glamorous and what we deem to be more useful pursuits.  Yet the arts can create more change in behavior, more ability to reason and imagine and generate greater self-confidence than the frenetic pursuit of sport or a wide-eyed fascination with celebrity, gadgetry or political sophistry.

It’s a sad end for the Boys Choir of Harlem.  Let’s hope that it does not herald a funeral for the arts in our cities.

Frank Rich’s column today nominates Tiger Woods for Man of the Year as the satirical model for the Decade of the Big Scam. You miss the point Frank. Tiger is only following the lead of the great Scamster himself, Mr. George Bush.

It’s a pity that Obama has to inherit the public’s dislike of political leadership because of the precedent set by one of the biggest liars to ever grace the political stage.

But then, we all fell for it, right?

Not much happens in California to be thankful about.  Between Hollywood’s obsession with guns and carnage and a governor whose record is dimly better than GWB, California has led the way in recent years in mediocrity, poor judgment and the production of slime.

Now comes the election of a gay Episcopal priest in the diocese of Los Angeles.   Reaction on both sides of the question has been immediate as can be expected.  For me, there is but one thing to celebrate, and that is the faithful of the Los Angeles area found an individual whom they want to be their leader.

Thank you California for not allowing blind prejudice and mistaken “biblical orthodoxy” to become a roadblock to a faithful and appropriate decision.

The tightrope that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams walks is getting even smaller.  Williams must now defend the integrity of the church while trying to appease the African arm of the Anglican Communion.

Good luck!

Education for Ministry(EFM) is an ecumenical program developed and run by the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.  It’s run in hundreds of Episcopal parishes throughout the country but is essentially ecumenical in nature, involving many from other denominations.  It’s aim is to assist lay people to “dig deeper into the Christian faith, studying the Bible, Church history and theological ideas and reflect on connecting faith with life experiences.” It’s a four year program which surveys the Old and New Testament and the history of the church.  Most importantly, it emphasizes both individual reflection and the formation of community within a Christian context.

I’ve started EFM this year and am looking forward to many weeks of learning more about myself, my faith and what it means to be in community with others.  I feel like I am on the first leg of a quest which I hope will lead me to an understanding of God and our life with Him that transcends the intellectual and emotional.

Mayor Pro Tem Lowery

Ex-Mayor Herenton

A letter to the editor in today’s New York Times:

[...]

Fortunately, because federal courts have ruled that denying food constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment” barred by the Constitution, prisoners in the United States have a constitutional right to food that can be enforced by courts.

No such constitutional right to food, however, exists for law-abiding citizens. In 2007, before the worst of the economic downturn, fully 36.2 million Americans lived in households that could not afford enough food. The United States government has even long opposed attempts to create a worldwide right to food under international law.

Now that President Obama has made the courageous pledge to end child hunger in the United States by 2015 as a down payment on ending all domestic hunger, I hope the administration and Congress can not only agree that food should be a right for all people of the world, but also start making that a reality by enacting the policies and providing the funds necessary to eliminate hunger in America.

All of us deserve three square meals a day, and shouldn’t have to commit a crime to get them.

Joel Berg
Executive Director
New York City Coalition
Against Hunger
New York, June 29, 2009

We all have an obligation to protect the hungry.

Is there ever a year
when our lives pause long
enough to take stock and let
our spirits catch
up with the changes being wrought
by the passage of time

It is cliche to engage in
lamentations around the
inexorable approach of the
end but it comes anyway
so you have to face it
sooner or later

Sitting in Starbucks I look
at the men and women who drive
themselves to eat drink think
pray act right so that they can
avoid the fear that it is all
for naught and inevitable

I imagine that I am the realist
among them and smile to myself
that I have a handle on things
until I stand up, back aching
and see myself in reflection
drooping skin fear-filled eyes

So I find solace in Facebook
living through friends whose
new babies 5K runs and fresh starts
herald decades of potential and
change until they too sit in Starbucks
wishing the clock would slow

Enough of this self-indulgence
time to grab camera dog and life
and capture a moment of beginning
rather than wallow in the finality
of ending

Its all good

Youngest in body

Wisest in spirit

Sharpest of mind

Wittiest in thought

Farthest from God

Closest to Knowing

Purest in life

Grungiest in dress

History is cyclical, and it would be foolhardy to assume that the culture wars will never return. But after the humiliations of the Scopes trial and the repeal of Prohibition, it did take a good four decades for the religious right to begin its comeback in the 1970s. In our tough times, when any happy news can be counted as a miracle, a 40-year exodus for these ayatollahs can pass for an answer to America’s prayers.

-Frank Rich, NYTimes, March 15, 2009

It is a wondrous thing that we are too busy surviving to be distracted by either a demagogic debate on stem cell research or by the condemnation of gays who wish to fight and die for our country.  However, there is no reason to celebrate, as Mr. Rich would have us do, for the concomitant overall decline in attention to our spiritual lives.

As Mr. Rich points out, this is nothing new.  So, why do people, even in the face of a protracted disaster, turn away from religion?  Perhaps it has little to do with the bankruptcy of the religious right’s ideals and everything to do with people’s need to return to the first and second levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  At those planes of existence, we have little patience for any emotional debate that distracts from our need to feed, house and clothe ourselves and our families.

Fundamentalists of many religions have attempted to uspurp God’s role in our lives as companion, confidant, stalwart and goad by making Him into the stern schoolmarm who raps you on the wrist when you fail.  In a world where we are fighting for our survival, we turn to our God who, through His Grace, forgives and cherishes us despite our failures and shortfalls.

He’s slogging through the mud
Carrying 85 pounds and the burdens
Of a life lived ungraciously
But with intense bravery.

God smiles with pride for his
All-too-human offspring.

We still aren’t learning.