It’s Not the Years, It’s the Mileage

I was recently at a Mets game, standing at the concession stand to buy some beer. The girl politely asked me for my ID. I looked back at her with what I am sure was a surprised look on my face. She said, again, “I need to see your ID”. I smiled and said, “Thank you for the compliment. I cannot tell you how long it has been since I have been ‘carted’.” I am not going to tell you just how long it has been since anyone has asked for my ID with regard to purchasing alcohol and it felt great to be asked.

I was reminded of aging issues while visiting my family on vacation. My dad and I went shopping for a few things for dinner. Actually, we were picking up cantaloupes that are sweet and delicious this time of year. I dream about them when I am in New York. The grocery store that we go to is called SAFEWAY, a popular supermarket chain. It is a very nice store. My dad who is deep into his 80s, still drives and carries things. I call him the “energizer bunny”. Age to me is only a number—“how old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?” is an interesting question. Of late people are saying that 60 is the new 40. Yet, as I look at dad, he has gotten slower and a little more bent over and time is not on anyone’s side. Al Gore who just turned 60 said—“60 is the new 59.”

As dad and I entered the check-out lane, we were greeted by the cashier who was visibly upset by the fact that actor Morgan Freeman was in an auto accident and at this time his condition was unknown. She said:” I hope he will be OK, I didn’t know he was 72 years old.” She made you feel that even though she didn’t know him personally she was greatly concerned about his welfare. At this point the old lady in front of us said—“Gee, he is young, I am 90 years old.” I took a second look and this lady talked as clear as a bell and looked great. She stood up straight and was writing a check with ease for her purchase. She could have passed for years younger. I said, putting my hands on my dad’s shoulder—“He is 88 1⁄2”. She looked at him and said: “You got to hang in to 100.” We smiled. The cashier said: “We all need goals.”

I smiled when I saw the interview with Dana Torres who, at 41, was representing our country as a champion Olympic swimmer in Beijing. When asked what she would tell her two-year old daughter, she said, “You’re never too old to achieve your goals.” Just ask Sara and Abraham.

We all need goals. Psalm 90 puts it this way: “Teach us to number our days and apply our hearts unto wisdom.” That’s a goal.

Where Do Sermons Go?

There is a recent article in the Christian Century questioning the importance and effectiveness of preaching. Where Do Sermons Go? is the title. It is an interesting question that I really had not given much thought to, mainly because I do not hear a lot of sermons - I simply give them. However, after reading this article I had a chilling feeling that perhaps all of the work I put into a Sunday morning could be for naught. I do not get a huge response each Sunday even though this past week I did get an email from someone saying that that Sunday’s sermon was excellent. Perhaps I should frame it or perhaps I should hire someone to take a video of the congregation while I am preaching. Could some be writing their grocery list or sleeping with their eyes open as their faces look a bit glazed over, or could people just be distracted by children making noises and moving around?

What really happens as people listen? I like to think that their lives are transformed, their hearts opened to new possibilities for loving others, and their minds stimulated to such a degree that endorphins are shooting off. Unfortunately, I know better.

People laugh and tell me, “Can’t you use an old one? No one will know.” Actually, when I look into the files and read an old sermon, I sometimes cannot remember I wrote it and, of course, I am almost shocked by what I wrote then. I have moved on…

Luther said, “We need a living voice of the Gospel”, or in Latin, viva vox. By this he meant the Gospel needs to be proclaimed from the heart. It is not something to be read from the Bible, it is to be proclaimed. I still have trouble sleeping the night before Sunday morning, and writing a sermon is always agony. I remain hopeful, however; I cannot worry about how effective I am. That is up to the Holy Spirit and to God. I am simply called to be faithful to this task, offering up the highest level of sincerity and effort as I open my mouth and words start to come out. My favorite quote on preaching is:

The preacher pulls the little chord that turns on the lectern light and deals out his note cards like a riverboat gambler. Two minutes from now he may have lost his listerners completely to their own thoughts, but at this minute he has them in the palm of his hand. (…) In the front pew the old ladies turn up their hearing aids, and the young lady slips her six-year-old a Lifesaver and a Magic Marker. A college sophomore, home for vacation, who is there because he was dragged there, slumps forward with his chin in his hand. The vice president of a bank who twice that week has seriously contemplated suicide places his hymnal in the rack. A pregnant girl feels the life stir inside of her. A high-school math teacher, who for twenty years has managed to keep his homosexuality a secret for the most part even from himself, creases his order of service down the center with his thumbnail and tucks it under his knee. (…) The stakes have never been higher. (From: Telling the Truth; The Gospel As Tragedy, Comedy & Fairy Tale by Frederick Buechner).

On Patriotism

Time Magazine ran an article on patriotism. Part of the article included a statement by both political candidates on what they thought patriotism meant. Barack Obama wrote that patriotism was faith in simple dreams that would allow all people to pursue their lives in freedom. McCain wrote that patriotism was more than holding your hand over your heart during the national anthem. Love of country was giving back and being a good citizen.

I am a child of the sixties and can remember when I was very much against the Viet Nam war. It was a very difficult time in the history of our country. I even demonstrated against that war in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. I was very angry over what happened to our country during that time. Now, many years later, I am walking down the main street of Mamaroneck Avenue seeing that giant flag waving and dominating the street. It is something to behold. When I first saw it 30 years ago I felt I was in a small town in Illinois or Indiana.

Many years ago our church sponsored a refugee family from Laos. The Sayasaks … we found them a place to live, painted their apartment, found them jobs, gave them food, and gave money to start a new live. I remember they bought a car, an old taxi cab with well over 100,000 miles. It was a wreck and what I felt was a bad purchase. One day they stopped at my house to give me a gift and we noticed that the beat up old cab had no oil. It was burning oil and lots of it. I had a few quarts in my garage that I gave them. As I said goodbye to them, I notice a bumper sticker on the back of the car. It said: “I love America” with a big heart on it.

Not long after 9/11 had happened, Kathy and I traveled to the heart of Ground Zero wearing gas masks. The rubble was still smoking – we met firefighters who were friendly and worked for hours. We also visited with workers at St. Paul’s Church, very close to the site, who were passing out food and helping workers take naps on the pews. As we walked back to the site with tears in our eyes, I looked at a dusty old fire truck with a bumper sticker on it that said: “Proud to be an American”.

As I walked in this year’s Memorial Day parade I noticed that big flag over the center of the street. Wow…A big flag for a country with a big heart. It is big enough to say that civil disobedience could be an act of patriotism and to provide a sanctuary for those oppressed and in need.

As Clear As A Spanish Town At Noon… Thoughts on Jo Stafford

She was before my time. I am not sure why I liked her. Maybe because my dad was a Vet during World War II, I am not sure. But I am a fan of many of those World War II tunes, the big band era and the American Song book. For many in my confirmation class who relate to hip hop and Justin Timberlake it is strange music. The music that Jo Stafford sang seemed like it was from a happier time…. She sang many things, some of which were war tunes that seemed to inspire people who suffered from separation from those who went off to defend our country.

Examples of those melodies are "I will never smile again until I smile at you…" or "I will be seeing you in all those old familiar places…" or "Saturday night is the loneliest night of the week…" or the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of company B by the Andrew Sisters and others.

If you appreciate the American Song book like I do, you must be saddened by her death, as she is one of the original singers of that historic era.

I first became acquainted with her work through the Pipe Pipers and the Tommy Dorsey Band that Frank Sinatra sang with in the early 40s. I last saw her on a special that honored Frank Sinatra. She came out of retirement to sing a rendition of ”I will never smile again" with the Pipe Pipers. I still have a tape of the old geezers reuniting.

I am a child of the 60s, but the music of Harold Arlen, Sammy Cahn, Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart, Allen J Learner, Irving Berlin and many others from that era and Tin Pan Ally always wrapped themselves around my ears. Their work is always an amazing experience. It could be sung by Judy Garland or Peggy Lee or Ella Fitzgerald and, of course, Jo Stafford

Jo Stafford is well known for her big hit "You belong to me." Jonathan Schwartz said that she sang "directly in the center of the note, and her sound was as clear as a Spanish town at noon."

Angry Atheists

Atheists – “Thou doth protest too much, methinks.” In the past year we have had many books come out on atheism or should I say “Anti God” if could coin such a term. I am not bothered by atheists per se. There are many in the history of the faith and in modern existential thought who have contributed to in a meaningful way to the “God conversation” — Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus to name a few. Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins of late really have only added their misplaced anger. I found the following on a recent blog entry of Andrew Sullivan (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/) in which I find common ground:

But atheism has expelled me. It has expelled me because it has in its heart contempt and loathing and fear of the other. So I reject it. I don't reject all atheists; many atheists are uninterested in ridiculing the religious -- they simply want to be left in peace, and not have religion forced on them or on the law. That, to me, is a principled atheism, and one I am happy to coexist with. But this new atheism, this anti-theism, has only contempt at its heart, and I reject it as thoroughly as it has rejected me.

In the end, there is an atheism that inhabits all meaningful conversations on faith. Doubt is about faith and without it there would not be faith. As a believer who loves this frail and flawed church I can only echo words of a boy’s father in the Gospel of Mark: ”Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.” Mark 9:24

A ride through Astoria

I am not often in Queens, a sort of forgotten borough of New York City with the exception of the thousands of people that live in this dense area of the city. On this occasion I was there to preside at a funeral for a family that had lost their father at 86 years. He was a Lutheran and they needed a pastor, so I was there to help them through this difficult passage. He was survived by his three children. They insisted on a graveside service which was fine with me, but it was preceded by a funeral procession which was to pass by familiar places like the family home and church.

So, we were off on our journey through a place teeming with people from all kinds of ethnic backgrounds. As we drove through crowded streets on a Saturday morning I saw grocery stores that were Spanish or Greek. I noticed Italian restaurants, and a Brazilian place that looked good among nail shops and Korean noodle shops. It was an adventure to the eye to be seeing all the different nationalities and languages and people as we processed with poor leadership from the guy in the hearse. Within a few minutes we had lost half of the procession and minutes later two yellow taxi cabs joined our group for a while along with some other unwanted cars. When we crossed intersections impatient people in cars tried to pull in front of us. Next time I hope that guy who was so angry at me will wave at me with 5 fingers instead of just one.

The farther along we continued, the more difficult it got, but not knowing where the cemetery was I was determined to continue, no matter what and not get separated from the lead car. We eventually arrived at the graveside and waited for those lost to find us—which most of them did. All I kept thinking about was the passage: “Let the dead bury the dead”… It would be easier than trying to drive through Queens on a Saturday morning. Life does go on even in the midst of death and in Queens it looks extra busy.

Despite all the complications we arrived at the spot where he was to lay, next to his wife, as his tree children and grandchildren looked on to receive a flag from our country where he served. I did hear the military man say, “He served 4 years overseas, he is the real McCoy, the genuine article a member of the ‘greatest generation’”. His children told me that he was a great dad and husband and even was an usher and Elder at Grace Lutheran Church in Astoria.

Life goes on, no question about that. Sometimes we just need to stop and pay our last respects to a life well lived and one given for others.

Buckminster Fuller and the Choice for Life

On a very humid Sunday afternoon I found myself looking for refuge in a very stark stone structure known as the Whitney Museum. I had heard that there was a Buckminster Fuller exhibition - and, by the way, it is worthwhile seeing. We had an excellent guide who took us through the wondrous world of ideas of Fuller whose work testifies to the power of art, imagination, and genius. However, as you enter the exhibit, on the wall there was a paragraph that brought a chill to me on this hot day that said something like this: After Fuller’s daughter had died, he considered killing himself, but there was an inner voice that seemed to interrupt all of this to tell him he had a greater mission in life. That he could actually do something great for humankind.

Buckminster Fuller realized that he had a choice, just like all of us, with the gift of life that has been given us. Yet we know from statistics that many do not make the same choice he made in a time of crisis. In a recent New York Times Magazine article by Scott Anderson entitled “The Urge to End It All” Anderson tries to make the case that while suicide is an opportunity to end one’s life, it is often a permanent solution to a temporary situation. The article seems to say that when the opportunity to take one’s life is foiled or hindered, second thoughts about living come up and, oftentimes, can change one’s life’s trajectory totally. Buckminster Fuller is a case in point. As I strolled through the exhibit and saw many drawings and models of futuristic dwellings, even a car designed by him, it was also noted that Stanford University holds four tons of his documents. The whole time I kept pondering over and over again in my head his decision to choose life.

For many of us it does not seem like a hard choice. Our fear of death and cowardliness prevents us from even considering the option. Even on a subtler level, not choosing life does not necessarily have to mean snuffing out your existence; it could mean making bad choices that in the end are self-destructive. It seems to me that we make choices every day that can be for life, creativity, and the enhancement of other lives that surround us. We can also make choices that diminish us and are self-destructive. In other words, we are wasting the energy and the moments given to us. The Old Testament offers these words of advice from Deuteronomy 30:19: "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants.”

So, be a blessing, and life may surprise you.