Pastors’ Blog

The Three-Fold Cord

I’m guessing I’m not alone in recycling paragraphs from old wedding homilies, adding material that is personal to the couple standing in front of me. One of the things I often say in the short sermon I give at a wedding is that the guests are there not only to celebrate, but also as witnesses – that they have a role in the marriage. The couple chose each other to marry but they chose us, as witnesses, and we are there to hold them, from that day forward, in our hearts and in our prayers. And then I remind them that there is another witness and a greater source of help. If the wedding is actually in the church, I might say something like, “These two people have chosen to get married here instead of in a bowling alley or in a junior high school gymnasium, not only because it’s somewhat more aesthetically pleasing, but also to turn our attention to that other witness. And even if we, in the pews and elsewhere in the room, fall down on the job of supporting them, God will not.”

Getting married changes a relationship. Being married is different from living together. If you are married, you know this. And if you are a person of faith, it makes a difference whether your wedding is in a church or performed by clergy. It makes a difference to make your promises before God. Sometimes I’ll tell the couple that God is the third cord in the three-fold cord that Ecclesiastes 4 says is not quickly broken. It makes a difference to feel that God is a part of the relationship.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declared last week, “Proposition 8 serves no purpose and has no effect other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their family relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples” (http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2012/02/07/1016696com.pdf ). The Court concluded that the Constitution doesn’t allow that. I had the court’s opinion in mind last Saturday, when the Presbytery of the Redwoods voted to send two overtures dealing with same-gender marriage to our denomination’s General Assembly (an overture is something like a bill before Congress). One overture would allow Presbyterian clergy to officiate at the weddings of same-sex couples. The other would change the definition of marriage in our Book of Order so that it says “two people” instead of “a man and a woman.” Now, these changes in Presbyterian policy and practice would not involve “reclassifying” family relationships, as ours is not a situation in which rights have been stripped away from people who once had them, as was the case with Proposition 8. Nevertheless, the Presbyterian Church’s current policy communicates that the marriages of same-gender couples do not have equal dignity to opposite-gender marriages; that they are not equally sacred and are not equally blessed. To the rest of the world, it looks as though we intend to demean the status and dignity of this group of people, their relationships, and their families.

We know the consequences of communicating that people are “less than.” This past week each of my daughters, separately, sent me a Rolling Stone article about how the anti-gay climate in one Minnesota town has led to a rash of teen suicides (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/one-towns-war-on-gay-teens-20120202). It is not far-fetched to say that depriving couples of the right to marry contributes to the treatment of gays and lesbians as second class, or worse.

The truth is that I have never, ever understood how gay marriage undermines straight marriage. I just don’t get it. I’m fairly certain that the only threats to my marriage are my pride and my anger and my laziness about commitment (and my husband’s but he isn’t here to defend himself so I’ll leave him out of this). Some of the best, most enduring, most monogamous relationships I’ve ever known are between two people of the same gender. But that isn’t why I supported these two overtures. I supported them because gay and lesbian people are equally human, equally children of God, should be treated with equal dignity and should have an equal opportunity to have their relationships blessed by the church, even if their relationships are no more ideal than the straight couples we marry – or no more ideal than our own.

We all need – and deserve – that third cord.

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Lay-ups, Hook Shots, Prayer

A million years ago when my kids watched “Sesame Street,” there was often a segment with a little ditty, “One of these things is not like the others; one of these things just doesn’t belong. Can you guess which one is not like the others by the time I finish my song?”

Lay-ups, hook shots, prayer. Certainly, one of these things is not like the others. But is it also true that it “just doesn’t belong”?

A controversy arose last month because the organizers of the CYO basketball league in Marin County have decided that each game will begin with an adult – preferably one of the coaches – leading the kids in prayer. This is a change from years past. The organizers hope that the prayer move the players away from what one of the league representatives called the “changing tone” of youth sports (http://www.marinij.com/westmarin/ci_19691785).

The organizers have told the coaches that they don’t have to be the ones leading the prayers. They can find another adult. They also insist, “If a player isn’t interested in standing at half court (for the prayer), he can stand quietly and respectfully, or sit on the bench and wait for his team to come back.” So no one is forced to pray and no one is forced to lead the prayer. And yet there is still some sense that the requirement that the kids be exposed to prayer is somehow unreasonable and even offensive. One trustee of a West Marin school district where some of the games are played told newspaper reporters, “I’m going to put up a sign in front of the gym: ‘If you don’t pray in my school, I won’t think in your church.’”

OK, well, now we know what offensive looks like. I am stumped about a response to this insult, beyond inviting him to worship with us so he can experience for himself whether or not there is any thinking going on here. Or maybe referring him to some of the great thinker/theologians – although if what he means is that anyone who believes in God is incapable of “thinking,” then, really, there isn’t any point in offering him these riches.

CYO stands for Catholic Youth Organization. Is there someone who doesn’t know that? My first thought is, “You’ve been put on notice.” The basketball league is sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church. It’s their party, so to speak. And your son or daughter does not have to play CYO ball. This is in contrast to public school, which is state-supported and which children must attend (unless their parents send them to private school). I am in agreement with those Supreme Court decisions banning required or official prayer from public school under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Although, as someone has pointed out, as long as there are exams, there will always be prayer in school.

The argument is that CYO basketball is the only game in town. This isn’t, in fact true. The Y (which used to be the YMCA – the Young Men’s Christian Association) also has a league. It’s smaller but they don’t pray.

But even if it were the only game in town, have we reached the point in our culture that mere exposure to the fact that some people believe in God and practice their beliefs is offensive? Does that harm young people? Does the Catholic Church need to be apologetic or accommodating to the culture when they are the ones organizing the league?

My son plays CYO basketball. He is probably one of the few kids standing at half court who finds a few seconds of prayer to be pretty routine. So far, his coaches have been willing to read the prayer the league offered as an option – a prayer asking for God’s blessing and that everyone involved will remember to be good sports. But if they ever choose not to lead the prayer, I’ll be volunteering.

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Folded Prayer

Back in the 1990’s, before I began seminary, I was introduced to the tradition of 1,000 paper cranes – origami cranes folded by a person or people as an expression of a hope or desire. In Japan, it’s a tradition for a bride and her friends and family to fold 1,000 cranes before the wedding. It is a labor of love, and according to Japanese lore, the bride who finishes this task before her wedding day will be richly rewarded with a good and happy marriage. One of my favorite episodes of the TV series, Northern Exposure, shows the whole town of Cicely folding cranes for the wedding of Adam and Eve. My daughter wanted something more interesting, more participatory and less expensive than flowers decorating the sanctuary during her wedding earlier this month, so we all started folding months before the wedding. When all was said and done there were something over 1,000 but we lost the exact count. We just knew how much paper we’d bought, and that it was over 1,000 pieces, and it was all folded.

We didn’t fold the cranes with any belief that doing so would bring her good luck. Rather, we folded them as a prayer practice. It was during the very first Gulf War that I first learned that folding cranes can be a way to pray with your hands. It is physical, tactile, methodical, and you can put whatever intention into it that you choose. At Redwoods Presbyterian Church in Larkspur, we folded 1,000 paper cranes as a prayer for peace, drawing on the tradition of the story of Sadako Sasaki. Sasaki was a young girl who lived in Hiroshima at the time the atomic bomb was dropped. She began folding cranes as a wish for peace. One version of the story says she finished; another says she did not finish before she died of leukemia, presumably from radiation poisoning, in 1955, at the age of 12.

In the Presbyterian tradition we’ve steered away from beads, candles, touching holy water – all such practices have been dismissed (if not condemned) as superstitious, and maybe in some situations, they have been superstitious. If you believe that because you are touching a bead or lighting a candle something will happen that otherwise will not happen, that is a superstition. But a prayer is different from a superstition. Prayer lifts up our hopes and desires and concerns and places them honestly before God, understanding that God is not a divine jukebox – plug in your prayer, get what you want. Rather, in prayer, we place ourselves before God, aware that standing in the light of God’s love changes us, and even changes the world, in ways that are mysterious, beyond our knowing. And sometimes, it helps our prayer to touch something, do something. We are physical beings. God gave us 5 senses and I believe it is fine with God for us to use those 5 senses in prayer.

Our theme for Lent at First Presbyterian Church of San Anselmo this year is “Cross-wise.” We are taking a look at the cross as the symbol of our faith, and what it can mean for 21st century Christians who live in relative peace and privilege. As part of our theme, we are inviting people to participate in a hands-on, tactile prayer practice: Make a cross. Paint a cross. Build a cross. Draw a cross. Build it out of something that represents pain, struggle, an obstacle, or a victory over an obstacle. Paint it in a way that expresses your fear, your hope, your journey. You are limited only by your imagination. We will display the crosses of people who are willing to have them displayed, either with names or anonymously, over the course of Lent.

I will make some crosses out of origami paper. Thanks to Theresa Cho, the associate pastor at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, I have learned how to make a box-like cross out of 26 (yes, 26!) sheets of origami paper. That is a lot of praying. With each crease, I will hold in prayer a person in our congregation, a situation in the world, a concern on my heart.

As we say in worship each Sunday, “Please pray with me.”

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A Response to ECO

Perhaps it’s strategic, this silence from our denomination. Last week, a group of Presbyterians announced that they are starting a new denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians (http://www.pres-outlook.com/news-and-analysis/1/12156.html).

And we have heard nothing in response from the Presbyterian Church (USA).

I hope and pray it is strategic, and if so I hope and pray that this strategy will be explained at some point. Because if it isn’t a strategy, it feels like a serious vacuum of leadership. Call me crazy, but when the body of Christ is fractured, I believe it deserves comment.

In many ways, this is like a marriage in which one partner says, “It can work, really! We can make it!” And the other says, “No, we can’t.” End of discussion. Because one partner has decided the marriage can’t work, it in fact can’t work. One person’s hope and hard work cannot make a marriage work.

The person without hope (or desire, or will, or energy) leaves. And then the one committed to the union – the one who still held onto hope – is left to grieve the loss, to go through all the stages of grief, including denial (is this what’s happening with our denominational leadership?) and anger, bargaining, despair, and finally acceptance (Elizabeth Kubler-Ross).

So I guess I’m somewhere in the anger stage.

I’m angry that the values listed by the new denomination on their new website sound pretty much like mine and yet they have lost hope we can stay in the same denomination. I’m angry that my strong commitment to a biblically-grounded faith in Christ is dismissed because my reading of Scripture leads me to different conclusions about God’s inclusive love, in particular for our LGBT brothers and sisters. I’m angry that the range of opinions at presbytery is likely to shrink.  I’m angry because the new denomination implies that the PCUSA is a nursing home for graying hair, when we are just as committed to nurturing young people in the faith as they are. Although I suspect we’ll be nurturing different young people – the ones who are OK with wrestling with faith, open to hearing other perspectives, intent on listening for the ways God can surprise us even today. And I am angry that the new denomination doesn’t celebrate that; that they don’t want to remain in fellowship with people who find Christ and relate to Christ and are formed by Christ in different ways but still, in ways that seek to be faithful to Christ in all ways and at all times.

The February 2011 letter from the folks who have orchestrated this exodus says, “How we got to this place is less important than how we move forward.” It reminds me of a scene in Disney’s The Lion King (1994). Simba doesn’t want to go back and take is rightful place as king of the lions. He tells Rafiki, the witch doctor/priest, that it doesn’t matter if he is heir to the throne, or if the pride needs him. That’s all just part of his past. Rafiki smacks Simba in the head with his stick.

“Ow!” says Simba. “What was that for?”
“It doesn’t matter,” says Rafiki. “It’s in the past.”
“Yeah,” says Simba, “but it still hurts.”
“Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the from way I see it, you can either run from it, or… learn from it.”

We have no choice but to move forward in some fashion. The folks choosing the new denomination are running away from the past. I choose to learn from it, although what the lessons are is not at all clear at this point. But to fail to look at the damage done, and to fail to acknowledge the betrayal of our shared covenant hurts all of us, including the millions of folks outside the church who can point a finger and say, “And that’s why I won’t have anything to do with organized religion.”

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How Mr. Rogers shared God’s love through Television

a blog by Christopher L. Schilling, Seminary Intern at First Presbyterian Church of San Anselmo.

As a small child, I can remember watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood every morning. For me, Fred Rogers was the best friend I could ever ever have. Granted, his television program provided education and entertainment for the millions of children such as myself who tuned into his program at some point during its 33 year run. But besides the lessons we received on how to tie our shoes or the many imaginative trips we took to the “Land of Make Believe,” there was a message we were being taught on every episode; there is someone who likes you just the way you are.

As a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I take a lot of pride in telling people that Fred Rogers was not only from my hometown, but that he hosted his award winning children’s television show from Pittsburgh. While I never met Fred Rogers before he died from stomach cancer in 2003, I do know a lot of people who’ve met him and even worked with him. All of them said that in real life, he was the same person who you saw on television. He was compassionate, kind, gentle, and caring.

Even though most people know Fred Rogers for his red cardigan sweaters, blue sneakers, and his slow and comforting voice, most people don’t know about the life he lived off camera and his deep personal faith.

Upon graduating from Rollings College in 1951 with a Bachelors in Arts, Rogers was planning on enrolling at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (a Presbyterian seminary). But after being introduced to television around the same time, Rogers found himself captivated by the new form of broadcasting. In fact, his interest in television was so strong that he decided to tell his family that he was abandoning his plans of going to seminary and was moving to New York City and work for NBC as a television production assistant. Eventually, Rogers’ television experience led him into the field of children’s programing when he returned to Pittsburgh to work as a stage hand and musician for a children’s show called “The Children’s Corner” on WQED (now a PBS affiliate station in Pittsburgh). It was this experience that led Fred Rogers to step out in front of the camera and eventually become the host of “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood” starting in 1968 for public broadcasting.

While being a children’s television show host took the majority of his time, Rogers did eventually return to seminary and in 1963, graduated from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary with a charge by the Pittsburgh Presbytery to continue his work with children and families through the media.

Even though Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was not a religious television program, Fred Rogers did his best to share Christian principals to children through his show. On each episode, Rogers sought to teach children about the importance of love, forgiveness, hope, and understanding and accepting one another.

But if there was one message that was most important for Rogers to convey to his television audience it was the idea of there being someone who likes them just the way they are. This is why at the end of every episode, Rogers would close by saying, “You always make it a special day and a special week for me, by just your being you. There’s only one person in this whole world like you; that’s you yourself, and I like you just the way you are. “

While as a child I understood the importance of this message, I’ve come to appreciate how Rogers stressed the importance of not only liking ourselves for exactly who we are, but understanding that we are liked by someone else for exactly who we are. Whether this meant being liked for who we are by our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and even Mr. Rogers, it not only helped us as children come to appreciate and accept ourselves, but to understand that there was someone who must really loves us.

“The more I think about it, the more I wonder if God and neighbor are somehow One. ‘Loving God, Loving neighbor’ — the same thing? For me, coming to recognize that God loves every neighbor for who they are is the ultimate appreciation,” Fred Rogers once said.

Amy Hollingsworth, author of “The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers” which focuses on Hollingsworth’s pen-pal relationship with Rogers and his Christian faith, discusses in her book that Fred Rogers sought to use his television program to teach about God’s love through each episode by emulating compassion and caring through his on air presence.

As I reflect on the many episodes of Mr. Rogers I’ve watched and how they shaped my childhood understanding about love, I’ve come to believe these episodes also teach us as adults about God’s love. And while it’s a simple message, truth is, many us often forget there is a God who loves us and likes us just the way we are.

While the message of God’s love is at the very root of our Christian faith, it’s a message that despite hearing it often as children, we seldom hear it as adults. And living in a society where sometimes people tell us that we need to change for others to love us or that we have to change ourselves for God to love us, Rogers’ message brings us comfort in knowing that God’s love is unconditional and everlasting regardless who we are.

Unfortunately in 2008, PBS ended airing Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood on it’s stations. It saddens me to know that within a few short years, a new generation of children will begin to grow up never knowing about Mr. Rogers. However, it’s my hope that those of us who grew up watching Mr. Rogers Neighborhood will continue to spread the message Fred taught us everyday. And that is the message about not only accepting others for who they are, but accepting ourselves for who we are and knowing that we are loved by someone very much. And that is a message that no matter how old we may be, we never need to stop hearing.

Links:

Mr. Roger‘s Says Goodbye

The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers on Amazon.com

Interview of Mr. Fred Rogers for the National Museum of TV and Radio

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Tugging at the Sleeve of the Culture

It’s presidential primary season, which, all by itself, puts my stomach in a knot, as I anticipate there will be no less muck thrown in this election year than in the past couple of presidential elections. But I find one aspect of the campaigns particularly heartbreaking. The media has been waiting to see which candidate would successfully woo the evangelical Christian leadership, and this past weekend Rick Santorum claimed that prize. It’s not that I begrudge Santorum the support of these voters; I suspect he has earned it. What bothers me, what breaks my heart, is that, whereas when I read this news I am reading the fine print – that this support is coming from a distinct, albeit very powerful arm of the American Christian church, others – primarily those who are not a part of the church – just read “Christian.”

This failure to understand that there are Christians, and then there are Christians, is apparent in the conversations I’ve had with un-churched friends and acquaintances, and in the media. This past Sunday I referred to a highly effective, if challenging, YouTube video made by a young man named Jefferson Bethke entitled “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY&feature=share). Mr. Bethke says he’s attempting to highlight the difference between Jesus and false religion, which is admirable, and an appropriate reminder for all Christians. In his poem, he points a finger at the qualities the public associates with the conservative, evangelical Christians who are so powerful in American politics. He doesn’t acknowledge that there are many Christians, including most of the people in our congregation at First Presbyterian Church of San Anselmo, who agree with him.

Then there’s the article entitled “The Bait and Switch of Contemporary Christianity,” posted by Richard Beck (http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2009/08/bait-and-switch-of-contemporary.html ). Mr. Beck declares, “The trouble with contemporary Christianity is that a massive bait and switch is going on. ‘Christianity’ has essentially become a mechanism for allowing millions of people to replace being a decent human being with something else, an endorsed ‘spiritual’ substitute. For example, rather than being a decent human being the following is a list of some commonly acceptable substitutes:

Going to church
Worship
Praying
Spiritual disciplines (e.g., fasting)
Bible study
Voting Republican
Going on spiritual retreats
Reading religious books
Arguing with evolutionists
Sending your child to a Christian school or providing education at home
Using religious language
Avoiding R-rated movies
Not reading Harry Potter.”

What Mr. Beck doesn’t state, or even seem to know, is that this is not the disease of contemporary Christianity generally, but only of a particular form of it.  We have Republicans and Democrats in our congregation.  At least one belief they share is that voting one way or the other doesn’t mean you are – or aren’t – a Christian.

I begin to feel like a small child tugging on an adult’s sleeve, clearing my throat. “Ahem,” I say. “Ahem, but, don’t you see us, over here, feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, welcoming LGBT folks, taking stands against economic and other injustices, celebrating all kinds of diversity including religious diversity and struggling daily with what it really means to follow Jesus?”

The problem is, he doesn’t. Most of our culture doesn’t see us. Here in Marin County we are lumped in with Christian conservatives, the only brand of Christianity that gets any press.

I will be the first to admit that we in the progressive church – or the liberal church or whatever we are supposed to be calling ourselves these days – we are not perfect, either. But I fear we have let our sense of humility, our Christ-like tolerance and our legitimate concern for reconciliation get in the way of our standing up, calling attention to ourselves and telling the rest of the culture who and what we are – and why.

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Way to Go, Older Brother

A friend on Facebook posted a link to a Huffington Post article about a kid and his brother and their dad at a video game store, called “Dear Customer Who Stuck Up for his Little Brother.” Here is the story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-wolfe/dear-customer-who-stuck-u_b_1190690.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009. The little brother wanted a purple game controller and a game that had a girl character in it. I’m not a video game person but apparently it’s a lot easier to find games with lots of guns than it is to find games with girls. The dad was appalled that his young son wasn’t being sufficiently manly – to the point of being threatening. The big brother, as the title says, stuck up for his little brother. All of this happened in front of the store clerk, a young woman who blogs – and notices. Read the article.

It brought tears to my eyes. I celebrate the older brother’s courage, and the twenty-year-old store clerk’s passing the story along. I mourn that the younger brother is likely to face more attempts by his father and others to make him feel bad about himself, to make him feel that he is essentially wrong.

I was at a wedding this weekend – well, not just any wedding – my daughter’s wedding. We danced up a storm, which is a real treat for someone my age – let’s just say I could put that bumper sticker on my car that says “Maybe I’m old but I saw all the cool bands.” We danced to Lady Gaga, who is the 2012 version of Madonna, as far as I can tell, and I don’t mean that as an insult. The song that got the most young folks out on the dance floor, singing, laughing, dancing for joy was “Born this Way.” Lady Gaga wrote the lyrics:
“I’m beautiful in my way
‘Cause God makes no mistakes
I’m on the right track, baby
I was born this way.”

Two thoughts occur to me: First, it confirms my deeply held belief that God is at work – Christ is at work – out in the world, in places that we in the institutional church might not expect. In Lady Gaga, for example. And second, the Church of Jesus Christ should not be lagging behind Lady Gaga in communicating God’s love for all people.

So, way to go, older brother. Your little brother is so blessed that you are in his life. And because of the store clerk/blogger, you have been a blessing to many others, including me. And you, and Lady Gaga, of all people, challenge me to find a way to let it be known that there are plenty of Christians who celebrate that your little brother was born that way.

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Dunked

This past Sunday we celebrated the Sacrament of Baptism.  That isn’t unusual in itself, but this baptism was unusual.  It was baptism “by immersion.”  Typically, Presbyterians baptize by sprinkling a handful of water on top of the person’s head, whether infant, child or adult.  I’m not sure how that started – there’s a question to ask Chris Ocker this Sunday at his “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the History of Christianity* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) Sunday Seminar this coming Sunday!

I suspect it’s because Presbyterians practice infant baptism as well as adult or “believer” baptism.  Infant baptism expresses that God claims us even before we’re aware of it, even before we make a choice.  You can’t safely submerge an infant in a tub of water.

For those curious, we used a birthing pool – the type used by midwives.  We did it right in the sanctuary.  The pool was front and center, right at the bottom of the chancel steps.  The baptism girl was a highly precocious ten-year-old who asked for full immersion baptism.  It gave us all the chance to think about the way that God claims ever bit of us – ever cell, every thought, every action – as God’s own.

I was unexpectedly moved by the Baptism.  When she went under for the first time, I choked up.  I still do, thinking about it.

I said baptism isn’t unusual.  Last week we were looking for a baptism record for an adult in the big official register kept by the Clerk of Session in the safe.  On Easter Sunday, 1963, there were about 9 baptisms (I forget the exact number).  Just on that one day.  It isn’t 1963 anymore.  We learned at the Officers’ Retreat that the membership of mainline denominations (like the Presbyterian Church) peaked in 1965 and has been declining ever since.

In the Presbyterian Church, baptism is not essential for “salvation” (another mushy theological term).  It is the way we welcome people into the church, the body of Christ.  It is symbolic of dying to an old life, and rising to a new life.  That symbol was palpable in the full immersion baptism.  I think we may be seeing more Baptisms like this.  In 2011, in Marin County, we need the concrete reminder that God claims us completely.  There is no part of our lives that isn’t influenced by our baptisms.

What does baptism mean to you?

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The Blessing of the Animals

I have a distinct childhood memory of a relative of mine commenting about some friends, “Well, they’re dog people,” with one eyebrow raised knowingly.  The implication was that these friends cared more about dogs than people; it was a critique – a judgment.  I’ve figured out since then that for most of the people my relative would have dismissed as “dog people,” their dog is their hobby; not just their pet.  Having your dog (or dogs) as your hobby is not much different from any other hobby – playing the piano, quilting, fly fishing – in that my hobby might be my cup of tea and not yours, and that’s really OK – in contrast to judging people for their otherwise harmless hobbies, which is not OK.

Our family dog, Weasley, is not my hobby.  She does enrich my life – she is a member of our family, and she is a blessing to me.  So this past Sunday afternoon, at our second annual Blessing of the Animals service, I spoke briefly about how, even though we call it a blessing of the animals, it is our pets who bless us.  And I spoke, perhaps heretically, about whether animals have “souls.” Now, in my opinion, the “soul” is a mushy theological construct if there ever was one.  But I found and used in my little talk a wonderful piece by a veterinarian named Stacey Mantle, in which she gives her view of the subject.  She writes, ““Animals do have emotions and they also have souls, and I’ll tell you how I know that.”  She goes on to catalog a list of human atrocities she has never seen an animal commit.  Then she says, “Let me tell you what I have seen.  I have seen my own cats sleep next to me so they may keep me a little warmer while I was ill. I’ve seen my dogs play games with me just to force a smile to my face.  I have seen a cat rush into a burning home not once, not twice, but six times to save her kittens, nearly losing her own life in the process.  I have seen a ferret pull a frightened kitten out of a deep hole in the ground.  I have seen a coyote fetch another dog so that it may get the proper medical care that it needs.  I’ve seen a dog, who loves to jump on people, avoid jumping on me when I injured my back. I’ve seen elephants cry.  I’ve seen monkeys scream in empathy when one of their own was injured.  I’ve seen puppies whine all night long when they were separated from their mothers.  I’ve seen a dog pull a child away from a fire.  These are only a few of the things that I’ve seen.  To list them all would take a lifetime, and I think you get my point.  As for the soul thing?  Well, it is my humble opinion that if you have emotions, any kind of emotions, then you have a soul.  Now, I can’t prove that animals have souls.  But then, I can’t prove that you or I have one either. And for all those people who firmly believe that animals don’t have souls – well, I suppose if there really is a heaven, you’ll probably have the job of cleaning out all the litter boxes.”  http://vetmedicine.about.com/library/viewers/uc-animal-souls.htm.

So – litter boxes aside – I’m wrestling once again with whether to become a vegetarian.  I was, once, for about a year.  Is being a vegetarian a theological issue?

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