Tuesday musings January 22 2019

verse of the day Do not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand. - Isaiah 41:10 voice of the day God is here. We are loved. It is enough. - Kate Bowler        I wanted to start my musings with this from Sojourner’s. it seemed very appropriate for today. Yesterday was the celebration of Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. There appeared many of the visions that he had regarding a better country where we could all live together in a spirit of community. Sadly that has never in my life happened. There have been glimpses of times we are able to see beyond our ethnocentric views, but we continue to be a nation divided by race, gender, sexual orientation, poverty of economy and spirituality. One particular statement of Dr. King’s that came from his Birmingham letter was, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” It saddens me that I continue to see examples of injustice, bigotry, and the lack of understanding of the other that is prevalent in our society. I have lived to see a President of United States assassinated. His brother also assassinated. Dr. King assassinated. I have seen church building set on fire because of hatred of the people. School children shot in classrooms. People run down and killed for their beliefs. It is at times discouraging and disheartening to see this occur over decades and probably if we are honest since the beginning.       I had said that I wanted to fast from negativity but it is so hard to do when one sees all around the injustice to others that are children of God.  When our institutions that should be there for the people, fail in doing what they were tasked to do. Maybe this is coming about as our life group is studying Revelation. There we see that same type of conflicts with those who are different than us. We see it in the Roman Pax Romana. I often wonder about what is inherent in humans that leads to conflict rather than cooperation and love. Surely, this is not what God intended. It is easy to just put it on the doorstep of original sin or even satan. The reality is that it is on myself and yourself. It is the choices that we make. So I started with Isa. God’s promise of strength and comfort. And in the quote from Kate Bower. Is God’s presence and love enough?      Yet, even with the churches of Revelation, there is hope. The opportunity to repent and turn around is always present. Even today that hope in Christ is still with us. God has never abandoned us even if we have abandoned God. As in the early church, it begins with each of us to consciously choose to abide in Christ. We can create a ripple by not buying into the continued divisions and prejudices that prevail. Jesus told us to love God and to love our neighbor. Not just those that live next door, but those who live in God’s world.     Next week, I will hopefully be in a better place and not shut in with the ice and snow. But until then readers stay safe and warm. Eldon

Tuesday musings Jan. 15, 2019

                It is the third Tuesday of January. As I look out my window, there is fog on this morning with the forecast of a significant winter storm that may come at the end of the week, snow and the coldest weather on the weekend for this winter season. So my advice is to bundle up and keep warm. Also tomorrow is Orders and Fellowship for the conference. This will be the first one in a long time that I will be missing. I am not sure what I will miss but it is nice that I can be home and not worry about traveling in snow and ice.

                Nancy had me watch on YouTube two pastors who were discussing Disturbed cover edition of Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. Simon and Garfunkel were two of my favorite folk rock artists and lyric writers. As I was watching this rendition, I was ready to be critical but they did a great job and very powerful images. As the two pastors were discussing the rendition, they were also impressed by Disturbed, which is a heavy metal band. One of the things that struck me was that they felt that what Simon wrote was even more powerful today almost 50 years after the song was popular. They also felt that the words and song themes were hopeless and feelings of helplessness.  The video is bleak and gray. When we watched the video, we did not feel that it was so bleak and gray. I have always felt that the lyrics were prophetic and reached to several generations. Nancy and I both felt at the end of the video there was hope. What the pastors ended up saying was that their hope and answer came from their relationship with Jesus, with which I would agree.

                What made this interesting is last night was the beginning of our study of Revelation. We talked about the book (letter) included apocalyptic writing, prophecy, and a letter. We are using Warren Carter’s book, “What Does Revelation Reveal” as our guide. We talked that in many ways we have lost the language that the original hearers and readers would find common. This is especially true with the references to the Hebrew Scriptures. We also discussed that prophecy in scripture was less about predicting the future but more a “forth telling of God.” This led to talking about the video and the song lyrics of 50 years ago. Not that this was so much a telling about God but a warning about bowing down and praying to “the neon gods they made.” As we get into talking more about the seven churches this may become more poignant to remember. I would invite readers to look up the video and watch yourself.

                I know that there are so many issues in our world today that it is difficult to let go of the negativity that surrounds us. I have been deleting about a third of the posts on my Facebook wall because of the caustic comments. What saddens me, is that many of these come from people I know that are just reposting them. Whether these posts really reflect their thoughts and beliefs or not, I would rather they express themselves instead of having someone else talk for them. If they feel the way that they repost, I would disagree but honor their beliefs more. Enough I say, enough. Until next Tuesday, God bless you all.

Eldon