Mantra Mantras

While a sophomore in college studying cultural anthropology in South India I was introduced to a Brahman form of meditation by professor Ram Chandra Rau of the University of Bangalore.   He taught us the introductory meditation breathing and posture common for all adolescent Brahmans.  One aspect of the discipline is the recitation of a "mantra", an phrase repeated to the rhythm of the breath as a means to focus one's mindfulness and chase away distractions.  This phrase can be spoken out loud or in the silence of one's mind.

We were encouraged to adopt our own individual mantras.    I chose an ancient Christian prayer of confession, "Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."  It fit for me in so many ways, including the rhythm of my breathing.   I have practiced this form of meditation, in varying degrees of commitment, since 1972.   The mantra usually begins or ends my personal prayers and has become like a dear friend.  By taking a few deep breaths and repeating my mantra I physically relax and refocus in almost any situation.

For the last eight weeks I have been taking the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) campus.   MBSR is offered nationally in hospitals and medical centers for pain management and a host of physical/psychological challenges.  Mine is the struggle to get a good night's sleep!   Sharing my struggles with a trusted friend, she referred me to the MBSR program at PAMF having taken the course herself.  She found it a blessing.  It has been one for me as well! 

Research confirms the health benefits of MBSR practice.  The class offered participants many new practices of mindfulness, new resources on the subject and has encouraged us to adopt and adapt a daily practice.  I've added yoga to my regular meditation discipline as well as some other fascinating options including a walking meditation.

After a yoga and breathing "warm up", a participant is asked to walk at a normal pace in sync with one's breathing rhythm and the silent recitation of a mantra.   As a non-sectarian program based on ancient Buddhist spiritual practice, MBSR suggests generic mantras.    Such as silently counting steps or repeating such phrases as " Breathing in....breathing out" or "I am arriving, I am at home, right here, right now".   A walk can become a moment of attention to the stimulus of sun, wind, sound and our connection to the world around us;  it can help us tame the distracting thoughts that recycle again and again in the mind; it can "ground us" in the here and the now as we move to the rhythm of our bodies in motion.

I've been experimenting with walking meditation during my almost daily 4:00pm excursion from the church office to Starbucks across the street for my afternoon tea. [After living over 5 years in former British colonies...India, Kenya and Malaysia...I am a committed tea drinker, especially as my energy wanes at the end of the day!]  Its an easy walk, only 10 minutes each way.

In class I liked the instructor's introductory mantra for walking, "I am arriving, I am at home, right here, right now".  It worked for my stride and my goal of connectedness with the moment. 

From the very first day my walking mediation mantra has evolved into "Jesus Christ, Son of God, right here, right now".   Quite unconsciously I have melded my 40 year Christian tradition into my new MBSR learnings.

Which for me is a perfectly natural and good thing to do.

In the wonderful prayer attributed to the Apostle Paul we hear, "I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breath and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:18-19)  

Can you hear the paradox?  "I want you to know that which cannot be known; this reality we call the love of Christ."

Prayer is that dialogue in all its myriad of forms that draws us to the presence of the Divine in each and any moment, to know that which can never be fully known.  The practice of mindfulness, which does not claim or require the articulation of such divinity, never-the-less opens one to it.  

Mary Oliver, in her poem, "The Messenger", writes of those who would open themselves to the spirit found in all of creation "...and this is our work.....to remain astonished".  Prayer, mindfulness practice, worship, compassionate service, acts of justice and so much more can be means to do just that.

What would your mantra be?

Leaving the Pastor's Zone

Is there a universal expectation that "religious professionals" (Pastors, Priests and Rabbis, Imams, Nuns or village Shamans....for purposes of this article the generic term "clergy" shall be use without reference to tradition or denomination as an inclusive term for those in such cultural roles) are different from "normal" people?   Is it assumed that clergy hold spiritual knowledge and a closer relationship to the divine than most?

The clergy are certainly held to a higher standard of morality; one reason why it is scandalous when they betray such ideals.  We project our assumptions, needs and emotions on members of the clergy.   We adore or vilify, praise or curse our clerics with little regard to who they really are as human beings.  We may not want to see them for who they are but for the ideals we seek in our traditions or the resolution of our emotional needs, good or bad.

Global affirmation in this profession comes to the ones meeting those projected needs; Mother Teresa, Billy Graham and the Dali Lama come to mind.  Utter failure awaits a member of the clergy who breaks the projected expectations; just ask Ted Haggard, Jim Bakker or Jimmy Swaggart to name a few North American male evangelicals.

As an ordained clergy in the United Methodist church since 1976 I know that I have really made someone angry when they exclaim, "...and you call yourself a 'Man of God'!"  Now, I've never called myself a "Man of God" as if that title suggests a spirituality superior to any other person.  I am set apart to do a specialized ministry within the life of the church but I am no closer to God than anyone else is or can be.  Once explaining this concept to a well-meaning saint in a church, I was flabbergasted to hear, "...well then why are we paying you?"!

When I get the "Man of God" curse, folk are angry because I have in some way violated their expectation of the clergy.  As a run-of-the-mill Protestant pastor such violations aren't very spectacular but they don't have to be; not visiting a parishioner who was in the hospital but didn't bother to tell anyone; not calling on a long time member who had stopped coming to Sunday services to see if anyone noticed; advocating the placement of a new stained glass window in the sanctuary bigger than the one dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Smith's mother; preaching on a biblical passage with an application unsupportive of a parishioner's politics. 

For example, in 1994 California Governor Pete Wilson adroitly used Proposition 187 for re-election.  It was intended to deny public services such as education and medical care for the children of illegal aliens. Passed by a large majority it was quickly overturned as unconstitutional.  In a sermon delivered in Clovis, just outside of Fresno, I referred to the biblical admonitions to treat "the alien with justice and hospitality for you once were an alien as well..." (Ex. 22:21, Deut. 10:19, Lev. 19:34).   An outraged parishioner refusing the shake my hand at the church door yelled at me, "...and you call yourself a 'Man of God'...[I don't call myself a 'Man of God', really...]....the reason the church is going to hell is because you preachers don't stick to the Bible!"

Clergy, in North America at least, are expected to be modest, humble and self-effacing.  We go along with everyone's ideas, meet everyone's needs and ask for little in return.  We are supposed to be concerned about 'spiritual matters' not worldly affairs, such as money or politics.   Above all we are to be nice, never contrary, argumentative or grumpy.  Having taken vows of service and sacrifice clergy must love at all times.  Let's call this the "Pastor's Zone".

I am a very successful pastor.   I have received assignments, status and authority way beyond my peer's or my own expectations.   I am good at staying in the Pastor's Zone.  I try not to leave the Pastor's Zone, I really do, but sometimes I just can't help myself.

In every church I have served I have met saints whose simple and sincere faith has inspired my own.   And in every church I have served....except this current one of course.....there are a handful of individuals who give hours and hours of volunteer service to a church which does nothing right.   These parishioners are there on every Sunday.  They will attend any event, any activity.   It would seem they would not miss the occasion to complain about what's wrong, what's not enough, what could have been better.

As a clergy person one would love to blurt out, "...why do you come here?  You give hours of dedicated service to this church.  If it is so bad why don't you go to another church where you can be happy?"   But that would be leaving the Pastor's Zone.  

I’ve done so on occasion and it’s no fun.

In a former assignment a distraught senior spouse greeted me at the church door after the worship service, shaking and in tears.   She described how her husband, a World War II Vet, was threatening suicide.  He would sit in his TV chair, holding a pistol to his head while clicking the chamber over and over again, asking her as she cooked in the kitchen, "Why shouldn't I just blow my brains out, I've got nothing to live for..."   He threatened to do so if she told anyone of his behavior.  This had been going on for days.

She was beside herself and didn't know where to turn but to her pastor.   As we went over to her house I called our local police dispatch and informed them of the situation and address.   I entered the house and found the man in his TV chair with the pistol on the side table.  He was shocked and angry at his wife for telling.  He was outraged that I had entered his home.

My attempts to make verbal contact with him weren't getting anywhere when the police came in and took the gun.  They searched the house for more.  They found three rifles and a shotgun.  They explained to him that they would have to keep his weapons for 90 days while he sought help.  At this point the man faked chest pains as if he was having a heart attack.   The police had to call an ambulance.   As they wheeled him out of his house, with neighbors gathered around trying to see what was going on, his wife hysterical, he yelled out at me, "....and you call yourself a 'Man of God'?!"  [I really, really don't!]  

I had left the Pastor's Zone.  Clergy are supposed to be nice at all times.  Exposing his dysfunction wasn’t a very nice thing to do.

The end of the story turned out quite well.  The husband was taken to the local VA Hospital where he was treated for clinical depression.  He began talk and medication therapy.  I saw him at the grocery story months later and he was able to shake my hand and thank me.  Sadly, he and his wife never set foot in the church again.

If indeed clergy are to love at all times at what point is honesty pastoral?

In the Christian tradition Jesus is held up as the model for pastoral care.  His constant compassion, especially for the weak and forgiveness for those crucifying him illustrate something inherent in the nature of God.   All Christians are expected to emulate such grace and our clergy are expected to model it.

Yet there are a number of incidences in his career when even Jesus leaves the Pastor's Zone:

-Starting a near riot, Jesus over turns the money changers tables in the Temple and drives them out with a whip while denouncing their officially sanctioned business (Mt. 21:12-17, 21:23-27, Mk. 11:15-19, Lk. 19:45-48, John 2:13-16).

-Dining with religious officials, Jesus denounces their hypocrisy in no uncertain terms, “Woe to you hypocrites and fools!” (Luke 11:37-54).

-On two occasions Jesus uses the slur "dogs" in reference to gentile women who will eventually be held up as examples of faith (Mt. 15:22-28, Mk. 7:25-30).

-At Jacob's well we find a scandalous scene where Jesus alone with a non-Jewish woman confronts her immorality at point blank range while offering her the "living water" of faith (John 4:1-f).

A pastor much wiser than me offered this reflection once, "Love doesn't mean keeping someone in their dysfunction and enabling it."   Telling the truth to an addict or an abuser can begin the road to recovery for some.  Speaking the truth to power can change the world as we have seen in the pastoral ministry of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bishop Desmond Tutu.

One of the great opportunities of professional ministry is growing past the need to please, the duty to meet other’s needs while ignoring your own, to accept that the grace we so eagerly proclaim for others is also available for ourselves.

Saying "no" to a parishioner's habitual negative behavior within the life of the church is a tough thing to do when those who have endured it for years hold the Pastor's Zone expectation that clergy will always be nice.   Yet the angry and manipulative and negative end up holding a congregation hostage unless a leader speaks the truth and asserts a healthy boundary. 

I once had a parishioner take me out to lunch so he could explain his rationale for cheating on his wife of 45 years.  I listened with patience until he asked me, "...well, what do you think?"   And I replied, "I think what you are doing is terribly wrong and it will hurt everyone involved, but mostly you."   The man got up and left the restaurant, lunch and the church.  He didn’t have time for the 'Man of God' curse.

Speaking the truth in love is no small skill and can only be done with humility and perspective.  That's a love that can only be born in one's own honesty about oneself; the most important success a clergy can achieve.

We might want to reconsider Jesus' last beatitude:

Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  (Matt 5:11)

Why is it a blessing to have people lie about you behind your back and say mean things?   Jesus may be speaking specifically to those in the early church facing organized persecution and martyrdom.  In a broader application the blessing may also reflect a reality of the life in grace.  

The gift to speak the truth in love, even when breaking the pattern of codependent enabling expected of the clergy, i.e., "Leaving the Pastor's Zone",  is going to get anyone in such trouble.  Those invested in brokenness don't want to hear the truth, even when delivered in love.   If those you serve are "reviling you" it might mean you are getting close to the heart of the matter in their lives....and your own. 

And that would be a blessing indeed!

Paul T

My brother Paul 'came out' to Bonnie and me as a gay man ten years before he could tell my parents.   He brought a friend along for moral support not sure how we would react.  The culture shift in sexual orientation understanding was just starting back in 1974.   It was risky to be that honest with others when it turned out you were one of the despised.  It still is.

Bonnie and I embraced Paul with open arms.  We pledged to keep his confidence until he was ready to tell our parents, which he did in part because of Paul T.

Paul Thurston and Paul B. met and fell in love.  Paul T. was a young lawyer from Michigan, son of a United Methodist Minister.  One of the early leaders of the Castro Gay Film Festival the passion for movies was one of the things that brought them together. They made a commitment to each other to live in the same household.  They bought a property together.  They were starting their own family and Paul B. wanted our parents to know.

My Mom and Dad embraced them both with open arms.  Mom cried regretting that Paul B. had no plans to be a parent.  He was fabulous with children and my Mom loved being a grandmother.   But those tears were tempered by her unequivocal love for Paul T. and the happiness he brought her son.

Over the years Paul B. and Paul T.'s relationship evolved into a deep and lasting bond which was no longer romantic.  When they ended that part of their life they choose to remain in the same household, sharing the same property, really sharing the same life, even as they brought new loving, committed partners into the mix.  

Paul B. and BJ have been together now as a couple for more than 15 years.  They have lived downstairs.  Paul T. has lived upstairs.  For all purposes they are family.   And that family is a treasured part of the Bollwinkel Clan.  They have visited my parents and sister in Sacramento regularly for years and years.  They come to all of the family gatherings, holidays, graduations and vacations.   We go to the Giants together whenever we get the chance.

Paul T. died of complications to Parkinson's Disease yesterday at 4:20pm.  Paul B.,  Nora and Rick (two of Paul T’s best friends), his brother Larry and Chief, Paul T.'s service dog, were there with him by the hospital bed, just as they had been with him throughout his seven year journey with the disease.  Paul T.'s quirky and brilliant sense of humor, his generosity and his commitment to our family will always be with me.

There will be a day when human beings will couple and part, set up families and build lives together with no fear of or regard to gender orientation.  Tragically that day isn't now.   But when it comes it will be because of people like Paul T. and those who loved him.  

The Power of Music

            Could it be possible?!   Was it some kind of mistake?!

            They were playing "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen (1963) over the Muzak background at Target?!  

            Only pop music historians and Baby Boomers can truly appreciate the shock.

            The Kingsmen's remake of Richard Perry and the Pharaoh's 1957 Rock n Roll record was a scandal at the time.   The Kingsmen mumbled the lyrics so poorly that listeners came up with all sorts of lurid interpretations.  The FBI investigated it for non-existent obscenities in1964.   When my six grade class mate snuck the "Louie Louie" 45 (...a small vinyl record with one song on each side...) into school and put it on the record player while the teacher was out for recess, we were thrilled.  We were risking detention, at least.   Who knows what our parents would have done if they found out.   It was forbidden.  It was subversive.

            No wonder the 1960's generation would protest social convention.

            Now Target is playing it as background music?!

            Here I am now pushing 60, shopping for the best priced pain reliever for the arthritis in my hands, in the safe expectations of a contemporary retail environment, and I am confronted once again with the power of music.

            It happens to me every Sunday in worship.  As a Protestant pastor I am used to the tears that come to my eyes and others' as we sing such wonderful old hymns as "How Great Thou Art" (Boberg, 1885) or "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" (Chisholm/Runyon, 1923)

            Some sacred music has found acceptance into the increasingly secular domain.  We sing "God Bless America" (Irvin Berlin, 1918) during the seventh inning stretch at a baseball game.   "Amazing Grace" (John Newton, 1773) has been recorded so many times and in so many ways it’s almost a 'civil religion' anthem.  We may not know the source of grace but we love to claim it.

“Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; Tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”

            It can be Beethoven or Brahms, Katy Perry or Madonna, The Back Street Boys or the Oakridge Boys, bluegrass, rap, hip hop or barbershop but for each of us, in a variety of settings, some kind of music transcends and inspires.

            For us in the high tech, highly educated Silicon Valley, this is especially true.  We who live in our heads put our faith in what we can measure and weigh.   We struggle to access emotion or to accept mystery.  It is no accident that Apple, Google and Cisco have employee choirs, bands and other musical groups.  It is no coincidence that there is enough interest that community chorales and orchestras don't have to take just anybody but can audition their volunteers.

            We the academic and engineering find music a safe place to feel something; something deep inside, something that somehow transcends the moment and our limitations.

            Theologian John Cobb once wrote of music as a metaphor for the reality of God (Praying for Jennifer, Upper Room, 1985).  You enter a room to hear music from a source you can't see or control, and yet this invisible force, permeating all parts of the space can move you to tears, distraction or the quest to find the source even if only to turn it off or turn it up.

            My spouse, a medical social worker in the field of Alzheimer's disease, can testify to the power of music especially for those with dementia.  It would seem those parts of the brain that access music are some of the last to go.  Hospitals, clinics and nursing homes that offer generationally appropriate music for their patients have much higher success rates in caring for the needs of those individuals.   Mother or father, grandmother or grandfather may not be able to recognize you but somehow they can sing all the verses to "In the Garden" (Charles Miles, 1913).

            "Louie Louie" in Target is a direct confrontation with my aging, to be sure.  But it also is a graphic reminder of the power of music.   The moment brought back memories of innocent days, the sweep of change in a lifetime and the blessings of having made it "safe thus far".         

Spiritual Not Religious

The New Camoldolese Hermitage, a Benedictine Order along the Big Sur Coast of California offers as many as 35 priests, brothers and initiates an extraordinary monastic community.   A few of the brethren in individual hermitages will go without daily human contact for up to five years.   Most practice the contemplative life of silence, service and prayer in a variety of isolation levels.   Periods of silence and fasting for days at a time are most common.  Yet even for the hermits, their self-understanding is always as a worshipping community.   Community initiation, orientation and then connection throughout the devotee's isolation period is essential.

The Christian traditions of the monastic movement began in the fourth century CE.  These traditions were were about utopian ideals of community not spiritual isolation.   The same can be said for the Buddhist traditions of monasticism which began 800 years before that.  

This is all to say that even in extremes, by its nature, spirituality is both deeply personal and communal. 

History is replete with examples of blind obedience to a religious community in which the individual's experience is stifled.  Rational thought, freedom of movement and choice can be suspended and violence sanctified when religious conformity to the group is manipulated; The Salem Witch Trials (1692), Jonestown Massacre (1978) or the 9/11 attacks on the United States (2001) are just a few examples.

If spirituality is explored and nurtured in personal isolation it can be a recipe for empty shallowness at best or delusions at worst.  One of the symptoms of severe mental illness can be the religious fantasies and projections born of extreme paranoia, anxiety and anger.   

Healthy spirituality is both deeply personal and communal.   Thoughts and feelings about one's spirituality are very personal, of course.  Even in the context of religious traditions their expression can be highly individual.  Finding the balance between the two is not easy.

Which raises a significant question about recent trends in North American religious life.

The Pew Religion Survey lists the fastest growing segment of religious affiliation in North America as those self-identified as “spiritual not religious”.  There are many reasons for this.  In their book Un-christian (Baker Books, 2007) Kinnaman and Lyons of The Barna Research Group list "hypocrisy", "intolerance", "judgmental dogma" and "religious involvement with politics" as significant factors that are turning people off to religious institutional life.   This is especially true for those under 50 years old.  

Ironically, surveys find that while 60% of North Americans list "religion as important in life" (Pew) 90%  “believe in God” (Gallop Poll).  Although a people with deep spiritual roots and interests, fewer and fewer North Americans affiliate with religious institutions. The decline in Main Line Protestant membership continues quite dramatically.  

Could we conclude that that North American spirituality is increasingly isolated?  This may not be a new trend.  In his book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (Simon & Schuster, 2000) sociologist Robert D. Putnam concluded “…over the last quarter century…we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, meet with friends less frequently and even socialize with our families less often.  We even bowl alone.  More Americans are bowling than ever before, but they are not bowling in leagues….”

Couldn’t the same be said of religious affiliation?   We believe in God.....however we understand that....and we want to do that all by ourselves?

The problem is you can’t.  And we don't.

Since the first home sapiens gathered in hunting clans thousands of years ago, spiritual expression has always been enculturated.  Religious thought and ritual permeate culture.   One can insist that they don't need organized religion to experience God but the very language they use to do so has been shaped by a variety of external religious forces.  

One such example is "civil religion".   Here in North America whether an individual rejects the concepts of God or traditions of any one religion altogether, they do so living in a culture that promotes Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter and Halloween as major business and civic events.    In a nation that prides itself for "the separation of church and state" United States civil religion shapes even the one never exposed to organized religion; our coinage, pledge to allegiance, singing "God Bless America" at the seventh inning stretch of a baseball game introduce and reinforce concepts of divinity to religious and non-religious alike.

Atheism doesn't live in a vacuum.   It presupposes and is juxtaposed over against formal religious language and tradition.   To insist that one "doesn't believe in God" requires some knowledge of, if not exposure to, someone else's notion of "God".

Certainly the hypocrisy of institutional religion is glaring. While preaching concern for the poor, certain institutions acquire vast sums of wealth.  While condemning and excluding those of minority gender and sexual orientation, church leaders are exposed for their own infidelities and abuses.   Organized religion deserves to be held accountable for its failures.   It is no accident that religious affiliation is in decline in North America.

Yet here's the dilemma.  We need community if our spirituality is to evolve beyond sentimentality. 

The 2007 award winning movie Into the Wild, based on Jon Krakauer's book of the same title, describes the true life journey of a young man named Christopher McCandless as he seeks the purity of spiritual insight.  He dies alone in a broken down van in the Alaska wilderness, a place of overwhelming beauty, realizing that the only insight worth having is that which can be shared with others.

Those who assert that they worship God best during a walk along a beach or in the beauty of the mountains may insist that they have no need of organized religion.  Such folk may have indeed cultivated the mindfulness of their connection with all of life and the order of creation.    But they have not done so alone.

Religious affiliation can be messy, confusing and at times heartbreaking.  All churches, synagogues and mosques are human institutions.    Yet they can also be the spiritual home that nurtures and celebrates the things most meaningful in life.

The trends in decline of organized religion may suggest that North Americans are increasingly self-isolating.  They may also suggest that they are open to searching for new and relevant forms of community.  Note the expansion of the 12 Step Program movement during the Twentieth Century; an inherently spiritual community.  While the Protestant church in north America has been in decline, the 12 Step Program has grown to offer millions of people healing from an expanding list of personal addictions.....often in the vacant facilities of the church!

Since spirituality as expressed in religion has and always will be both personal and communal, as traditional institutions contract we can look forward to the emergence of new and significant forms of spiritual community in the future.

Golf

Don't let anyone tell you that they play the game of golf because they love it.  This is a game, that even the most proficient, find exasperating.  Only a few among the millions of its advocates consistently meet standard of basic expectation..."par".  The vast majority will spend hours upon hours, dollar upon dollar, swinging away at a 1.680" diameter ball, in some of the most beautiful settings on earth.  Their motivations may be many but it can't be because they love the game.  This game wasn't designed to be loved, but endured!

Don't confuse my rant with bitterness at my own frustration over the years playing golf.  My golf angst is based on sound theology.   Golf, by design, is a "presbyterian game", an opinion I hold with all due respect and affection for brothers and sisters of that persuasion.   Its not a bad thing that it is a "presbyterian game", on the contrary it may be the best and only way to actually play this game.

The modern game of golf originated in Scotland long before the Protestant Reformation introduced Calvinism into the Christian mix.   The first written reference to "golf" as we have come to know it was Scottish King James II's ban of the game in 1457, as an unwelcome distraction to learning archery. The game fits perfectly with the radical concepts of "predestination" introduced into the Scottish Reformation by the eloquent revolutionary John Knox (1514-1572).   After a short lived banishment to Geneva, Switzerland due to his fervent nationalism and violent opposition to the Roman Catholic church, Knox assimilated John Calvin's insistence that each and every moment in a person's life, even their own religious commitment, is pre-ordained by an omnipotent Divinity.   Such faith requires the adherent to live out those moments in obedience and contrition to an all-controlling God.   There is no record of Knox playing golf but its not hard to imagine that his disciples did with joy and abandon upon learning that each and every swing in golf, from solid hit to muff was pre-ordained by God Almighty.  

For disciples of the Methodist Reformers, John and Charles Wesley (1703-1791/1707-1788), such as myself, who emphasized "free will", golf is nothing but one temptation after another.   Rather than an all-controlling God, "free will" assumes a God that influences, powerfully to be sure, but ultimately leaves each and every moment to the choices of God's creatures.   Thus a good golf drive can become a moment of self-aggrandizement or a bad one the occasion for self-loathing.  The "free will" advocate who takes up golf will find his- or her-self constantly looking up to heaven imploring God's intervention or worse, staring down below...at one's feet....wondering if the devil is making them play this bewildering game.

No, golf is best played by "presbyterians", not by denomination but mindset.  There is freedom to enjoy golf only when you can rest assured that each and every missed shot, shank, hook, duff, bunker muff and lipped cup is God's will.   For "methodists", not by denomination but those who carry the "free will" mindset, the game will drive you crazy!

It makes complete sense, at least to me, that not only was Scotland the home base for the Presbyterian evangelization of the world but along with it came golf, now a global sport.

I was reminded of these truths while taking my father out to play nine holes with my son, and his grandson, for my Dad's Christmas present this year.   My Dad loves the game and has played it with devotion for years.   He has been joined by a circle of buddies that share the same passion...for the jokes, the camaraderie, the silly bets, the pitcher of beer after the game as the occasion for story telling and the male version of love.  They endure the game each week but they wouldn't miss the friendship.  Over the years as they have succumbed to illness, divorce or death this circle has stood by each other for support and comfort, welcoming new members along the way.

Today my Dad is thin and frail.  Its a huge physical effort for him to play nine holes.  He can whack the ball about 30 yards at a time.  Getting the ball out of the cup after a putt takes quite an effort.   But he loves to be out there.  We are convinced that such exercise has helped keep him as healthy and alert as he is at age 86, which is a real blessing.

My Dad doesn't keep score anymore; that's the 'presbyterian' side of him.  But he does mutter frustrations that involved God's name when he muffs it, that's the 'methodist' side of him.

But as my son and I watched him and his golfing buddy laugh, cajole and tease each other over their game and 43 year history of friendship, we could both see why folks play this stupid game.  And it isn't because they love it.  It's because they love each other.

No Cause for Rejoicing

During the traditional Jewish Seder meal, often called the Passover, participants recite variations of a formal litany called the Haggadah.  The Haggadah tells the story of God's intervention on behalf of the Hebrew people during their period of slavery in Egypt.  God hears the cry of the people, sends Moses and Aaron to lead them out of Pharaoh's bondage to freedom and begin the journey towards their own Promised Land (Exodus 3:1-f).  It is the Hebrew peoples' story of salvation; historical and spiritual.  It is a ritual repeated each year as the Jewish people remember who they are and Whose they are.

During the Haggadah, the Ten Plagues are recited and remembered.  These were the ten miraculous acts of confrontation meant to force the Pharaoh to "let God's people go!"  The tenth plague was the 'passover' of the angel of death who killed all the first born males of Egypt, the final act which forced the hand of the Egyptian king and began the Hebrew journey to freedom.

As the Ten Plagues are recited, each participant removes a drop of wine from his or her glass with a finger tip, making it less than full.   The Sages had long taught that one cannot be completely joyous, even for salvation from tyranny, when it comes at the expense of suffering by another of God's creatures.

Its not hard to imagine Jesus of Nazareth and his friends doing this same ritual two thousand years ago as they gathered for what Christians call The Last Supper, which was their last Passover meal together.   Well versed in the Hebrew scriptures, he knew the intent of Proverbs 24:17 "Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble..."   After all it was this carpenter who by inverting the ancient law fulfilled it, "You have heard that it was said,'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy'.  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..." (Matthew 5:43-44)

The assassination of Osama bin Laden ended the life of a mass murderer.  That's a good thing.   But it is not the occasion for rejoicing.

It is the occasion to thank the men and women of our military and intelligence forces who stand between us and those who would do us harm.   To do nothing to stop terrorist extremists would make us complicit in their mindless violence.  Those who take up arms to defend and protect, often with great sacrifice to themselves and their families, deserve our support and deepest respect.

It is the occasion to remember the thousands of survivors of 9/11 who have had to learn to live without those they loved who were killed on that tragic day and/or who by their own sacrifices in response have had to deal with life changing illnesses.

It is the occasion to reflect on the tens of thousands of non-combatants who have died in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan in our response to the war on terror and the toll it has taken on their families and friends.

It is the occasion to mourn that a world so full of resource and beauty has yet to find a way to settle its differences without violence.  

But this is not the time to rejoice at the death of a man, even one so brutal as Osama bin Laden.

On the internet response to these events, all sorts of comments have been shared.  From the surviving spouse of the victim of murder in a workplace shooting, we are reminded of these words:

"I mourn the death of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even if my enemy.  Returning hate for hate, only multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.  Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that..."   Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I choose to rejoice in the conviction of such a person, who deserving of hatred and revenge refuses such darkness.  In such conviction lies the hope of the world, not the elimination of any one evil man.