Moonwick–Chapter 7: Labyrinth

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Administrator

Mom’s labyrinth in the story is based on the labyrinth I built in my back yard up on a mountain ridge.  It was a sacred space.  Once I walked the labyrinth with my cat, Butterscotch, following me, to discover a large black snake curled up in the center.  The cat, known to attack snakes, remained peacefully near the snake which did not stir.   

7

Maddie and John didn’t speak. She watched him flip on his computer. When it began to start-up it bugled reveille and John quickly turned off the speakers. He directed his mouse to the Moonwick icon, and called up an image of Sejana and the other archangels doing a belly dance. They were Maddie’s favorites. Usually John liked to watch grrrcks and listen to the sound of the grrrcks spitting water, or the groans of the angels when a crotton bit them, or the rasping sound of snairies trying to latch onto angels which they never could do, but never stopped trying to do anyway.

Maddie pulled the window blinds up. They rattled so loud that John rushed over and rested his hand on them to muffle the sound. Maddie’s and John’s eyes met. He looked so miserable that Maddie felt sorry for him. “The moon will be up soon,” she whispered.

John cracked open the window. “Lay down, Crip.” He pushed on the dog’s shoulder until Crip dropped to the floor. Fragrant air full of the scent of honeysuckle wafted into the room. Crip began to pant.

“You can’t come, Crip,” Maddie said. “Are you still coming?” she asked John, and her voice sounded like Dad’s not too long ago when he’d gotten the news about his job and Mom hadn’t been excited for him.

John turned off his computer, and nodded guiltily. He lay flat on his belly and crawled over to his bed and rummaged underneath and pulled out his wooden box with Chief Tecumseh painted on it. “I have to get my sacrifice,” he murmured.

Maddie knew this box contained his most important treasures. He’d once shown her some of the contents. That’s when they’d actually become friends.

He sat now with the box on his lap and his back against the bed. Crip flopped next to him and tried to lick his face. “Crip,” he whispered, “cut it out!”

Maddie wrapped her arms around Crip and patted his head.

John opened the box and carefully went through his stuff. Maddie watched him move aside the brown pebble he’d found in the playground of his old school, then he took out a piece of petrified wood he’d discovered in his Mom’s labyrinth. He put it on the bed. He set the three arrowheads that his Uncle David had sent him from Pennsylvania next to it. Then he laid the bronze Celtic cross from his mother on top of them. At last, he dug out a letter from his friend Jim.

For a moment, Maddie thought he might bring the letter for his sacrifice, but he kept on digging deeper in the box. He set aside an assortment of comic books, some stamps from Canada, and a plastic Garfield she’d recently found on the sidewalk near the post office and given to him. It was a good thing he didn’t choose that!

Finally, he took out something that was carefully sealed in plastic-wrap. Maddie had never seen it before. She squinted, trying to figure out what it was, but all she noticed were John’s doleful eyes as he quickly thrust the package into his jean pocket. Maddie knew that whatever it was, it was as important to him as Mamaw’s piece of quilt was to her.

Labyrinth on the Isle of Iona, in Scotland

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Community of Hopefuls

Posted on June 15, 2013 by Administrator

 

I was at a special event today , at the Word and Song Café in West Huntington, where my husband was one of the readers. This community–and I am grateful–allowed me to bring books to sign and sell.

Shall I tell you the truth?

I hesitated about showing up because I know how futile it is to try to sell books unless you are a big name. And to tell you the truth, I didn’t want to be another minor personage amongst so many hopefuls.

Being a snob, I could at least hold up the fact five of my books are not self-published.  But here’s what’s funny–at least one of the Indie self-published writers has sold many more books than I have. Yeah, the story was about boot-legging liquor.  Haven’t read it–probably fascinating.

So I came along glad for the friends who are including me, and aware none of my books were likely to sell.

Self-fulfilling prophesy or reality?  Or a learning moment?

I came away disappointed, sad, and what’s more downright mad.

Here’s why.

The folks who orchestrated Word and Song Café had worked so hard to bring this together.  There was this amazing high tea served in the big West Huntington Gazebo for $5.00 (or 5 cans of food)–proceeds went to serve the hungry.  There were amazing musicians, the Harmonica Club, and many other readers and artists.  Even the mayor of Huntington came and read a couple of poems.

But the actual people attending were dismally few. And how come some, those sitting on the nearby benches, didn’t come up into the Gazebo?  Were they too cheap to spend 5 bucks, did they not have the money, or didn’t they know or care that it was for a good cause?

I gotta tell you I thoroughly enjoyed my Buckingham tea, and oh my, those pastries!

Aside from that, I became aware that well hey I paid more attention to the Mayor’s reading–because, I suppose, he was someone significant.  Not necessarily to me, since I can’t vote in WV, but nevertheless a Name!

Which brings me to my own agony about not being recognized (nor actually wanting a public role).

All those hopeful writers trying to flog their books.  “Read my book,” they hawk.  “And you will hear the voice of God!” (Not that anyone there actually said such a thing–my cynicism, perhaps.)

And there’s the other side of this cry: “Don’t read my books, Satan is awaiting!” 

But the truth is the inspiriting arising within us writers/musicians is God-rising, but it might only be to shine a light upon our lives and not be the Stephen King, the Pearl Buck, for many.

So, here I am, here I was, in this community of hopefuls, wondering what is it that I truly hope for?  What is the truth?

Well, hell, I want y’all to love my books, to find them deeply meaningful, to give me your money. 

I noticed this about myself, though: I perked up when I heard the Mayor was speaking.  I was seeking importance.   So the question for me, and perhaps for you, becomes, what is really important? How am I, you, significant everyday?

When do we have meaning? 

I’ve gotta tell you recently I found more worth in meeting with a few people to give away a picnic table that had been given to me.  It was more gratifying to give than to receive.

But, hey, if you want to buy my books, I’ll still flog you one or two and I’ll even sign them.

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Third Eye: the eye of God?

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Administrator

I dreamed an eye, a big eye, was watching me.  It was not benevolent.  I said in my dream I had seen the face of God and survived. There was no elation about this.  All rather bland.

When I told my husband about this experience he pointed out that dollar bills sport a single eye looking out from a pyramid placed in a circle that says Annuit Coeptis and Novus Ordo Seclorum.  All rather mysterious words.  Since I heard no words except my own I’ll concentrate on the image of that eye.

I have never paid much attention to the illustrations on dollar bills, but Philip’s observation got me thinking.

You see, I’ve been feeling despondent over lack of book-sales, feeling useless, wondering what is the point of writing novels if noone buys and reads them?

It is not only about money.  It’s also about validation.  I,  and possibly you, associate validation with money.  For me, I write too because I hope the words I pen will help others in some way even if it is nothing more than a respite for quiet reading time.  I am no literary genius, this I know.

This is not a new struggle for me–this longing for recognition/validation. And I have comforted myself with the awareness that my writer’s journey has deepened my understanding , it has sometimes been exciting, it has yielded new and special friends, including my husband, and it has engaged me in an activity where I always have the hope for success.  And money.

Clearly this eye in my dream which I call God is not God because validation from the Holy is never about money.  It is about freedom, love, self-awareness, endurance, skill-development, and selflessness.

So if I measure success in God-terms, I discover I am wealthy. I have lived many years as a writer in freedom not having to work in a job I found less than pleasing–for a paycheck.  Mentors have befriended me.  Friends have co-authored books with me.  Publishers have put my novels (4 of them) into print and made them available on a  brand new media–e-books.

Have I been selfless?  Sometimes.  My goal was to be a help to others.  So perhaps I can stop deifying the eye of the dollar bill.

 You never know.

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UFOs Out There–please welcome Thomm Quackenbush

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Administrator

 

Thomm talks about his latest book–where and how it originated…quite fascinating account of his early UFO sightings…hmmmm… 

My latest book is Artificial Gods, the story of two sisters who are harassed by UFOs during one summer and who realize that they are instrumental to a much larger and altogether stranger plot. 

It originated very gradually, possibly since the time I learned to read and for some reason chose books about the paranormal.  When I was six or seven, I remember witnessing the Great Hudson Valley UFO flying overhead as my parents drove me home from a cousin’s birthday party.  This was no vague light on the horizon, but rather an immense triangle directly overhead, studded with lights.  Despite it being early December, I stuck my head out of the window of the moving car and stared without reservation.  (In a horror movie, I would no doubt have been one of the first deaths.)  My parents insisted I pull myself back inside, but I was beside myself with excitement.  Now that a UFO appeared so openly, things would begin to happen!

Of course, they didn’t.  The mid-eighties failed to play host to a mass alien invasion, in case you didn’t notice.  While writing Artificial Gods, I asked my parents about this and neither remembers anything, as one would imagine they should if they faced down a sky-borne triangle larger than their house.  I’ve considered that I dreamed it, but it still seems very real to me.  I had several other unusual childhood memories that I am willing to shrug off as misapprehensions, but this one still seems as though it happened.  It doesn’t hurt my case that there was a Great Hudson Valley UFO that was seen for several months by thousands of sensible people around the time I remember my sighting, spurring the nonfictional book Night Siege.  If I contrived the memory, I did a fine job of coordinating it with newspaper articles I couldn’t have read.     

This brief experience far from dampened my enthusiasm for the subject, as I now felt vindicated before my classmates, who already called me weird.  Before fifth grade, I could tell you more about the origins of modern UFOs and their historical antecedents – from cave painting to Renaissance ones – than I could about the Revolutionary War or the water cycle.  Gray aliens, those spindly-limbed and bugged-eyed humanoids so popular in modern media, featured in the lion’s share of my art projects, though my devotion was to all things paranormal.  Scholastic Book Club helped supplement what I couldn’t find in my local and school libraries, feeding my addiction. 

Ten years later, my friends became enamored of a nearby town, Pine Bush, where UFOs were purportedly seen on a near nightly basis.  We set about to investigate as best we could, which is to say, “from inside a car while listening to Green Day and NOFX.”  Our guide on these trips was a book titled Silent Invasion by the late Ellen Crystall, who had spent years driving to Pine Bush to get pictures of the ships and their occupants.  We didn’t really believe what she had written.  The book was fairly silly to us then, particularly when she boasted of the amazing color pictures she had that were reproduced in murky black-and-white in the book.  I’ve searched for color copies of the original photos, but they seem not to exist, though I appreciate her justification that UFOs consciously mess with the emulsion of film and that is why there are so few good pictures.  Her book also informed us that lemurs are of alien origin, that Bigfoot and Mothman act as guards to underground alien mines in Pine Bush, that she had a psychic awareness of the ships, and that laser beams shot out of the Jewish Cemetery to trail passing planes.  Bit on the nose there, aliens. 

We would drive to Pine Bush irregularly, feeling brave for looking at the sky from within our cars, despite the fact that it was nothing more than a quiet town.  We did spy something once, a triangle of three lights that seemed to rise from behind the tree line and then vanish.  All this is recorded – what’s the fun of being idiots if it isn’t immortalized? – only the video failed to capture anything aside from our shouting.  Perhaps Elle Crystall was onto something.

When I started writing Artificial Gods, it quickly became apparent that reading about UFOs and those who experience them would not be sufficient.  I knew that a support group (the United Friends Observer Society) met the first Wednesday of every month in Pine Bush, so I attempted to quietly attend a few of these in hopes of finding enough grounding to make my story breathe.  The organizer did not take kindly to my mini-notebook computer and I was admonished for attempting to record them.  This is not to say that I did not record them, I simply did it via memory rather than Memorex.  I found them, by and large, to be normal people dealing with phenomena beyond their ken, though there were of course a few who were obsessed with conspiracy theories and who seemed a bit out there.  This latter group is no doubt overrepresented in my novel, since the protagonist is a skeptic and would notice anyone different than her (which her sister reminds her in the book).

I was recently a guest at the Pine Bush UFO Festival and Parade, which is an event that appears near the end of my novel.  It felt a bit like being inside my story, though it was less grand that the one in my book and the members of UFOS seemed to be there only as a smattering rather than controlling the festival as in prior years.  Those who attended my talk seemed incurious about my story, since I maintained it as fiction, though I did have one gentleman trying very hard to debunk the idea of UFOs by dint of his supposedly having been witness to the Roswell crash and childhood friend with Neil Armstrong.  I tried to humor him and reiterate that I am out to write fantasy fiction, not prove or disprove anything, and my agenda eventually trumped his so I could finish my talk.    

The greatest challenge with this book was not the research – that was rather fun – but wrangling my skeptical main character, Jasmine.  I had some ideas for what happened to her and she bucked against me time and again.  I’ve had characters be difficult before, but I’d never encountered one who resisted me so strongly.  In the end, it turned out that her obstinance was crucial to the plot.  When I went back to revise, I was unsurprised to see how well foreshadowed her refusal was and how much stronger it made the story.  Without her, this is a book about the mythology of UFOs.  With her, it became a book about sisterhood triumphing trauma. 

Bio: Thomm Quackenbush is a novelist, essayist, and teacher in the Hudson Valley. He has been previously published by Cave Drawing Ink, The Journal of Cartoon Over-Analysis, Broken City, and Paragon Press. He is the webmaster of http://xenex.org, where he posts his writing. He hardly ever touches ghosts anymore, despite what his books may insist.

Link to the book:

http://xenex.org/writing/artificialgods.php

Link to reviews:

http://xenex.org/writing/reviews.php

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Bad Hair Days

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Administrator

guncarryinglibrarian.files.wordpress.comThen Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair.  And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume (NIV  John 12: 3).

No woman in the world would use her hair to wipe up grease, would she? Mary’s hair was long and glorious, her pride and joy.  She poured a very expensive liquid, not quite like fuel oil, but something equally thick and tangy, onto the feet of Jesus.  This expensive oil must have run all over the ground.  Mary threw herself down.  On her knees, head bowed, she wiped up the grease with her hair.  Why did she do it?  To make Jesus notice her?  To straighten her hair once and for all?  

I went to the hairdresser for a new style because I was having a “bad hair day.”  I came out of the salon very pleased with my shiny smooth tresses.  If only this straight hair had lasted, but after a wash, it turned into frizz.  Nothing I did, not the spray, not the mousse, not the gel, not the Aussie shine serum, not the straightening iron restored it to its hairdresser prettiness.

When I was a girl, I was convinced that my hair was without curls.  I later saw photos of myself as a teenager, and to my surprise, my hair used to be wavy.  Often, we are unrealistic about how we view ourselves.  Often we think we are okay and not in need of anything in particular.  We certainly don’t think we have spiritual kinks.  When we are children, our parents and the people around us teach us values.  If we are lucky, we are loved and the values we internalize will be straight and narrow.  We might well be honest, generous, kind and hardworking.  That doesn’t sound too twisted, does it?  But what if we are also greedy, self-centered and mean to small animals?  How do we actually grow beyond what are often ingrained behaviors and ingrained ways of thinking?  How do we influence Shiites to live harmoniously with Sunnis, Palestinians to get along with Israelis, Aunt Betty to take back her estranged oldest daughter?

There are many places we can seek understanding about life’s mysteries.  The church is one such place.  The church, however, has sometimes done as much harm as good.  Think inquisition.  Think the Crusades.  Think of exclusionary statements such as “you can not be a member because you are living with someone who is not your legal married partner” or “you cannot be a member because you refuse to believe that the mother of Jesus was a virgin.”  Yet, from the church, goodness has also arisen.  Hospitals and schools have been opened.  The poor have been fed.  The destitute and abandoned have found inclusion.  Blankets are distributed to displaced peoples.  A very long list exists of positive actions from Christian people who have turned their lives over to a spiritual reality beyond the worldly notion of self-gain. 

When we begin to grow spiritually by choosing selflessness, the impulse arises from some deep resource.  Although GI Sue and GI Joe might well have joined the military out of need (poverty, scant opportunity, lack of self-esteem and so on), when she (or he) takes the shrapnel for her friend, she is doing more than what we normally expect from any person.  Her limbs might be shattered, but her action of self-giving beyond her need for physical well-being, is the path to spiritual wholeness. In other words, wholeness results from acting in accordance with holy principles.  It is the result of holy living.  

Consider Betty Williams in Northern Ireland.  In agony over the bloody death of a little neighbor girl whose legs had been blown across the street by an IRA bomb, she could not sleep.  She could not get the terrible image of that innocent child’s dead body out of her mind.  It might have been easier to stay home and get drunk, but something greater than herself motivated her to go into the streets and bash on front doors.  “Is this,” she screamed, “what we are teaching our children?”  Can’t you hear that cry?  “Is this what we are teaching our children: death and revenge and a thousand years of hate, and an endless cycle of violent oppression?”  Betty began a peace movement that has ended years of angry separation between the people of Northern Ireland.

Grand acts such as those of heroic soldiers and courageous women are not the norm of the spiritual life.  Most of us must take small steps towards spiritual wholeness.  Every time a person is able to rise above negative behavior, such as refusing to worry about the future, or not telling someone else a juicy piece of gossip, then he or she is acting in accordance and in unity with God.  Our bad habits, though, do not simply disappear.  We invariably need spiritual help.  By learning and practicing the teachings of Jesus, we eventually become spiritually one with Jesus, yoked to his life of holiness.  Jesus, like our spiritual mother, gives us birth.  Justice, strength, truth, fearlessness and concern for others will become our normal way of life.  We will contain the heart of God and be contained within its universality.  We will be able to give our all to and for God.

Mary willingly gave what she most prized to Jesus.  Hair for women in ancient Hebrew culture was even more important than it is for modern women today.  Hair was one of their most prized attributes.  It not only made them sexy and alluring, it gave them value and prestige.  Mary taught that we have to let go of the old ways we think are precious in order to serve Jesus.  She taught us that this is joyful and not to be feared or denied.  She taught us that it is okay to be spontaneous and generous with and for God.  Did she gain anything from this encounter?  Yes.  Her love for Jesus freed her.  Her focus on God prevented her from feeling embarrassed about being an unwelcome person at an exclusive party.  Instead, Mary’s gift of oil demonstrated Jesus’ inclusion of women.  In Hebrew culture, anointing with oil was a symbolic rite priests performed, reserved for royalty.

God is the only one who can and will straighten out our lives.  We might be awed over a golden sunset, we might hear the rhythm of angels in the sweet song of the blackbird, we might experience the ultimate in physical union with another human being, but these beautiful moments are only the good hair days of life.  They look and feel wonderful for a short while.  They are holy moments from God for us to enjoy.  They are the promise of something even better.  To enter into the wholeness of God requires more than casual observation.  It requires commitment.  It requires a willingness to be rooted in holy practices such as prayer, meditation, worship, fellowship, and the study of sacred literature.  The Bible is the sacred text of the West preserved by the Institutional Church.  The Bible is a good place to begin the job of getting rid of spiritual kinks.  It won’t be easy though.  It’s kind of like weighing wavy hair down with heavy objects to smooth it out.  Curls of resistance will pop back up, but eventually with a lot of effort, and grace, the reward is a fully engaged life bringing about peace everywhere, for everyone.

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Moonwick: Chapter Six–Doggie Love

Posted on June 8, 2013 by Administrator

Doggie Love

The smallest dog with the red collar is Newt.  He was the model for the dog in Moonwick who is called Crip.  Crip is sweet and lovable just like Newt.  He also had a pin in his front leg from where it had been shattered.  And he had a crooked face.  When he came to live at my house, he was already fairly old.  My hope was he’d settle, Ziggy, the big dog, down and teach him obedience.  But instead the two of them became fast friends and encouraged one another to go on long runs in the countryside.  They’d come back exhausted.  Happy.  Grinning. 

Chapter 6 from Moonwick

John leaned out of the window and stretched his hands towards Maddie and grabbed hers. He quickly hauled her over the window ledge. She crawled through the opening and tumbled onto the floor. Crip immediately began thumping his tail and licking her face. She couldn’t help herself for letting out a loud giggle. John clamped his hand over her mouth. “Shush,” he said. “I hear my mother coming.” He quickly pulled the blinds down. They clattered like twigs falling onto the metal roof.

Maddie stretched out and tried to roll under the cot, but there was too much junk underneath. She shoved the screen halfway under, scuttled over to the cupboard and managed to stuff herself inside amongst the clothes. She got the door shut most of the way.

Footsteps came to a stop outside John’s room. Crip leaped onto the bed. When John’s mother came in, he was cuddling the old dog and gently stroking his head.

“I brought you a glass of iced-tea. Your stepdad said it was okay for you to have it in case you got thirsty in the night.”

“Thanks, Mom,” John said.

“Your step-dad is still angry with you John for how you acted at the theater. As for that Maddie. She could at least be quiet and listen to her own mother. Still, her mother isn’t much of a singer.”

Maddie’s face got hot. Mom could sing if she just practiced more but maybe Mom ought to have a singing partner to help her.

“I thought Maddie’s mom was pretty good,” John said. “I liked Bulldog.”

“Tony says you’re not to go around with Maddie any more. She’s too young to be your girlfriend anyway.”

John groaned slightly. “She’s my friend,” he said. “Besides she needs me.”

Maddie almost burst out from the closet. Her need John. He was the nerd with no friends. He was the one who’d been held back a grade. He didn’t play any sports in school either and he didn’t belong to the band. She’d been the only one who’d sit with him on the bus on the way home. She’d only sat with him because she’d felt so sorry for him being all alone and the new kid in town. Her friends had teased her and said he was her boyfriend. Hah! That was plain dumb.

John’s mother gently sat the glass of tea on the night-stand.

 Maddie frowned at the tea-goblet shining in the light from the hallway. John’s real dad who had gone overseas with the Reserves would have given John a can of beer. John hadn’t heard from him for over six months. The iced tea was green and flavored with apple juice and smelled like ripe cardboard.

John’s Mom fussed over John’s blankets, smoothing them out and tucking them in, and then she gently kissed his cheek. “I love you,” she said softly, and left the room.

Neither Maddie nor John moved for a while. Then Maddie threw the door of the closet open. John picked up the glass of tea. “Nasty green muck,” he muttered. Then he looked sheepishly at Maddie.

“You are not my boyfriend,” Maddie said. “Nor will you ever be.”

“I know,” John said. “Sometimes my Mom is dense. Wait here. I’ll get rid of this stuff before it stinks up the whole room.”

 Maddie sat on the side of the bed and wrapped her arms around Crip. “I love you,” she said. “I’d rather have you as a boyfriend.”

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Atomic Dome

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Administrator

What is there to say?  Of value?  This photo is of the Atomic Dome in Hiroshima.  Today.  Can you see how hollow it is, what remains from that awful bomb from WW II?  This building constructed in early 1900s was close to the epicenter of the blast and yet was not completely destroyed.  It was later to become a symbol for peace, a token of horror that could yet shine the light of sunrise upon humanity.

I want to say something profound or at least helpful or perhaps authentic. I am writing the prequel to Ten Yen True, about why the Pure Land Buddhist monk decided to pursue a holy life.  I find myself immersed in WW II history.

So here I am today listening to CNN’s usual fear-mongering rubbish about the latest collapse of the stock market.  I am tired of being afraid.  I have spent most of my life having to walk through fear to a deeper place of confidence.  I am happy for people who are extroverts, fearless, rollercoaster-riding individuals.  Wish I’d been one.  But some of us simply aren’t.  We are, if we must be labeled, shy introverts.  We don’t thrive being out there thrusting ourselves into the midst of the limelight.  As a matter of fact, we much prefer being quiet, alone, and silent.

I remember a woman minister preaching on the need to get over being shy.  Easy for her to say considering she was a person who thrived amongst big crowds.

Some of us don’t.  We are writers, preachers, actors, shop assistants, and trash collectors. 

So what is my point here?

It is okay to be who you are.  It is not necessary for the leopard to change her spots.  But it is good to grow.  It is good to stretch so that the spots are–well–integrated.  It is good to find the balance between being shy, retiring and alone and being overwhelming, annoying (remember an introvert is writing this) and out-there.  Somehow we must all find the way to love one another, to say shalom to all others no matter how different they may seem.  We must strip away our crazy need for power at the expence of others.

I was sickened and saddened and sorrowful to remember Hiroshima.  I don’t pretend to understand the complexity of WW II.  In fact the older I get the less I understand, and the more my once-clever brain forgets.  Perhaps that is a good thing. 

I came across a photo from Hiroshima of a child’s incincerated tricycle, and a human head lying in the shattered shards of a city that was once beautiful, vibrant and living.  There are many more graphic photos.  Burned people.  Etc. When will human beings ever learn to stop bashing one another? But there is good news, Hiroshima has arisen again and is once more an alive place full of complex struggling wonderful human beings.

Ah well.  I want us all to be immersed, yoked, inbued and transformed by the Holy.  Jesus, Buddha, Shiva, Kali, Mohammed–it is not the words, the gurus, the icons that matter.  It is how we walk the walk of holiness.    It is how we live every moment of every day:  we must choose to be present, to be compassionate, and find the ways that help us live a life that contributes to the end of wars, to the furtherance of worldwide peace.

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Recalculating, from fear to love…

Posted on June 2, 2013 by Administrator

 

Read I Kings 18:20-39

 Recalculating–from fear to love

On Tuesday I decided to go to the Lectionary Meeting at Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church.  It’s a good resource for Bible scholarship and insight.  Since I now live in Ashland, I had to find the best way to get to Huntington.  It makes me nervous to drive anywhere new, so I dutifully set my GPS with the church address on Norway Avenue.  I’d also gotten a mapquest print out.  It said the best way for me to get to Huntington was to cross the Ohio River and go down Rte 52, so that’s the way I was heading, but the GPS voice told me to go in the opposite direction.

I rolled my eyes.

The GPS began to repeat itself: Recalculating.  Recalculating…

Do a U-turn.  Turn right.  Turn left.  Turn around.  Recalculating.

I swear I heard this voice getting more and more frantic, but I paid no attention.  I dutifully followed the Mapquest directions.  After all, they were written down.  Besides I knew I could get into downtown Huntington across the bridge from Rte 52.

But that GPS kept on hammering at me.  Recalculating.  Turn, turn, turn.

Then just where there is a sign to Tri-State Bible College, the GPS recalculated yet again and got it right.  I don’t believe the Bible College had much to do with the change in directions–but there again, maybe it did.  Maybe to study the Bible is a way to internalize sacred TRUTH that denies conventional wisdom.

Sometimes we think we know what God wants, but we don’t.

Sometimes we think we understand who God is, but we can’t ever fully appreciate the awesome power of God in our lives.

 Recalculating

Can you imagine how Elijah feels when he’s confronted with all these people worshipping the false Gods of Baal?

Baal worship in the time of Elijah did not accord with the commandments of Jehovah in quite a few ways:  the god they wanted to worship represented fertility worship which might not have been such a bad thing except these folks sacrificed not only young men but also children.  They were so afraid.   They were so afraid they thought such sacrifices could appease the gods and maybe get them what they wanted–good harvest, health, life–not so different than what we want?

Clearly though, the Baal prophets were not teaching healthy behaviors. In fact those 450 prophets might as well have been called 450 for-profit.  P R O F I T . Ba’al owned the people and all they produced.  The prophets used fear to subjugate and extort money to empower themselves. 

So here is Elijah up on Mount Carmel, long considered a Holy Place.  The name Carmel means God’s vineyard.  It is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel.  It stretches from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast.  For those ancients, it must have been a very special place, a geography of awe like the Grand Canyon is for us.

Elijah sees what is happening to the people and doesn’t like what he sees.  He decides to face-down those 450 prophets.  He suggests a contest where each side gets to select a bull and then sacrifice it to their God with the understanding the real God will consume the bull-offering with fire. 

The people have very little to say.

Elijah allows the Baal prophets to choose their bull and go first.

Their worship rite sounds very primitive, stomping about for hours, wailing, cutting themselves with swords until their blood flowed.  They sound dangerous.  They sound as if they could be mafia thugs.  But no matter what they do, their bull does not burst into flames.

Those peasants must have been trembling in their sandals.  The Baal powers-that-be who controlled their destiny could surely hurt them.  One slash of the sword and off with your hand…

Recalculating 

Now it is Elijah’s turn.

First he re-established the altar to the Lord God, which had been torn down by the Baal worshipers.  Then he, Elijah, took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Your name shall be Israel.”

By doing this, he is uniting the peoples to center them on a God of justice.  He is including these powerless peasants.  It sounds like what religions ought to do.  Center us in the holy so we are able to speak truth to power.

Does might make right?  The 450 prophets think so.  But real power does not reside in frantic, wild demonstrations intended to induce a frenzy and cause the people to be afraid.

So Elijah prepares the bull and solicits the help of the people. They’re told to fetch four large jars of water.  Then three times they pour the water over the bull and over the wood, until water fills the surrounding trench.

If you are a camper and have ever tried to start a fire using wet wood, you know it will be hard if not impossible to get any flames going.

Can’t you hear the 450 prophets sniggering.

When Elijah has the people repetitively participate by pouring the water, he is changing their understanding.  Repetition is a technique educators and teachers use today to help students remember.  It develops memory; it grows minds.  Now the peasants are participants not helpless servants.  The miracle they are about to witness is one they helped create.

Still these simple peasant farmers, these ordinary people, must have been mystified.

Recalculating

Elijah is seeking God not for self-gain, but in order to help the people become united in freedom from the tyranny of fear.  He is calling upon a higher power to help restore the people to sacred ways of justice and courage.

Recalculating 

38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.

The peasants are awed, yet they are able to speak.  “The Lord—he is God!  The Lord—he is God!”

They turn back to God empowered by the One whose wisdom can be trusted, and who strengthens them to resist the evil practices of human sacrifice and wild carnal desires.  Furthermore, with the Lord God as the One they worship, they need not be victims of strong-arm thugs who are after their money.  Nor do they need to live in a culture of fear that requires sacrifice in the hopes of a good harvest to keep them alive another year.

Recalculating

We need a resource deeper and greater than what we alone can create.  These primitives needed to put their trust in a Holy god who never exploited them.  For us, we need the power of Christ’s message to change our minds and hearts, not only to point us in a new direction, but also to deepen our trust so that we are no longer afraid.

It is not a mistake that Paul got a major recalculation from Jesus that he could not ignore, one that caused him to completely reorder his life purpose.  Jesus hit him with a spiritual lightning bolt that temporarily blinded him, because he was blind to the reality of true Divinity.  He discovered the real God was a God of inclusion, empowerment and fearlessness.

Are we living in a culture of fear like those people  up on Mount Carmel, do you think?  Primitive God-understanding begins with fear of an outer force that can crush us and we must appease, and are powerless to change, but in Christ our God understanding is growing.  Now we are moving into a reality of a love that yokes us to the Holy and emanates through us in lives of courage, justice, compassion and fearlessness not only for ourselves but also for others.

Recalculating

What wields power over your lives and instills such fear you are blinded to the truth of the loving, inclusive, empowering God we understand through Jesus?  What are thugs that rob you of daily peace? I can’t help but think that the frenzy of the news media repeating, repeating messages of fear over and over and over is not unlike what those primitive Hebrews experienced.  It’s not that journalists are evil.  They are trapped in fear too and they are also trapped in economic necessity.  And power.  The next sensational story gets attention.  Unwittingly or otherwise, they promote a false sense of fear.

Certainly we cannot control storms, as Elijah apparently did, and it is good to be informed if a tornado or hurricane is heading our way so that we can take safety measures.

Certainly it is good to know about diseases we can prevent but do we need to be pounded with the amazing and expensive drugs we ought to be taking to make us feel better?

Do you fear losing your jobs?

Do you fear stock-market crashes?

Do you fear the next terrible terrorist event?

Recalculating

God gives life, courage, and endurance.

This is not to say jobs are not lost, stock-markets do not crash, and trees cannot fall upon our houses. Rather, if we center ourselves within the God of life, the God who sends lightning not to strike us down but to burn up our false fears, then we will walk more bravely through all of our difficulties.  We will become aware that God-is-with-us, God-is-for-us, God-acts-through-us, and yes, God is love.

Recalculate

Seek the Lord

Find a Community of Holiness.

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Moonwick–Chapter Five-Sparks

Posted on June 1, 2013 by Administrator

5

Being out in the dark of night even when an imaginary moon is coming up is not a fun thing. Mountain lions were said to live around here. Maddie half-wished Mom would show up, yell at her and make her go to bed. She stretched her jaws wide in a yawn, noting that her breath made fog. A good temperature for playing soccer. She ran over to the shed. Kittens scattered. Finnigan didn’t come when she called him.

The black and white soccer ball that she and John used for practice lay in the middle of the lawn. Maddie rushed towards it as if she were the star player on the field. Only she could save her team. She speed dribbled the ball towards John’s house. Normally, she’d do changes of speed and make fake kicks, but tonight she lobbed the ball off the side of her foot and saw it fly through the two large trees that were their goal posts.

The radius of light from the street lamp outside John’s house made the grass glitter. The ball rolled over the hill out of sight. Maddie dashed around to the back of the house. John’s bedroom was dark. He’d better not be asleep! She stood directly below his window. It was only a few feet above her head. She began chanting:

                        moon moon moon,

                        Angel, Angel, Angel

                        mysterique, riquemist

                        grrck, grrck, grrck

                        magisade, sadimage

                        wick, wick, wick

 

Maddie always made up new words as she went along. They were very stupid but they always made John grin. Maddie was scared to sing too loud as she usually did in case she woke up John’s parents. She tried to jump up and tap on John’s window, but a screen got in the way.

“John,” Maggie called as loud as she dared. “John!” Suddenly there was a lot of scratching at the window. The sound of dog ears flapping like wet towels on sweaty knees made her giggle. Crip must have gotten her scent or he’d have barked. “Crip,” Maddie called. “Go get, John.”

The window flew open. “You’re early,” John said. “I’m not ready yet and Mom and Tony are still up. You’ll have to wait. And be quiet!”

Maddie scrambled up the wall like a cat and managed to hold herself up with her face against the screen. “Let me in!” she said and lost her balance and tumbled to the ground.

“Take this off the window!” Maddie said, leaping up and prodding the screen.

At last, after a lot of scraping noises and sighing from John, the screen disappeared into the house. John’s head poked out.

 “Come on,” Maddie said. “Let’s go while the moon is bright.”

“The moon isn’t up yet,” John replied.

Maddie glanced up at the inky sky. It was waylaid with stars like sparks from a hot fire.

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Lightning Bolt from Heaven?

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Administrator

astroengine.com

This Sunday, June 2, 2013, I am privileged to preach at Spring Valley Presbyterian Church in West Huntington.

1 Kings 18:20-39 (NIV) is the lectionary text my sermon will be based on.

Here are a few words which will not be in my sermon.

Background:  Elijah, who is a big-time prophet for Yahweh is faced off against 450 Baal prophets.  Doesn’t sound like favorable odds, does it?

But Elijah is driven by the power of the one God, Yahweh, and furthermore this God seeks justice and truth.

It turns out the people are wavering between two opinions, trying, perhaps, to hedge their bets between Baal and the Lord God (Yahweh).

Each side gets to call on their god to burn up a bull they have chosen to be used as a sacrifice.

The 450 go first.  They get in a frenzy, stomping around for hours, calling on Baal, and cutting themselves with swords and knives so that their blood flows.  No fire is forthcoming.

Elijah involves the people and douses his bull-offering with 3 big jars of water. He says a simple prayer and eureka!

36 At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. 37 Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”

38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.

39 When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”

These primitive peasants need signs and wonders and quite possibly authoritarian leadership.  It wouldn’t do much good to hold a meeting with them to get their ideas about how to best serve God.  They are busy trying to raise crops and families with no safety nets.  Theirs are lives of struggle to survive.  They don’t have the luxury of educational opportunities, of freedom of speech, of freedom of worship.

What catches us on fire?  For a church to be healthy, we must act out of passion; we cannot only rely upon our minister to set the tone and lead the way.  We Americans are for the most part privileged people in communities where we have opportunities for education, food, clothing, housing, and jobs.  We all know though that in our tough economy many of us are one paycheck away from being on the street.  And it is not through any fault of ours.

Part of this 1 Kings scripture is a call to Trust in the Lord, the one revealed through Christ, who you can learn about in a church.  If you don’t have one, shop around and find a worship center that fits you.  Once you begin to receive spiritual nourishment from Christian life, you will want to create the opportunities for others to know Christ–not by handing out Bible tracts, but by living Christ-lives as best as you are able. 

Fill yourself with the wisdom of Christ, and even when you make mistakes, are less than loving, have dark sides of behavior/personality–alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex-addiction, meanness, gluttony, jealousy–as long as you are trying to do better (perhaps by joining AA or seeking therapy/counseling), you can rely on the transforming power of Christ to instill self-control within you.

Take your Christ understanding into your homes.  How?  Be compassionate with your family, pay attention, listen, be present to them in the way you’d like Christ to be present to you–with a heart desire for their best.

Live Christianly in the world, in your jobs, in the supermarket, in the bank.  How?  Be humble.  Be patient with others.  Recognize they too are members of our society, and are loved by God.  As much as you.  And me.

Shalom

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