Lance's Blog

Giving to the Poor is Giving to God

2012-03-10T08:37:00.000-08:00

He that hath mercy on the poor, lendeth to the Lord: and he will repay him. - Proverbs 19.17

He that sheweth mercy, lendeth to his neighbour: and he that is stronger in hand, keepeth the commandments. Lend to thy neighbour in the time of his need, and pay thou thy neighbour again in due time. Reap thy word, and deal faithfully with him: and thou shalt always find that which is necessary for thee...But yet towards the poor be thou more hearty, and delay not to shew him mercy. Help the poor because of the commandment: and send him not away empty handed because of his poverty. Lose thy money for thy brother and thy friend: and hide it not under a stone to be lost. Place thy treasure in the commandments of the most High, and it shall bring thee more profit than gold. Shut up alms in the heart of the poor, and it shall obtain help for thee against all evil. - Sirach 29.1-3, 11-15.

But yet that which remaineth, give alms; and behold, all things are clean unto you...Sell what you possess and give alms. Make to yourselves bags which grow not old, a treasure in heaven which faileth not: where no thief approacheth, nor moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. - Jesus, in Luke 11.41; 12.33-34

Favorite Albums: The Milestone Jazz Stars in Concert- Sonny Rollins, Ron Carter, and McCoy Tyner

2012-03-09T12:49:00.002-08:00

In 1978, Milestone Records sponsored an all-star tour of three of their biggest artists- Sonny Rollins on saxophone, McCoy Tyner on piano, and Ron Carter on bass. Indeed, these are three of the greatest jazz artists of all time. Each one is a symbol for the instrument they play.

The brilliance of that tour is captured on the magnificent album, The Milestone Jazz Stars in Concert. Originally when the album came out in 1978, it was a double vinyl album, and I remember my copy having great sound. It can be downloaded now, or purchased on a single CD. Sometimes on the internet, it will simply be called, “In Concert” by Sonny Rollins.

Run, don’t walk, to buy this album. The performances are dazzling. The opening track, The Cutting Edge, is a tour de force. Ron Carter’s bass solo on the track is spell-binding. I embedded the YouTube video of the song below.

I remember back in the 70’s trying to convince my heavy metal friend that this is cool music, that the musicians on this record were amazing, and that their playing was more awesome than the rockers we listened to. But in my basement bedroom, my friend was impervious to my persuasion or the compelling music emanating from my turntable. His head was filled with Ted Nugent and Black Sabbath, and he had no interest in learning about jazz at that time. I too, was a rocker, and my wall was plastered with rock stars. But I became hooked for life on jazz as a teenager, and this album was one of the seminal recordings of my youth.

You may purchase The Milestone Jazz Stars in Concert here.

Click on the YouTube link below to hear the cool track, The Cutting Edge:

Favorite Albums: Anita Baker – Rapture

2012-03-07T21:25:00.000-08:00

In 1986, Anita Baker released the best R&B album of the 1980's, Rapture. It is a beautiful, magnificent album. It is one of my favorite R&B albums of all time. It has given me hours of listening pleasure. I prefer to listen to it on vinyl. Rapture is lush, soulful album, sung beautifully by Baker; it is the epitome of R&B music, with a definite jazz tinge to it. It is a great album to make love to.

Baker was born in 1958, in Toledo, Ohio, and raised in Detroit, Michigan. She joined an R&B band in the in 1975, called Chapter 8. They released one album and 1979, had one modest hit single, but were dropped from their small label. Later, Baker released a solo album, The Songstress, which sold modestly well at 400,000 units. During this time, Baker had a day job as a legal secretary.

However, the Elektra label gave her a recording deal, and she had a huge hit album in 1986 with Rapture. The album won two Grammy Awards, and spawned several hit singles, including the sublime top 10 single, Sweet Love, which also kicks off the album. It is lovely romantic R&B ballad, and Baker sings in a lovely, soulful voice.Nearly all the tracks on the album were released as singles, and the album went on to sell six million copies.

The album launched Baker into stardom, and she followed it up with three more highly successful multi-Platinum albums, Giving You the Best You Got in 1988, Compositions in 1990, and The Rhythm of Love in 1994. Baker won four straight Grammy Awards for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance from 1987-1990.

After 1994, Baker spent several years out of the public eye, in order to devote herself to family life. She returned in 2004 with a studio albums, and there have been a few live and greatest hits albums. She recorded an album for EMI in 2010, but it has not been released yet.

I hope we will see more of the this talented vocalist. Her place in music history is firmly established with her great work in the 1980's and 1990's, beginning with Rapture.

Here is the track list for Rapture:

"Sweet Love" (Anita Baker, Louis A. Johnson, Gary Bias; Copyright Old Brampton Road Music-Jobete Music) – 4:26
"You Bring Me Joy" (David Lasley; Copyright Almo Music Corp.) – 4:24
"Caught Up in the Rapture" (Garry Glenn, Dianne Quander; Copyright WB Music Corp.-Silver Sun Music-DQ Music) – 5:07
"Been So Long" (Baker; Copyright Baker's Tunes) – 5:07
"Mystery" (Rod Temperton; Copyright RodSongs & Almo Music Corp.) – 4:56
"No One in the World" (Ken Hirsch, Marti Sharron; Copyright ATV Music & Welbeck Music) – 4:10 *
"Same Ole Love" (Marilyn Mcleod, Darryl K. Roberts; Copyright Jobete Music) – 4:05
"Watch Your Step" (Baker; Copyright Baker's Tunes) – 4:54

Here are links for purchasing Rapture:

Rapture CD on Amazon.com

Rapture MP3 Download

It is also available on iTunes.

Below is my YouTube play list for the album, which features both a great live performance of Sweet Love, as well as the official video.

Poetry: My Young Lady Friend and the Woman I Love

2012-03-06T20:44:00.000-08:00

I have a young lady friend
who listened tonight
about the woman I want to hold so tight

she understood how I
must sigh
When I see my love
as she walks on by

she understood how my
ears must long
to hear my woman
sing her song

she understood
my heart skips
when I see my woman
and pine to kiss her lips

She understood how
my arms must ache
to hold my woman
for loving to make

she understood
my love warms my heart
my friend understood me
from the start

she gave me hope
my woman will be mine
I am grateful to her
I could lay it on the line

if some day
my woman is mine
for her alone my
love will shine

but gratitude toward
my young lady friend
who helped me realize
this beautiful end

God has no case to make against us

2012-03-04T18:07:00.002-08:00

"Silence is the language of God, and the only language deep enough to absorb all the contradictions and failures that we are holding against ourselves. God loves us silently because God has no case to make against us." - Richard Rohr, O.F.M.

Patriarch Bartholomew on Apophatic Theology

2012-03-04T09:31:00.000-08:00

If one speaks theologically, then one always does so within the context of an intimate relationship with God, who is the source of all theology. Moreover, if one articulates theology within the context of prayer, then one also realizes that the most appropriate method of theology is the way of silence before the awesome divine mystery that can never be fully grasped or described.

The final word, then, of theology is silence; its essence lies in the absence of words. For if it is difficult, as St. Gregory the Theologian claims, to conceive God, it is impossible to define God. Theology is best not said; it is most authentic when it is expressed in silence. This is why icons of St. John the Evangelist or Theologian will depict him with his fingers across his sealed mouth, as if to underline the importance of mystery and silence. So the way of Orthodox theology and spirituality cannot be properly understood without an appreciation of its negative or apophatic dimension.

Through the apophatic approach...Orthodox theology affirms the absolute transcendence of God while at the same time underlining the abiding immanence of God.

However, apophatic theology is is not simply another intellectual method of approaching God. It is not a better or even more effective way of knowing God. Theology always remains the knowledge beyond all knowledge; ultimately, it is a form of divine “ignorance.”

Negative theology, therefore, is not merely a corrective or corresponding way to the affirmative approach. It is the only way to God...

- Patriarch Bartholomew in his book, Encountering the Mystery: Understanding Orthodox Christianity Today.

Favorite Albums: Electric Guitarist by John McLaughlin (1978)

2012-03-03T13:42:00.001-08:00

One of my favorite albums from the 1970's is Electric Guitarist by John McLaughlin, released on CBS records in 1978. The album is the epitome of Jazz/Rock fusion music. It is pure jazz in the structure of the songs, with changing time signatures and improvisation; it is rock in its electric sound and impact.

Joining McLaughlin for this album is a Who's Who of 1970's Jazz/rock stars, including Keyboardist Chick Corea, drummers Billy Cobham, Tony Williams, and Jack DeJohnette, bassists Stanley Clarke, Jack Bruce, and Alphonso Johnson, guitarist Carlos Santana, saxophonist David Sanborn, and others.

John McLaughlin at this stage of his career was the preeminent guitarist in the music world, playing with an extremely high level of virtuosity. McLaughlin was an established band leader with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. He was also a great innovator for jazz, the electric guitar, and music in general.

This album displays all of these gifts and talents of John McLaughlin. One thing that is unfortunate about modern music is that CD releases contain a lot of filler since the CD can fit almost 80 minutes of music on it. John McLaughlin expresses more on this 38 minute LP than a lot of artists say in a career.

Being a bassist myself, two of my favorite songs on the album feature two of my favorite bassists, Stanley Clarke on the track, “Did you hear the voices that you left behind?” and Jack Bruce on “Are you the one? Are you the one?”, a Coltrane tribute.

Clarke's solo on upright bass is typical of his playing, in that it has the fluidity and lyricism one associates with the electric fretless bass guitar. Jack Bruce soloing on the electric fretless bass provides a choppy, funky bass solo.

The song, “Phenomenon: Compulsion” features just McLaughlin on electric guitar, and Billy Cobham on drums. It is a powerful, musical rush.

McLaughlin closes the set with a soulful, solo electric guitar ballad, “My Foolish Heart.”

If one wanted to use one LP to show 1970's Jazz-Rock fusion music at its best, John McLaughlin's Electric Guitarist would be a great choice.

Track Listing

1. New York on My Mind
2. Friendship
3. Every Tear from Every Eye
4. Do You Hear the Voices You Left Behind?
5. Are You the One? Are You the One?
6. Phenomenon: Compulsion
7. My Foolish Heart

Below is my YouTube play list of five of the songs from the album:

For Lent: Healing from God

2012-03-03T09:33:00.000-08:00

I love this passage of the Bible, which sees salvation as a healing. That is what salvation is, a healing; not a rescue from an angry god.

For Christians, the line "the third day we shall arise and live before him," is a reference to the resurrection of Christ, and our resurrection in him.

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Let us go and return to the Lord our God;

for he has grasped and will heal us;

He will smite and plug the wound with lint.

After two days he will heal us.

In the third day we shall arise

and live before him.

Let us know, let us pursue

that we might know the Lord.

We shall find him ready as the daybreak.

And he will come to us

as the early and later rain to the earth.

- Hosea 6.1-3, Orthodox Study Bible.

The God Who is Mystery Can Be Found Within

2012-02-29T20:00:00.003-08:00

When I was a younger man, in the 1980's, I was a fundamentalist. As a fundamentalist, I took a very literal view of the Bible, and saw God as a stern father living in the sky. God in this mindset is someone who must be pleased. This god is a projection of the super ego, an archetype filled in by one's experience of a stern human father. It is incredible to me how many intelligent adults still hold to this god, this idol. It is a god who sends tornadoes to punish the “liberal” Lutherans for accepting gay people, or who has the moral right to kill women and children. We should be grateful this god does not kill us, because we are sinners and don't deserve to live. This god is promoted by many Christian celebrities, such as John Piper. This is the god of red-meat politicians, the god whose religion is mere moralism, which is what passes for Christianity in this country.

After awhile I outgrew that kind of religious fundamentalism. The kind of god presented in not only fundamentalism, but in the Bible itself, and in much of religious history. This god is an external deity. The jagged edges of life eventually will crush that god to pieces. One finds that life is not black and white, that simple prescriptions from the bible or the church cannot hold up under the realities of life.

The fact is, we do not know that much about God. Thich Nhat Hahn is absolutely right to say in his book Living Buddha, Living Christ, that theologians are better off not talking about God too much. It is safer, Nhat Hanh says, to say little about God.

God is mystery.

This view of God has precedent in Christian tradition of apophatic theology. Apophatic theology says that God is essentially unknowable. This theology is beautifully developed in the Eastern Orthodox Church, but also has expression in the Christian West with St. Thomas Aquinas, who said we cannot say what God is, only what God is not.

So where do we find God? Again, the tradition offers us understanding.

The Desert Fathers say, "Seek God and not where God lives."

St Nektarios of Pentapolis says, "Seek God every day, but in your heart and not outside of it."

A few days ago, I shared this quote on my blog from Bruce Cockburn:

“I...find there has been change in my understanding of what/who God is. It's a little hard to articulate. But I think, for me in the beginning there was a tendency to relate to the biblical God...with the beard in the sky. I think that rather than thinking of God as outside us and looking down on us, [God is] the presence of the divine is in all of us.”

It is within that we must seek God, who is always mystery.

Rising above individualistic concerns

2012-02-29T19:01:00.004-08:00

I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement.

- Angela Davis

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

- Philippians 2.4

Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination By Brian J. Walsh

2012-02-28T19:52:00.002-08:00

Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination
By Brian J. Walsh

When a friend told me about this book late last year, I thought that all my Christmas had come early.

A theological treatise on Bruce Cockburn has been very necessary for years, but surely he was such a cult artist that no publisher would ever see a book on him as profitable. So fair play to Brazos Press for the courage and vision. And the author might have swayed the deal.

Brian J. Walsh has had some notable success, particularly his Colossians Remixed; Subverting the Empire, written with his wife, Sylvia Keesmaat, and read by most people I know with an imaginative Christian mind. I’ve used it as a foundational text for preaching through Colossians – twice!

A Canadian like Cockburn, Walsh is a Christian Reformed campus minister at the University of Toronto and Adjunct Professor of Theology of Culture at Wycliffe College, Toronto School of Theology. That he was perfect for this particularly important and skillful task has been obvious for some 20 years since, in partnership with Richard Middleton, he wrote the first serious theo-musicology I had ever read — a very lengthy essay on Bruce Cockburn called, "Theology At The Rim Of The Broken Wheel."

Walsh does a good few things in Kicking At The Darkness; Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination. He confirms all your thoughts on your favorite Cockburn lyrics. (They were as theologically potent as you always thought!) He also reminds you how many great lines Cockburn has written, causing you to scuttle back to re-listen to every album right back to the first.

Walsh actually causes you to realize the width and depth and breadth of Cockburn’s theological comment. Songs that you hadn’t looked at closely because you were so taken by other songs on the same album, suddenly open up rich strata of Christian thought you’d never before considered.

The author’s approach is actually very simple and he uses this welcoming foundation to weave his immense insight into Cockburn’s songs to finish with much more than a commentary on Cockburn but rather a Christian worldview. He asks questions.

Walsh has used these questions before particularly in his books The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian World View and Truth is Stranger Than It Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age, both again collaborations with Middleton.

The questions are: Where are we? Who are we? What is wrong? And what is the remedy? From these questions Walsh dialogues with endless lyrics of Cockburn’s to arrive at his answers in very articulate, Christian ways.

From Cockburn’s creation dance songs (particularly on Dancing In The Dragon’s Jaws) and the brokenness of humanity on Humans , to the justice at the rim of the broken wheel ("Justice" from Inner City Front) and some sense of kicking the darkness ‘til it bleeds daylight (with particular reference to the more recent album You’ve Never Seen Everything ) we are showered with memorable line, couplet or verse after memorable line, couplet or verse.

At times it seems that Walsh has become the thread that weaves Cockburn’s words together. Kicking at the Darkness is an astounding work on an astounding musical catalog.

For me, the book made me fall in love with Cockburn all over again. It caused me to listen to songs such as "Dialogue with the Devil" that had gotten lost in Cockburn's huge catalog. Yet, it led me way beyond that.

Kick at the Darkness gave me a refresher course in my Christian worldview. It led me into theological thinking and inspired me to imagine the way the world is — and how the world can be — and how, as a preacher, I can at least attempt to share those thoughts in ways that are perhaps a percentage as creative and imaginative as Bruce Cockburn.

Steve Stockman the minister of Fitzroy Presbyterian Church in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and blogs regularly on the intersection of faith and culture at Soul Surmise, where this reflection first appeared.

source: Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination- on the God's Politics Blog

Esperanza Spalding Performs at the 84th Oscars

2012-02-27T06:27:00.001-08:00

Esperanza Spalding sang a lovely rendition of What a Wonderful World during the Memorial Tribute section of the 84th Oscars. She is joined by the Southern California Children's Chorus. It was a beautiful performance. Click on the picture below to her Esperanza's performance.

The Spirituality of George Harrison: in Honor of George's Birthday

2012-02-25T11:53:00.005-08:00

Today is George Harrison's birthday. He would have been 69 had he lived. Today, I want to honor the spirituality of George Harrison. I find George's spirituality very inspiring for my own relationship to God.

George did not always “walk the talk,” as evangelical Christians say, and George would readily acknowledge this. But he steadfastly followed his spiritual path all his life. He never swerved from it. George's life long passion as an adult was the pursuit of God.

When George passed away in 2001, his widow Olivia Harrison said, “George left this world in the same way he lived in it- in the consciousness of God.” According to Olivia Harrison, upon George’s death, “There was a profound experience when he left his body. It was visible. He just lit the room.”

George's spiritual path was based on Hinduism, which he first embraced in the mid sixties. During the filming of the 1965 movie Help! on location in the Bahamas, the Beatles met Swami Vishnu-devananda, founder of Sivananda Yoga, who gave each member of the band a signed copy of his book, The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga. George became interested in Indian and Hindu culture. He learned to play the sitar, and had as his teacher Ravi Shankar. Shankar was not only a musical mentor, but a spiritual one as well.

The Beatles went through their famous chapter with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and visited him in India in 1968. The other Beatles lost interest in the teacher, but George remained committed to his spiritual practice.

To understand George's spirituality, we need to know a little bit about Hinduism. In its popular form, Hinduism may seem to be polytheistic, with many divinities. But actually, Hinduism teaches that there is only One Reality, which is the foundation of our being, and our task in life is to realize our divine potential, our union with this One Reality. In Hindu scriptures, Ultimate Reality, God, is called Brahman. The Divine within us is called Atman, roughly analogous with the Soul in Western religion. Hinduism (at least one major stream of the tradition) teaches that the Brahman and Atman are ultimately the same. Our separateness from God is an illusion.

The method for realizing this identification with the divine is Yoga. There are different types of Yoga, two of the most common forms are Karma Yoga, union through detached action, and Bhakti Yoga, union through devotion. There are other types of of Yoga as well.

George followed a path of devotion most of his life. Following the path of devotion, one must choose an image of God, and be devoted to that image. For George, it was Krishna, God in human form. The Bhagavad Gita, one of the primary Hindu scriptures, presents teaching on devotion to Krishna, and on the paths of Karma and Bhakti Yoga.

George was also ecumenically minded. He believed that Jesus was a manifestation of God, and said in an interview in the early eighties, “The Greek word for Christ is Kristos, which is, let’s face it, Krishna, and Kristos is the same name actually.” During his 1974 American concert tour, George encouraged his fans to “Chant Krishna! Chant Jesus! Chant Buddha!”

Besides his devotion to God, George was also devoted to Hindu teachers, especially Paramahansa Yogananda. Paramanhansa Yogananda is famous for being the wisdom of Hinduism to the West, and he taught the fundamental unity between Yoga and Christianity. George wrote his song, Fish on the Sand, from the 1987 Cloud Nine album about his devotion and reliance on Yogananda. George often enjoyed visits to the Self-Realization Fellowship Center in Encinitas, California, which was founded by Yogananda.

George's spiritual practice was largely based on saying a mantra and chanting the Name of God. His big #1 hit from 1971, My Sweet Lord, features the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra, and chanting the Divine Names of Vishnu and Lord Rama. He also produced a hit single of the Hare Krishna Mantra performed by the Radha Krishna Temple in 1970.

George maintained his practice of mantra all his life. For this sort of spiritual practice, the Name of God and God are the same; to practice Mantra is to put one's self in the presence of God. George likened the practice of mantra to “God dancing on your tongue.”

One of my favorite religious songs of George is Awaiting on You All, from the 1971 All Things Must Pass album. The song proclaims that by “chanting the Names of the Lord you'll be free..” The song is upbeat. I love the words expressing devotion to Jesus:

“You don't need no passport

And you don't need no visas

You don't need to designate or to emigrate

Before you can see Jesus

If you open up your heart

You'll see he's right there

Always was and will be

He'll relieve you of your cares.”

I also like the lyrics that seem to be distinguishing between religion and God in this song:

“You don't need no church house

And you don't need no temple

You don't need no rosary beads or no books to read

To see that you have fallen

If you open up your heart

You will know what I mean

You've been kept down so long

Someones thinking that we're all green.”

George shared his faith on all of his albums, sometimes to the chagrin of critics and some fans. But I personally find his spiritual songs very edifying.

Probably his two most well known spiritual songs are My Sweet Lord from 1971, and Give Me Love, 1973, both #1 hits which express devotion to God. But for me, the greatest of his spiritual songs was the title track on his last album, Brainwashed.

The message of Brainwashed is that we are in a “Matrix”-type of world, “brainwashed by the military, brainwashed by Dow Jones... brainwashing us in Brussels, brainwashing us in Bonn, brainwashing in us in Washington, in Westminster and London...”

In the song, George cries out, “God, God, God, won't you save us from this mess...”

In the middle of the song, there is an interlude in which a lovely female Indian accent recites a brief passage from a Hindu religious classic book, How to Know God - The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali, page 130:

“The Soul does not love, it is Love Itself;

It does not exist, It is Existence Itself;

It does not know, It is Knowledge Itself.”

George, as his wife said, lived his entire adult life in the consciousness of God.

As a Christian, I find I have a lot in common with George. My spiritual teacher is Bede Griffiths. I follow a path of inter-spirituality, which is based on my devotion to Christ, but also influenced by yoga. My own practice is a mantra based on the Christ, which is taught at Bede Griffith's Shantivanam Ashram in India. I also chant the name of Christ. I find peace in this practice amid life, which can often be stressful. It is reassuring to me to realize that God is lives in me, and that I can know God. It gives me hope for the future.

For me, George is a spiritual brother. His example of clinging to God all his life, in spite of his failings, is inspiring to me.

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Here are some links to some online articles about George's faith:

1982 GeorgeHarrison Interview on the Hare Krishna Mantra

George Harrison's Spiritual Life

In His Own Words: George Harrison on Spirituality

Beatle George Harrison’s Formula for Spiritual Health

George Harrison in his own words

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Below is my YouTube mix of some of George's spiritual songs. The song list is:

1) Within You and Without You
2) The Inner Light
3) My Sweet Lord
4) Awaiting on You All
5) Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)
6) Fish on the Sand
7) Brainwashed

Barack Obama's Christian Testimony

2012-02-24T10:25:00.002-08:00

Many call into question the President's Christianity, or even claim he is a Muslim (as though that would be evil). But President Obama is a Christian, and has made a commitment to Christ. And as far as I am concerned, reading this rough transcript, Barack Obama was doing the Lord’s even before he accepted Christ. This is from a church in Macon Georgia, Harvest Cathedral, in 2008. - Lance

Rough transcript:

I didn’t know a soul when I moved to Chicago. I was 25 years old. I moved there after college. I had been working Wall Street but I wasn’t content. I knew that I wanted to be part of something that was larger than myself. So I went to work as a community organizer with a group of Christian churches who had come together to deal with the devastation of steel plants that had closed on the south side of Chicago and thousands of people had been laid off. Communities had fallen into disrepair. There were young men hanging out on the streets, buildings were boarded up, people had lost hope.

And during these three years as an organizer it wasn’t easy. There were days when we got tired, days when the road ahead seemed too long or too hard to trek. But working with this community, ordinary people, who had discovered they could do extraordinary things when given the opportunity who never stopped believing in the Samaritans sense of justice. Month after month, year after year, we provided: job training for the jobless, hope for the hopeless, after school programs for working families and block by block we help to turn those neighborhoods around.

And this is were I want to give some personal testimony, if you don’t mind. Because I was meeting with lay leaders and lay people of these churches and I was trying to get them organized. We were busy with meetings and we were busy with plans. I recognized myself in them. I could recognize my hopes and my fear and my joys in their lives. I knew scripture and I knew that many of the values I held that had propelled me in my work were values that they shared. But I think they also noticed that there was a detachment to me. There was a part of me that was an observer when I was in church and slowly I came to realize that something was missing in my life.

Because you see I wasn’t raised in a particularly religious household. Some of you know my father was from Kenya in Africa and he was not a religious man. He left when I was two so I didn’t know him. I was raised by my mother and my grandparents.

My mother who was from Kansas was a deeply spiritual person but she wasn’t religious in the way most of us use the term. Partly because she had grown up in small town Kansas and she had seen that sometimes people who preach the gospel or went to church didn’t always act very church like. And so she had sensed that you can be in church without being of the church. You can call yourself a Christian but not act the way Jesus Christ would have us act. So she had rejected and rebelled from organized religion.

My mothers parents who had raised me throughout my childhood, they were Methodist and Baptist. But they had kinda fallen away from the church. So I didn’t have a particularly religious household. Partly because of this upbringing I had no real anchor for my beliefs. No commitment to a particular community of faith.

And so I’m going around these churches in Chicago, trying to organize these churches, some of these pastors, these pastors are slick, because they’d call me into their office and they’d say well you know Barak we think its wonderful work your doing, this job training work. And we like your ideas in terms of challenging the city to deliver services to communities that had been neglected. We want to help you but its hard getting our folks involved.

If you’re organizing churches, it might be helpful if you were a member of a church. Just a suggestion, no pressure, but it might be helpful if folks saw you in church once in a while. I had to admit they had a point.

So one Sunday I woke up at 6 AM and I brushed the lint off the only suit I had. I was getting paid 12,000 dollars a year plus car expenses. I had one suit and it was a little thread bare. And I went over to Trinity on 95th Street on the Southside and I heard a sermon about hope and faith and the love of Jesus Christ.

During the course of the sermon I was introduced to Jesus in a way that I had not been introduced before. And I learned my sins could be redeemed if I placed my trust in him. That he could set me on the path of eternal life. It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the isle one day and get baptized. I have to say, I didn’t fall out in church, it didn’t come as an epiphany. It was a gradual process, all the questions and the doubts and the pain that I sometimes felt didn’t magically disappear. The skeptical bent of my mind didn’t suddenly vanish. But kneeling beneath the cross I heard Gods spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to his will and I dedicated myself to discovering His truth and carrying out His works.

The Foolishness of Franklin Graham

2012-02-21T22:50:00.000-08:00

I don't think much of Franklin Graham as a spokesperson or interpreter of Christianity these days.

During an appearance on Joe Scarborough's Morning Joe show on MSNBC this morning, Franklin Graham expressed uncertainty that President Obama is a Christian. However, Graham is certain that Rick Santorum is a Christian.

He says that the world of Islam considers President Obama "a son of Islam." When asked why he was less certain about President Obama, Graham said it was because President Obama does not have Christian values.

But as for Santorum, Graham told the Morning Joe panel "His values are so clear on moral issues, no question about it."

Graham obviously has not learned a lesson from his father's involvement with politics in the 1970's. His father Billy Graham got close to Richard Nixon, and later felt used and compromised by that association.

Furthermore, Franklin Graham's understanding of Christianity seems very narrow to me. He cannot accept President Obama's profession of faith in Christ; rather, Graham seems to have a narrow, moralistic interpretation of Christianity, that falls along party lines. Graham should consider that he is adulterating "pure devotion to Christ" as St. Paul says, with politics.

The Divine within us, rather than the bearded man in the sky

2012-02-21T22:01:00.000-08:00

I...find there has been change in my understanding of what/who God is. It's a little hard to articulate. But I think, for me in the beginning there was a tendency to relate to the biblical God...with the beard in the sky. I think that rather than thinking of God as outside us and looking down on us, [God is] the presence of the divine is in all of us.

- Bruce Cockburn

Thoughts on Universalism and the Love of God

2012-02-21T21:41:00.000-08:00

I believe God is love, and we are all his children; some of us just don't know it yet.

I don’t believe hardly anyone “goes to hell.” I don’t think God is as capricious as we are. I think “hell” has been used as a means of behavior control most of Christian history, and has served the interests of those in power. Maybe we go through some kind of purging for our selfishness after death, I don't know.

Pete Townshend once sang, “The Sea refuses no river.” Eventually, all will come back to God, for God is “the source, guide, and goal” of all things (Romans 11.36, NEB).

I think God is beyond any concept of love we can imagine. All people have a spark of the Divine. It seems like too precious a thing to perish.

Kevin Costner's Message of Grace at Whitney Houston's Funeral

2012-02-21T10:02:00.000-08:00

I hope my readers have been able to see Whitney Houston's funeral, or clips from it on YouTube. I think the funeral for Whitney Houston was so beautiful, with wonderful speakers and music. Watching Whitney's funeral inspired me, and renewed my personal faith.

Tyler Perry and Kevin Costner I think gave the most moving speeches. I have already posted Tyler Perry's speech, in which he shared how much Whitney loved the Lord.

Kevin Costner's affectionate reminisces presented Whitney as a woman of faith, who like him, had a Baptist Christian upbringing. He also presented Whitney as a woman who still struggled with self-confidence, even with her beauty, talent and success. Costner assured us that she was "great," and "perfect," and as "beautiful as a woman could be," that she had set the "bar so high," that other singers will not attempt to emulate her. Only young girls, who aspire to be the next Whitney, dare to follow in her footsteps. I think it is very touching how much love and admiration Costner has for Whitney Houston.

It was so beautiful what Costner had to say to Whitney:

"You weren't just pretty, you were as beautiful as a woman could be."

"People didn't just like you, Whitney. They loved you. I was your pretend bodyguard once not so long ago, and now you're gone, too soon, leaving us with memories".

Choking back tears, Kevin said goodbye one final time: "Off you go Whitney, off you go. Escorted by an army of angels to your heavenly father. "

"When you sing before him, don't you worry. You will be good enough".

Costner in his speech acknowledged Whitney's struggles, but he movingly proclaimed that Whitney was good enough to appear before her Father in heaven. By implication, Costner was also telling us that we are all acceptable to our Father in heaven.

Music Review: Kisses on the Bottom by Paul McCartney

2012-02-19T08:40:00.000-08:00

Paul McCartney has just released a beautiful album of standards called, Kisses on the Bottom. I greatly enjoy this CD of jazz pop standards, they are part of the American song book. Paul's treatment gives them all such a warm feel. The album's title, "Kisses on the Bottom", comes from the album's opening track "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter," originally a hit for Fats Waller in 1935. The album has a light jazz feel, and Paul gives a charming vocal performance throughout the album. This is new territory for Paul, although he has has loved music like this all his life.

Some of the highlights are standards made popular by Sam Cooke ("Home (When Shadows Fall)"), Ella Fitzgerald ("It's Only a Paper Moon") and Danny Kaye ("The Inch Worm"), among others.

Paul plays acoustic guitar on two tracks, "Get Yourself Another Fool" and "The Inch Worm," but otherwise contributes only vocals to the album. Paul is backed up on the album by Diana Krall and her band.

In addition to the standards performed on this record, Paul pens two original compositions, the albums first single, “My Valentine,” and the CD's last track, “Only Our Hearts.” Eric Clapton plays lead acoustic guitar on “My Valentine,” and Stevie Wonder plays harmonica on “Only Our Hearts.”

I especially love “My Valentine.” It is a beautiful song, with a lovely melody and sung with much feeling by Paul. It stands with his best work, including any of his songs with the Beatles. Paul gave a live performance of the song at this year's Grammy Awards show.

The disc was produced by jazz producer Tommy LiPuma, who has worked with such notables as Miles Davis and Barbra Streisand, among others.

In announcing this new release, Paul said, “This is an album very tender, very intimate. This is an album you listen to at home after work, with a glass of wine or a cup of tea.”

Indeed, it is wonderful to listen to if you want to unwind. I enjoy having something light but interesting to listen to. This fits the bill. I have been listening to it on my Blackberry all week.

On this CD, Paul maintains the high level of performance that he has given us on recent CDs. Paul has done some of the best work of his career in the last 20 years, proving to this often ageist culture that the mature artist has much to offer.

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Below are two videos of Paul's "My Valentine," one the official video, and the other his performance of the song at this year's Grammy Awards Show. I have also below the track listing and order links.

Here is the track list to "Kisses On The Bottom":

01. I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter
02. Home (When Shadows Fall)
03. It's Only A Paper Moon
04. More I Cannot Wish You
05. The Glory Of Love
06. We Three (My Echo, My Shadow And Me)
07. Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive
08. My Valentine
09. Always
10. My Very Good Friend The Milkman
11. Bye Bye Blackbird
12. Get Yourself Another Fool
13. The Inch Worm
14. Only Our Hearts
15. Baby's Request (Deluxe Edition)
16. My One And Only Love (Deluxe Edition)

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Order Links for Kisses on the Bottom:

Kisses on the Bottom, standard edition

Kisses on the Bottom, Deluxe edition

Kisses on the Bottom, MP.3

Kisses on the Bottom, Vinyl edition

Tyler Perry: Whitney loved the Lord- Nothing can separate us from the Love of God

2012-02-18T21:14:00.001-08:00

Very moving sharing by Tyler Perry about Whitney Houston's love for God.

93 Economists Say Obama Stimulus Plan Worked

2012-02-18T19:37:00.000-08:00

‎93 top economists say the Obama stimulus worked. Read their BIO's....and how and why they voted the way they did. "Poll Results | IGM panel was chosen to include distinguished experts with a keen interest in public policy from the major areas of economics, to be geographically diverse, and to include Democrats, Republicans and Independents as well as older and younger scholars. The panel members are all senior faculty at the most elite research universities in the United States. The panel includes Nobel Laureates..."

click on the link below to read more:
Question A: Because of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate was lower at the end of 2010 than it would have been without the stimulus bill.

Whitney Houston's Accapella version of How Will I Know?

2012-02-17T10:48:00.000-08:00

By now you may have heard about Whitney Houston’s vocal track for her song How Will I Know? It has gone viral on the internet, and is available for download. This shows why she Whitney was nicknamed “The Voice.” It is an amazing testimony to her talent.

How Will I Know (Acappella) through Amazon MP.3

How Will I Know (Acappella) through iTunes

Nelson Mandela pays tribute to Whitney Houston

2012-02-16T19:59:00.000-08:00

Nelson Mandela today honored the memory of Whitney Houston.

As Lawrence O'Donnell said tonight, let's remember Whitney the way she deserves to be remembered: singing to Nelson Mandela on his
birthday, and singing to him at the White House.

Whitney Houston was a staunch supporter of the fight against apartheid and refused to work with any agencies who did business with pre-democratic South Africa during her modelling days.

Whitney Houston: Nelson Mandela pays tribute to star

Whitney performing at the Concert for Nelson Mandela's 70th Birthday in 1988.

Barry Goldwater on the Danger of Religion in the Republican Party

2012-02-15T11:14:00.001-08:00

War on Religion or War on Democracy? by Rev. Susan Russell in the Huffington Post

2012-02-15T10:44:00.000-08:00

Excellent piece by Rev. Susan Russell. As a believer, I reject theocracy!

from the article:
Because here's the deal: It's time to call foul on the much ballyhooed "war on religion" and call it what it is ... and it IS a theocratic war on democracy. It is not a "war on religion" when 1st Amendment protections are employed to protect both freedom of religion and freedom from religion -- because nobody has the right to write their theology into our Constitution.

You may read the entire essay here:
War on Religion or War on Democracy?

Rev. Susan Russell is Senior Associate for Communication and Inclusion, All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena, Calif.

Poetry: My Lovely Valentine

2012-02-14T14:34:00.004-08:00

Worked too long today

Late for dinner she prepared for me

Showed up at her place at quarter to 8

Figured she had probably already ate

But she kept dinner warm

And answered the door

Wearing the lingerie I bought her

She welcomed me in

Took my Roses

Grabbed my hand

A big kiss on my face

My fingers played with her lace

We walked past the dinner

To the bedroom we went

I threw my clothes on the floor

She got up, shut the bedroom door

Under the covers

Locked tight in love

Writhing around

Breath and kisses the only sound

Making love all night

Till the morning light

The first shaft of day

I decided to stay

This girl is mine

My lovely valentine

copyright © 2011 Lance Goldsberry

Prayer for Whitney Houston

2012-02-13T06:01:00.000-08:00

Last night on the Grammy Awards show, Jennifer Hudson sang beautifully Whitney's song, I Will Always Love You, with a gospel feel to it. I hope Whitney from heaven can see how much people love her.
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"Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant Whitney. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive her into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen."

- the Book of Common Prayer, page 499

My Tribute to Whitney Houston- A Youtube Play List

2012-02-12T10:08:00.001-08:00

In tribute to Whitney Houston, here is a short play list I compiled on Youtube. It starts out with an electrifying performance of her big hit, I Get So Emotional from a 1988 Concert for Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday.

Watching these videos, I am convinced that Whitney, this stunningly beautiful woman, with her strong lovely voice, was the most talented female pop vocalist of our time.

Rest in peace, Sweet Angel.

Rest In Peace, Sweet Angel: Whitney Houston found dead at 48

2012-02-11T17:59:00.000-08:00

Whitney Houston passed away tonight, her publisher announced.

I remember back in 1985, my mother, who has impeccable taste in music, bought a self-titled album by a new singer, Whitney Houston. The album was terrific, of course. It featured three number one singles, "Saving All My Love for You", "How Will I Know" and "Greatest Love of All." I also liked the duet with Bassist Jermaine Jackson, "Take Good Care of My Heart."

The debut album thrust Whitney into super-stardom, which she follow up with many other hit albums, songs, and movies. According to her Wikipedia article, Whitney received 2 Emmy Awards, 6 Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards, among a total of 415 career awards as of 2010. Houston was also one of the world's best-selling music artists, having sold over 170 million albums and singles worldwide. She was extremely talented and had a great voice.

I always liked Whitney's recordings, and thought Whitney was such a beautiful woman- so did a lot of other guys I knew.

Whitney, in spite of her talent and success, also had heart ache, including a stormy marriage to singer Bobby Brown, and struggles with substance abuse. But I remember what a beautiful, radiant talent and person she was.

She was a sweet angel, I am so saddened by her death. Good night sweet princess, rest in peace.

Barbara Harris, First Female Bishop in the Episcopal Church

2012-02-11T15:51:00.000-08:00

Today, February 11^th, marks the 23 anniversary of the consecration of Barbara Harris as a bishop of the Episcopal Church. She was the first female bishop ordained in the Anglican Communion.

Barbara Harris is a veteran of the civil rights movement, having marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960's. She helped registered black voters in Mississippi. She has also been outspoken for women's rights and the rights of gays and lesbians.

In 1974, she acolyted at ordination service for the first eleven women ordained in the Episcopal Church. In 1979 she was ordained a deacon, and as a priest in 1980. In 1989 she became the first female bishop of the Anglican Communion. She retired in 2003.

Speaking of her work as bishop, Harris said, "I certainly don't want to be one of the boys. I want to offer my peculiar gifts as a black woman...a sensitivity and an awareness that comes out of more than a passing acquaintance with oppression.”

I am a firm believer in ordaining women to the priesthood and consecrating them as bishops. I believe that there were female priests and bishops in the very early church. In any event, both male and female are made in the image of God (Gen 1.27). The image of God is Christ (Col 1.15), and therefore, women can image Christ at the altar as well as men. In the American Episcopal Church, this is now a long settled issue. For me, female clergy is a non-negotiable.

Today, we honor the witness of Barbara Harris, who has fulfilled a prophetic role in society and in the church, as an African-American Woman and a Bishop.

Bishop John Shelby Spong on John A.T. Robinson. NT. Wright comments on Honest to God

2012-02-10T17:06:00.000-08:00

One of the most controversial books of the 1960's was Bishop John A.T. Robinson's Honest to God. In it he questions traditional understandings of Christian dogma and metaphysics. His thesis is that the traditional Christian message can no longer be accepted by modern (Spong will say, "post-modern") people. Robinson was a Bishop in the Church of England, and his book caused quite a stir. He was a New Testament scholar. He passed away in 1983.

I have posted below Bishop John Shelby Spong's reflection on John A.T. Robinson and the Honest to God book. Spong knew Robinson and considered him a mentor. Spong sees Robinson as a prophetic voice, a voice that still has a message for us today.

I also have a link to N.T. Wright's discussion of the Honest to God book. He has some good criticisms of the book. The material is copyrighted so I link to it rather than provide it here.

I personally find the book compelling. I am not sure I buy the whole project of Robinson and Spong. But I also do not see how we can avoid some of the questions brought up in Honest to God.

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This column appeared originally in the September 1995 issue of The VOICE, the newspaper of the Diocese of Newark

JOHN A.T. ROBINSON REMEMBERED
by the Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong, Bishop of Newark

(source: http://www.dioceseofnewark.org/vox30995.html )

One of the great mentors of my life was an English bishop and New Testament scholar named John Albert Thomas Robinson. He burst into public awareness in the United Kingdom in the late fifties when he testified before a commission seeking to ban the novel Lady Chatterley's Lover. For a bishop to favor Lady Chatterley titillated the English media who love juxtaposing religion with sexual expose. People were not aware at this time that this Bishop of Woolwich was also a serious student and a prolific, if not yet well known, writer.

In 1962 a back ailment required that John Robinson be confined to bed for a number of months. His fertile and imaginative mind was freed from other distractions and he wrote a little book called Honest to God that appeared on the bookstands in 1963. It made the controversy about Lady Chatterley's Lover look pale by comparison. This book forced people to recognize that the language of traditional religion was not a language that people believed today whether they continued to use it or not. An advance story in London's SUNDAY OBSERVER trumpeted the headline, "Bishop says the God up there or out there will have to go." Thus, the Church was launched into what came to be known as the "Honest to God Debate," and John A. T. Robinson became a household word in the English-speaking world.

That little book sold more copies than any religious book since Pilgrim's Progress. It was translated into dozens of languages. It was discussed, not just in religious circles, but in pubs, on golf courses and over bridge tables. It brought religion out of the churches and planted it firmly on Main Street.

One would think that the leaders of the churches would have welcomed such an initiative, but that would be to misunderstand the nature of institutional religion. The religious establishment, instead, recoiled defensively. Every would-be theologian rushed into print to denounce this book. Calls were issued for Bishop Robinson's resignation or for him to be deposed for heresy. A book of reactions to Honest to God was published to keep the waves rolling. It revealed just how deeply John Robinson had touched the hot buttons of religious fear that the traditional defenders of the faith struggle to conceal.

The echoes of this debate reached my ears in my small-town parish in Tarboro, North Carolina. I did not rush to read the book. Reviews indicated that it quoted extensively from Rudolf Bultman, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Paul Tillich. I was quite familiar with these thinkers and so I dismissed the book as a popularizing effort of no great significance. Nonetheless I placed the book on my reading schedule, and finally got to it in 1965.

I remember the day I first opened this book. Vacationing on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, I sat on the beach one afternoon with Honest to God. I did not put it down until I had read it through three times. I knew from that moment that my life would never be the same.

John Robinson made me aware that my childhood understanding of God would not live in my world. He forced me to face the fact that the words of both the Bible and the Creeds sound strange to post-modern people and that my faith had to grow or it had to be abandoned. I began on that day the long, tortuous and, to this moment, not yet completed process of rethinking all of the symbols of my religious past so that I could continue to claim them with integrity. I also pledged myself never again to use pious cliches that I clearly no longer believed.

This book drove me first back to the Bible. I knew that the Noah story, or the splitting of the Red Sea story, could not be literally true, to say nothing of the stories of Jesus turning water into wine, walking on water and ascending to the heaven of a ptolemaic universe that had ceased to exist with Copernicus. My church had prepared me poorly, I discovered, to live as a believer in a post-Copernican world, to say nothing of a world shaped by such giants as Newton, Darwin, Freud or Einstein. The Church still lived in a world of miracle and magic, where reward and punishment were meted out by God according to human deserving.

Seven years later, in 1972, this internal struggle emerged externally in the form of my first book which was deeply shaped by the "Worldly Holiness" chapter in Honest to God. My publisher entitled my book Honest Prayer, hoping, I am sure, to be pulled into the Honest to God energy that was still abroad. In 1973 I first met John Robinson. This larger-than- life man came to speak in Richmond on the 10th anniversary of the publication of Honest to God. He was very British, displaying little emotion. After the session I was introduced to him. I thanked him for what his writing had meant to me. I presented him with a copy of Honest Prayer. We talked for a while and then we each returned to our respective lives. Five years later in 1978 John and I met again at the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Bishops of the world. I was now one of those bishops and John, who had returned to Cambridge to teach New Testament, was present as a consultant. Both of us, bored by the speeches, decided to leave early and walk through the woods of Kent to discuss the New Testament. We came across a country pub and stopped to share "a pint." We even engaged in the pub game of "bowls," but all the while still discussing the New Testament. It was such a pleasant experience that we decided to repeat it each day. So while the bishops were debating, John and I probed the gospel tradition and I learned from his incisive mind.

In those years John and I both continued to write books which addressed the theme of bringing the church into dialogue with today's reality. I read everything he wrote. John Robinson's echoes were heard in me every time I spoke and certainly every time I wrote. When one reviewer referred to me as the American Bishop Robinson, I was deeply touched. After Lambeth, John and I began to correspond. I yearned to bring him to lecture to our diocesan family, and finally he agreed. Six months before his scheduled appearance, however, John wrote that he had received a cancer diagnosis and had only a few months to live. He sent me a copy of the sermon he preached at Clare College, Cambridge, the Sunday after he received the diagnosis. I was deeply touched by it, though it made me aware of how lonely I would be without this kindred spirit. John died in the early months of 1983. In my grief I was pleased to be asked to write the American tribute to him published in THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY. Someone else had recognized how important he was to me.

I did not have either John's intellectual training or his Cambridge PhD. Yet after his death, in a real sense I was the only other bishop who was addressing publicly the issues he had raised. That fall of 1983 I published a book entitled Into the Whirlwind: The Future of the Church. It marked a watershed moment for me from which there was no turning back. It was not that it was a great book, but reading it today I discover that the seeds of every book I have written since were present in its pages.

In 1988 Living in Sin? came out. That book was for me the kind of birth to the wider public that the debate on Lady Chatterley's Lover had been for John Robinson. Because of that book and the controversy it sparked, I increasingly found myself occupying the space in which John Robinson once stood and bearing the hostility he received. Now I was the most controversial bishop in the Anglican Communion. My vocation clearly was to transform Christianity so that it could be lived out appropriately today. Each new book fueled this growing flame. Invitations to lecture began to come in from across America, as well as from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. To be a bishop leading this debate became the heart of my vocation. Hence, I worked long hours lest I violate either the integrity of my office or of my scholarship. I could not walk away from the role for which everything in life had equipped me. I have lived this role with vigor, yearning more than once to have had John's counsel.

This past summer I returned once again to the United Kingdom on a lecture tour. I had speaking engagements in Yorkshire, Aberystwyth, Cardiff, Sheffield, Leeds, Milton Keynes, London and Leicester. There were also breaks to allow us to visit family and friends. In one of these downtimes I came face to face with John Robinson once again.

We went to visit two friends, formerly of St. Peter's, Morristown, who now live in a tiny, secluded village in Herefordshire. To our amazement their next-door neighbor was John Robinson's only brother, Edward. We spent an evening with him reminiscing about John's career and his influence. My tour ended at a conference in Leicester for an organization called "The Sea of Faith," where I debated the radical English theologian Don Cupitt. To my joy a member of this conference was Ruth Robinson, John's widow. Once again we spent an evening remembering John Robinson. It was as if grace had touched me twice. The theological child of John A. T. Robinson had been welcomed home. I have now lived and worked twelve years beyond the life span of my mentor. I have picked up and addressed some issues that never surfaced for him. It has sometimes been a lonely journey. Today I can see the horizon of my career and wonder who the next John Robinson will be.

There will always be the "John Robinson" role present in the life of the Church. It will be welcomed by some, feared and hated by others. But that role is always the means by which growth and the renewal of the church is accomplished. I have been privileged to walk, however ineptly, in these footsteps.

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Here is a link to N.T. Wright's critical reflection on Honest to God:
Doubts about Doubt: Honest to God Forty Years On

Henry Winston, African American political leader and Marxist civil rights activist - Black History Month

2012-02-10T09:59:00.000-08:00

Who was Henry Winston?

An unsung hero of Black History.

Winston was an African American. A Cold War political prisoner. A communist.

Imprisoned with other communist leaders for a “conspiracy” to teach revolution, Winston was stricken with a brain tumor behind bars.

Thousands around the world rallied for his release.

Fidel Castro offered to trade the imprisoned Bay of Pigs mercenaries for his release.

President John F. Kennedy granted him executive clemency, but his release was too late.

Henry Winston went blind from medical negligence while serving a prison term because of his belief in a Socialist USA.

source: Communist Party, USA: Celebrating the Life of Henry Winston

February is African American History Month. It is also the 100th anniversary of the birth of Henry Winston, former national chairman of the Communist Party USA. On Sunday, February 19, 2p.m., the Communist Party will hold a celebration and tribute on Winston's legacy in New York City. The event, "The Legacy of Henry Winston: Fight against Racism and the Far Right in 2012" will be livestreamed. Speakers will include professor and political activist Angela Davis, CPUSA Exec. Vice Chair Jarvis Tyner and Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism founder Charlene Mitchell.
People Before Profits Education Fund, New York State Communist Party, Young Communist League and Longview Publishing are sponsors. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door with a special discounted price of $5 for low-income attendees. Make checks payable to People Before Profits Education Fund. Checks can be sent to 235 W 23rd St. 7th floor New York, NY 10011. For more information call 646 556-7409. Click here for the event invitation.

Henry Winston lived a heroic life. Born in Hattiesburg, Miss., into a poor working-class family in 1912, Winston at a young age became active in the unemployed movement during the early years of the Great Depression. It was then that he joined the Young Communist League and was soon elected as a national leader. Winston helped in the building of the 3-million-member American Youth Congress, the Southern Negro Youth Congress and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade whose members fought fascism in Spain.

Winston served in the armed forces, which were segregated, during World War II. Upon his honorable discharge, he became national organization secretary of the Communist Party. In 1948, despite his service to his country, he was among the first 12 leaders of the CPUSA who were indicted for their political beliefs under the unconstitutional Smith Act. Winston spent seven years in jail under this infamous thought control act, and became blind due to the racist negligence of his jailers and the Jim Crow prison system. In 1966 he was elected national chairman of the CPUSA, a position he held until his death in 1986.

Winston made profound theoretical contributions to the class and democratic struggles of the United States. His book, Strategy for a Black Agenda, which first came out in 1973 "remains a fundamental contribution to the struggle," says Tyner. Winston focused on the unity of the class and "national questions," stressing the need for the "Black liberation movement to come to grips with the long-term economic crisis faced by our community, and to direct the struggle against racism toward a broader struggle against the power of monopoly capitalism and imperialism," Tyner says.

In addition, Winston was active in the struggles for Black liberation, black-white and working class unity, and among the American pioneers in building solidarity with peoples of Africa, in particular the struggles against apartheid in southern Africa.

Tyner says the celebration of Winston's life is relevant for 2012 and the elections, especially the struggle against racism. "I think Winston's legacy is still very powerful for today. Much has changed since Winston's time, and today holds its own complexities, but we are still confronting racism, economic injustice and reactionary political forces."

From the Wikipedia article Henry M. Winston :

Henry M. Winston (2 April 1912– 13 December 1986) was an African American political leader and Marxist civil rights activist.

Winston, committed to equal rights and communism, was an advocate of civil rights for African Americans decades before the idea of racial equality emerged as a mainstream current of American political thought.

An early member of the American Communist Party, Winston was elected to the party's National Board in 1936, serving as Chairman of the CPUSA from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Born on 2 April 1911 to Joseph and Lucille Winston in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Henry grew up there and in Kansas City, Missouri. The economic situation of the poor Winston family was troubling enough to force Henry to leave high school early. Though once again uemployed after the start of the Great Depression, Winston's organizational skills and intellect when he took a position with the Kansas City Unemployed Council at 19.

By 1936, Winston was serving the Communist Party USA as both the national organizational secretary of the Young Communist League member of the Communist Party National Board.

As a high-ranking member of the Communist Party organization, Winston encouraged members of the party to sign up for military service to fight Fascism and Nazism in the Second World War. Winston himself served in the Army, participating in the liberation of France from Nazi occupation. He marked the war's end with an honorable discharge from the military.

The Red Scare
Back to political activity after his World War II discharge and the reorganization of the Party in 1946, Winston, along with the rest of the CPUSA leadership, was a victim of an early Cold War attempt by the American government to "decapitate" the Communists' leading ranks. In 1948, Winston, together with other notable leaders within the Communist movement, was brought to trial in the Foley Square trial on charges of violating the Smith Act prohibition prohibiting the encouragement of overthrowing the American government.

Unable to produce any evidence that any of the leading party members had actually called for the armed overthrow of the American government, the prosecution, boosted by the American public's antipathy toward radical activists during the opening years of the Cold War, based its case on selective interpretation of quotations from the works of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and other revolutionary figures of Marxism-Leninism, and the testimony of "witnesses" hired by the FBI. During the course of the trial the judge held several of the defendants and all of their counsel in contempt of court.
Convicted of revolutionary insurrection alongside the rest of the defendants for advocating the ideas of Marxism, Winston escaped while on bail. In disguise, traveling around the country under a false name, Winston was sheltered by sympathetic to Marxism and leftist political work. Undeterred from maintaining his links with the party above-ground, Winston continued his activities from within the party's underground organization: his 1951 pamphlet on party organization, "What it Means to be a Communist," was produced by the Communist Party while Winston was still underground.

Following his surrender to federal authorities years later, Winston served out his sentence in Terre Haute, Indiana, remaining imprisoned, despite severe health problems, until his release in 1961.
Winston's state of health began to see a rapid deterioration throughout the late 1950s. By 1958, he began to suffer from headaches and dizzy spells; no adequate treatment was administered to him until 1960; by then, although the tumor was removed when he was transferred to a hospital New York, Winston was left permanently blind as a result of denied treatment. Winston's release, now sought even by anti-communist preachers and liberal activists, was refused.

Addressing President Kennedy in a 1961 debate, Comandante Fidel Castro, whose July 26 Revolution swept the Communists into power two years earlier, called for the release of Winston and other political prisoners.

Against the backdrop of both waves of protests from various quarters of the United States in addition to criticism from across the world, the Kennedy administration allowed Winston executive clemency, following which he was permitted to seek medical attention in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The same year, the Supreme Court, in Noto v. United States (1961), put an end to the jailing of party leaders, having reversed a conviction under the membership clause because the evidence was insufficient to prove that the Party had engaged in unlawful advocacy:

"[T]he mere abstract teaching of Communist theory, including the teaching of the moral propriety or even moral necessity for a resort to force and violence is not the same as preparing a group for violent action and steeling it to such action. There must be some substantial direct or circumstantial evidence of a call to violence now or in the future which is both sufficiently strong and sufficiently pervasive to lend color to the otherwise ambiguous theoretical material regarding Communist Party teaching, and to justify the inference that such a call to violence may fairly be imputed to the Party as a whole, and not merely to some narrow segment of it."

The legal recognition of the illegitamcy of the federal government's basis for the imprisonment of party activists was now complete. Although the party was seriously damaged by the repressive moves, aggressive party activity was now again possible.

Later life
Winston was elected CPUSA Chairman in 1966, sharing the running of the party organization with Gus Hall, the General Secretary.

In 1964, he spoke to students at the University of Washington, after radical activists from the Baby Boomer generation staged protests against the university's ban on "communist speakers."

The 1970s witnessed the publication of two books connecting the long-denied issue of African American equality in America and the Communist philosophy of class struggle: Winston's Strategy for a Black Agenda (1973) and Class, Race, and Black Liberation (1977), which argued that the struggle for civil rights had reached the stage of fusion with the struggle for economic rights.

His 1971 lecture to a seminar of Communist Party organizers, "The giant industrial monopolies, the big banks and insurance companies, the financiers and landowners, all spawn racism and use it as one of their chief class weapons to maintain and defend their regime of exploitation and oppression, of enmity among peoples, of imperialist wars of aggression.

"It follows that all democratic and antimonopoly forces, with the working class and Black liberation movement in the van, can effectively defend the interests of the vast majority of people only when they actively further the struggle against racism. This is an essential precondition for the development of a fighting alliance which will unite all democratic and [anticapitalist] forces in the country."

A close ally of the South African Communist Party and actively involved in the American movement to end support for the United States' then-ally, apartheid South Africa, Winston proposed the following strategy as a backbone of principles for the U.S. sanctions and divestment movement against the apartheid regime:

No economic, political or military relations whatsoever with the Vorster regime in the Republic of South Africa.
Congress shall tax and the Treasury shall collect taxes on all profits made in South Africa at maximum rates without deductions for local tax paid.
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation shall refuse to insure any new investments in South Africa and cancel all outstanding insurance on investments in the Republic of South Africa.
The President shall instruct the Export-Import Bank and all other U.S. credit agencies to refuse all credits for business with the Republic of South Africa and instruct U.S. representatives of international lending agencies to oppose all credits to the Republic of South Africa or companies operating therein.
The State Department shall denounce all existing investment, trade and commercial treaties with the Union of South Africa and the President shall remove most favored nation treatment from South African goods.
The immediate withdrawal of the sugar quota to the Republic of South Africa.

As Chairman of the CPUSA, Winston condemned the Reagan administration's nuclear buildup, increases in military spending at the expense of social welfare programs, and sponsorships of civil wars against leftist forces in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Winston died on December 13, 1986, aged 75, in the Soviet Union, where he had again returned in search of medical treatment.

You are Accepted by Paul Tillich

2012-02-08T17:20:00.000-08:00

Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. - Romans 5:20.

These words of Paul summarize his apostolic experience, his religious message as a whole, and the Christian standing of life. To discuss these words, or to make them the text of even several sermons, has always seemed impossible to me. I have never dared to use them before. But something has driven me to consider them during the past few months, a desire to give witness to the two facts which appeared to me, in hours of retrospection, as the all-determining facts of our life: the abounding of sin and the greater abounding of grace.

There are few words more strange to most of us than "sin" and "grace". They are strange, just because they are so well-known. During the centuries they have received distorting connotations, and have lost so much of their genuine power that we must seriously ask ourselves whether we should use them at all, or whether we should discard them as useless tools. But there is a mysterious fact about the great words of our religious tradition: they cannot be replaced. All attempts to make substitutions, including those I have tried myself, have failed to convey the reality that was to be expressed; they have led to shallow and impotent talk. There are no substitutes for words like "sin" and "grace". But there is a way of rediscovering their meaning, the same way that leads us down into the depth of our human existence. In that depth these words were conceived; and there they gained power for all ages; there they must be found again by each generation, and by each of us for himself. Let us therefore try to penetrate the deeper levels of our life, in order to see whether we can discover in them the realities of which our text speaks.

Have the men of our time still a feeling of the meaning of sin? Do they, and do we, still realize that sin does not mean an immoral act, that "sin" should never be used in the plural, and that not our sins, but rather our sin is the great, all-pervading problem of our life? Do we still know that it is arrogant and erroneous to divide men by calling some "sinners" and others "righteous"? For by way of such a division, we can usually discover that we ourselves do not quite belong to the "sinners", since we have avoided heavy sins, have made some progress in the control of this or that sin, and have been even humble enough not to call ourselves "righteous". Are we still able to realize that this kind of thinking and feeling about sin is far removed from what the great religious tradition, both within and outside the Bible, has meant when it speaks of sin?

I should like to suggest another word to you, not as a substitute for the word "sin", but as a useful clue in the interpretation of the word "sin", "separation" . Separation is an aspect of the experience of everyone. Perhaps the word "sin" has the same root as the word "asunder". In any case, sin is separation. To be in the state of sin is to be in the state of separation. And separation is threefold: there is separation among individual lives, separation of a man from himself, and separation of all men from the Ground of Being. This three-fold separation constitutes the state of everything that exists; it is a universal fact; it is the fate of every life. And it is our human fate in a very special sense. For we as men know that we are separated. We not only suffer with all other creatures because of the self-destructive consequences of our separation, but also know why we suffer. We know that we are estranged from something to which we really belong, and with which we should be united. We know that the fate of separation is not merely a natural event like a flash of sudden lightning, but that it is an experience in which we actively participate, in which our whole personality is involved, and that, as fate, it is also guilt. Separation which is fate and guilt constitutes the meaning of the word "sin". It is this which is the state of our entire existence, from its very beginning to its very end. Such separation is prepared in the mother's womb, and before that time, in every preceding generation. It is manifest in the special actions of our conscious life. It reaches beyond our graves into all the succeeding generations. It is our existence itself. Existence is separation! Before sin is an act, it is a state.

We can say the same things about grace. For sin and grace are bound to each other. We do not even have a knowledge of sin unless we have already experienced the unity of life, which is grace. And conversely, we could not grasp the meaning of grace without having experienced the separation of life, which is sin. Grace is just as difficult to describe as sin. For some people, grace is the willingness of a divine king and father to forgive over and again the foolishness and weakness of his subjects and children. We must reject such a concept of grace; for it is a merely childish destruction of a human dignity. For others, grace is a magic power in the dark places of the soul, but a power without any significance for practical life, a quickly vanishing and useless idea. For others, grace is the benevolence that we may find beside the cruelty and destructiveness in life. But then, it does not matter whether we say "life goes on", or whether we say "there is grace in life"; if grace means no more than this, the word should, and will, disappear. For other people, grace indicates the gifts that one has received from nature or society, and the power to do good things with the help of those gifts. But grace is more than gifts. In grace something is overcome; grace occurs in spite of something; grace occurs in spite of separation and estrangement. Grace is the reunion of life with life, the reconciliation of the self with itself. Grace is the acceptance of that which is rejected. Grace transforms fate into a meaningful destiny; it changes guilt into confidence and courage. There is something triumphant in the word grace : in spite of the abounding of sin grace abounds much more.

And now let us look down into ourselves to discover there the struggle between separation and reunion, between sin and grace, in our relation to others, in our relation to ourselves, and in our relation to the Ground and aim of our being. If our souls respond to the description that I intend to give, words like "sin" and "separation", "grace" and "reunion", may have a new meaning for us. But the words themselves are not important. It is the response of the deepest levels of our being that is important. If such a response were to occur among us this moment, we could say that we have known grace.

Who has not, at some time, been lonely in the midst of a social event? The feeling of our separation from the rest of life is most acute when we are surrounded by it in noise and talk. We realize then much more than in moments of solitude how strange we are to each other, how estranged life is from life. Each one of us draws back into himself. We cannot penetrate the hidden centre of another individual; nor can that individual pass beyond the shroud that covers our own being. Even the greatest love cannot break through the walls of the self. Who has not experienced that disillusionment of all great love? If one were to hurl away his self in complete self-surrender, he would become a nothing, without form or strength, a self without self, merely an object of contempt and abuse. Our generation knows more than the generation of our fathers about the hidden hostility in the ground of our souls. Today we know much about the profusive aggressiveness in every being. Today we can confirm what Immanuel Kant, the prophet of human reason and dignity, was honest enough to say: there is something in the misfortune of our best friends which does not displease us. Who amongst us is dishonest enough to deny that this is true also of him? Are we not almost always ready to abuse everybody and everything, although often in a very refined way, for the pleasure of self-elevation, for an occasion for boasting, for a moment of lust? To know that we are ready is to know the meaning of the separation of life from life, and of "sin abounding".

The most irrevocable expression of the separation of life from life today is the attitude of social groups within nations towards each other, and the attitude of nations themselves towards other nations. The walls of distance, in time and space, have been removed by technical progress; but the walls of estrangement between heart and heart have been incredibly strengthened. The madness of the German Nazis and the cruelty of the lynching mobs in the South provide too easy an excuse for us to turn our thoughts from our own selves. But let us just consider ourselves and what we feel, when we read, this morning and tonight, that in some sections of Europe all children under the age of three are sick and dying, or that in some sections of Asia millions without homes are freezing and starving to death. The strangeness of life to life is evident in the strange fact that we can know all this, and yet can live today, this morning, tonight, as though we were completely ignorant. And I refer to the most sensitive people amongst us. In both mankind and nature, life is separated from life. Estrangement prevails among all things that live. Sin abounds.

It is important to remember that we are not merely separated from each other. For we are also separated from ourselves. Man Against Himself is not merely the title of a book, but rather also indicates the rediscovery of an age-old insight. Man is split within himself. Life moves against itself through aggression, hate, and despair. We are wont to condemn self-love; but what we really mean to condemn is contrary to self-love. It is that mixture of selfishness and self-hate that permanently pursues us, that prevents us from loving others, and that prohibits us from losing ourselves in the love with which we are loved eternally. He who is able to love himself is able to love others also; he who has "learned to overcome self-contempt has overcome his contempt for others." But the depth of our separation lies in just the fact that we are not capable of a great and merciful divine love towards ourselves. On the contrary, in each of us there is an instinct of self-destruction, which is as strong as our instinct of self-preservation. In our tendency to abuse and destroy others, there is an open or hidden tendency to abuse and to destroy ourselves. Cruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves. Nothing is more obvious than the split in both our unconscious life and conscious personality. Without the help of modern psychology, Paul expressed the fact m his famous words, "For I do not do the good I desire, but rather the evil that I do not desire." And then he continued in words that might well be the motto of all depth psychology: "Now if I should do what I do not wish to do, it is not I that do it, but rather sin which dwells within me." The apostle sensed a split between his conscious will and his real will, between himself and something strange within and alien to him. He was estranged from himself; and that estrangement he called "sin". He also called it a strange "law in his limbs", an irresistible compulsion. How often we commit certain acts in perfect consciousness, yet with the shocking sense that we are being controlled by an alien power. That is the experience of the separation of ourselves from ourselves, which is to say "sin", whether or not we like to use that word.

Thus, the state of our whole life is estrangement from others and ourselves, because we are estranged from the Ground of our being, because we are estranged from the origin and aim of our life. And we do not know where we have come from, or where we are going. We are separated from the mystery, the depth, and the greatness of our existence. We hear the voice of that depth; but our ears are closed. We feel that something radical, total, and unconditioned is demanded of us; but we rebel against it, try to escape its urgency, and will not accept its promise.

We cannot escape, however. If that something is the Ground of our being, we are bound to it for all eternity, just as we are bound to ourselves and to all other life. We always remain in the power of that from which we are estranged. That fact brings us to the ultimate depth of sin: separated and yet bound, estranged and yet belonging, destroyed and yet preserved, the state which is called despair. Despair means that there is no escape. Despair is "the sickness unto death." But the terrible thing about the sickness of despair is that we cannot be released, not even through open or hidden suicide. For we all know that we are bound eternally and inescapably to the Ground of our being. The abyss of separation is not always visible. But it has become more visible to our generation than to the preceding generations, because of our feeling of meaninglessness, emptiness, doubt, and cynicism -- all expressions of despair, of our separation from the roots and the meaning of our life. Sin in its most profound sense, sin, as despair, abounds amongst us.

"Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound", says Paul in the same letter in which he describes the unimaginable power of separation and self-destruction within society and the individual soul. He does not say these words because sentimental interests demand a happy ending for everything tragic. He says them because they describe the most overwhelming and determining experience of his life. In the picture of Jesus as the Christ, which appeared to him at the moment of his greatest separation from other men, from himself and God, he found himself accepted in spite of his being rejected. And when he found that he was accepted, he was able to accept himself and to be reconciled to others. The moment in which grace struck him and overwhelmed him, he was reunited with that to which he belonged, and from which he was estranged in utter strangeness.

Do we know what it means to be struck by grace? It does not mean that we suddenly believe that God exists, or that Jesus is the Saviour, or that the Bible contains the truth. To believe that something is, is almost contrary to the meaning of grace. Furthermore, grace does not mean simply that we are making progress in our moral self-control, in our fight against special faults, and in our relationships to men and to society. Moral progress may be a fruit of grace; but it is not grace itself, and it can even prevent us from receiving grace. For there is too often a graceless acceptance of Christian doctrines and a graceless battle against the structures of evil in our personalities. Such a graceless relation to God may lead us by necessity either to arrogance or to despair. It would be better to refuse God and the Christ and the Bible than to accept them without grace. For if we accept without grace, we do so in the state of separation, and can only succeed in deepening the separation. We cannot transform our lives, unless we allow them to be transformed by that stroke of grace. It happens; or it does not happen. And certainly it does not happen if we try to force it upon ourselves, just as it shall not happen so long as we think, in our self-complacency, that we have no need of it. Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: "You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!" If that happens to us, we experience grace After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance.

In the light of this grace we perceive the power of grace in our relation to others and to ourselves. We experience the grace of being able to look frankly into the eyes of another, the miraculous grace of reunion of life with life. We experience the grace of understanding each other's words. We understand not merely the literal meaning of the words, but also that which lies behind them, even when they are harsh or angry. For even then there is a longing to break through the walls of separation. We experience the grace of being able to accept the life of another, even if it be hostile and harmful to us, for, through grace, we know that it belongs to the same Ground to which we belong, and by which we have been accepted. We experience the grace which is able to overcome the tragic separation of the sexes, of the generations, of the nations, of the races, and even the utter strangeness between man and nature. Sometimes grace appears in all these separations to reunite us with those to whom we belong. For life belong to life.

And in the light of this grace we perceive the power of grace in our relation to ourselves. We experience moments in which we accept ourselves, because we feel that we have been accepted by that which is greater than we. If only more such moments were given to us! For it is such moments that make us love our life, that make us accept ourselves, not in our goodness and self- complacency, but in our certainty of the eternal meaning of our life. We cannot force ourselves to accept ourselves. We cannot compel anyone to accept himself. But sometimes it happens that we receive the power to say "yes" to ourselves, that peace enters into us and makes us whole, that self-hate and self-contempt disappear, and that our self is reunited with itself. Then w can say that grace has come upon us.

"Sin" and "grace" are strange words; but they are not strange things. We find them whenever we look into ourselves with searching eyes and longing hearts. They determine our life. They abound within us and in all of life. May grace more abound within us!

The Episcopal Church and Social Justice

2012-02-08T10:45:00.000-08:00

The Episcopal Church has taken prophetic stand on a number of social issues.

The church ordains female clergy; the church welcomes gay and lesbian persons; the church engages in any number of social justice and charitable ministries. As the Episcopal Church web site states, "One of the ways the Episcopal Church addresses domestic poverty is through its Jubilee network, which consists of over 600 Jubilee Ministry Centers. These centers empower the poor and oppressed in their communities by providing direct services, such as food, shelter, and healthcare, and also by advocating for human rights."

The Church also partners with the One Campaign, and has endorsed the Millennium Development Goals for ending world poverty.

The Episcopal Church has also made formal statements endorsing single payer health care, the Employee Free Choice Act, and the Occupy Movement.

The Episcopal Church is not perfect, and not without problems; but in my view, the church is standing on the right side of history.

The Episcopal Church

Long Live the Queen! Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Anniversary Today!

2012-02-08T10:20:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on the Diamond Anniversary of her coronation as Queen of the Realm. Long Live the Queen!

"O LORD, our heavenly Father, the high and mighty, King of kings, Lord of lords, the only Ruler of princes, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth; Most heartily we beseech thee with thy favour to behold our most gracious Sovereign Lady, Queen ELIZABETH; and so replenish her with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that she may always incline to thy will, and walk in thy way. Endue her plenteously with heavenly gifts; grant her in health and wealth long to live; strengthen her that she may vanquish and overcome all her enemies; and finally, after this life, she may attain everlasting joy and felicity; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

- The English Book of Common Prayer

Freedom of Spirit

2012-02-06T16:56:00.001-08:00

It is good to be free from religious obsession and still have a spirituality.

I found this freedom 15 years ago & lost or gave it up some how.

But now I have it back- I let go...

Robert Kennedy and Cesar Chavez in 1968

2012-02-06T10:56:00.000-08:00

Below are some pictures of Robert F. Kennedy with Cesar Chavez after Chavez's hunger strike. We have not seen a politician so in solidarity with proletarian workers since RFK. The poor are often of no concern in today's political debate. It is so moving to see these two heroes of social justice together.

Frank Schaeffer- President Obama Will Be Vindicated

2012-02-06T04:58:00.000-08:00

http://frank-schaeffer.blogspot.com/2012/02/president-obama-will-be-vindicated.html

As Ryan Lizza writes in the New Yorker: “Obama didn’t remake Washington. But his first two years stand as one of the most successful legislative periods in modern history. Among other achievements, he has saved the economy from depression, passed universal health care, and reformed Wall Street.”

So when are President Obama’s critics, people like Paul Krugman and Mitt Romney, going to offer President Obama an apology? Both have often loudly predicted that he made the economy worse and was putting America on the wrong economic path. Both are being proved wrong by the economic comeback we are in. I mention them not to pick on Krugman, who I respect or even on Romney (who I regard as a vapid twit bought and paid for by corporate interests) but to make a point: President Obama is going to have the last laugh on his critics, no matter what ideological spectrum they hail from.

President Obama is succeeding in spite of the fact that he’s been up against a Republican Party willing to destroy the economy in order to destroy him.

As the New Yorker notes:

“Two well-known Washington political analysts, Thomas Mann, of the bipartisan Brookings Institution, and Norman Ornstein, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, agree. In a forthcoming book about Washington dysfunction, ‘It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,’ they write, ‘One of our two major parties, the Republicans, has become an insurgent outlier—ideologically extreme, contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime, scornful of compromise, unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.’"

We all know the Right's critique of the President has failed. Rush Limbaugh did not get his wish! But what of the Left? The tone of the criticism of the President on lefty blogs has been persistently negative and none too prescient. According to his critics on the Left President Obama "sold out to Wall Street." He didn't "bring the change he promised," he "is just like the Republicans," etc., etc.

And I'm not even counting the shrillest voices on the Left and Right who have accused President Obama of either/or undermining national security -- by being a "secret terror-codling Muslim" -- or using drones to "murder civilians," because "he is just like the Republicans and part of the corporatist elite."

I happen to be a white 59-year-old former Republican. I happen to be a former religious right leader who came to my senses in the mid 1980s and quit the hate and fear religious right machine. (I explain about why I left the religious right in my book Crazy For God.) I also happen to have been one of the most vocal (and one of the first) Huffington Post bloggers. I was blogging there when we emailed in blogs then were called by the person who posted them. I supported then Senator Obama, just about every week during the Democratic primary season in 08. Back then I had lots of company at HP from the top down. It seemed we were all rooting for Obama.

Not anymore. I still blog at HP and other sites like Alternet but have actually been kicked off several progressive sites for continuing to support the president. (No kidding.)

About 6 months into his presidency lots of bloggers at HP and elsewhere seemed to run out of patience not just with President Obama but with reality itself. President Obama "disappointed" them. I stuck with the President because I believed then, and believe now, that he is smarter, kinder, more reliable and morally superior to his critics let alone to the political alternatives. I also know that the presidency is not as powerful as many people seem to think it is including many liberal commentators who claim to live in a fact-based world. I'm grateful if any president can get anything good done at all.

The Left and Right have united in predicting President Obama's failure and even seeming to root for it, if nothing else to prove they were right. So will the "sky is falling" prophets of doom on the Left and Right -- who have made it a national pastime to predict the "failure" of the Obama presidency -- start to climb down now that all their dire predictions are falling flat re the economy (that Obama did not ruin!) and wars ending (that Obama did not start!)?

The wars are ending and the economy is coming back. Good for the country. Bad for the doom pundits of the Left and Right.

Anyone who thinks Obama didn't "bring change" fast enough is living in a fact-free dreamland. First, they have no to little idea about how limited the president’s powers are. Second, they have no idea what this president in particular faced. We'll get the change promised but it will take 2 full terms and it will never live up to the expectations of the utopian groupies of the Left who thought they’d voted for a messiah not a mere president.

So why has change taken "so long"?

Because:

President Obama inherited a far bigger economic and foreign policy mess than anyone predicted....
The Republicans obstructed our first black president far more ruthlessly (and with racist overtones) than any (sane) person would have predicted...
President Obama's "friends" on the Left were as shortsighted and mean-spirited as his enemies on the Right...
And until the Occupy Wall Street Movement came along the President wasn't getting the help he needed from the street to make the unfairness of American life that he's trying to fix into an issue.

Occupy Wall Street is doing what MLK and the civil rights movement did for Johnson: it provided the heat Johnson could then use to move his agenda forward. Obama too now has the wind of change at his back.

Sure, I like anyone else wish for more action from the President on many fronts. For instance I wish the President had not been so in love with the idea that we could be moving into a post-partisan world of cooperation.

New Yorker put it

“Predictions that Obama would usher in a new era of post-partisan consensus politics now seem not just naïve but delusional. At this political juncture, there appears to be only one real model of effective governance in Washington: partisan dominance, in which a President with large majorities in Congress can push through an ambitious agenda… Many of Obama’s liberal allies have been disillusioned, too. When Steve Jobs last met the President, in February, 2011, he was most annoyed by Obama’s pessimism—he seemed to dismiss every idea Jobs proffered. ‘The president is very smart,’ Jobs told his biographer, Walter Isaacson. ‘But he kept explaining to us reasons why things can’t get done. It infuriates me.’ “Yet our political system was designed to be infuriating. As George Edwards notes in his study of Presidents as facilitators, the American system “is too complicated, power too decentralized, and interests too diverse for one person, no matter how extraordinary, to dominate.” Obama, like many Presidents, came to office talking like a director. But he ended up governing like a facilitator, which is what the most successful Presidents have always done. Even Lincoln famously admitted, ‘I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events controlled me.’"

Try Romney and the Mormons on for size if you think Obama has been “slow” to embrace gay marriage! Try Gingrich and the "Christian Zionists" if you think we tilted too far to the far right West Bank settlers and Israeli hardliners! Try the Koch brothers’ cronies if you think our president is “owned by Wall Street!”

I know what the stakes are. I know from the inside just how deranged, corrupt and awful the marriage between Wall Street and the unwashed Tea Party/Religious Right anti-abortion, racist, homophobic and misogynist mob really is. I know that these people will buy elections then try and turn America into a theocracy -- on matters of personal morality -- and into an Ayn Rand libertarian and heartless swamp where the 1% eat the rest of us-- when it comes to the economy.

So I've been grateful that a man of integrity, brains and kindness and reasonable moderation (not to mention moderate progressive religious faith) is leading America. I didn't just read about the alternative and "other" side. I was the other side and know what they are capable of.

When we hear that jobless numbers are going down faster than expected, that shoppers spent money over the holidays, that economic forecasts are being revised upward, that we are out of Iraq, that bin Laden is dead, that gays can serve in the military, that Wall Street and the banks are now under investigation, that a woman's right to choose is being protected... it's time for a reassessment of the President's critic's.

And NO I'm NOT saying that any president is above rebuke when you think he's wrong. But fair rebuke is one thing. The endless drip, drip of mindless "disappointed" negativity that has been the hallmark not just of Fox News but has been found on progressive blogs too, is another thing altogether. Enough already! Or at least have the integrity to admit when you're wrong.

The President keeps proving himself smarter than his detractors. More power to him.

President Obama will win in 2012. And 4 years later all that will be remembered about his critics is that they were impatient, deluded and wrong.

Given what was on his plate when he took office and the fact that we're successfully struggling out of both recession and 2 war -- and succeeding -- President Obama is one of the best of the American presidents already. His second term will consolidate that verdict and bodes greatness as his legacy.

SEX, MOM and GOD: How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics--and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway

3 Songs from Esperanza Spalding's forthcoming Radio Music Society

2012-02-04T22:32:00.000-08:00

Here is the art work for Esperanza Spalding's new forthcoming CD, The Radio Music Society. The first picture is for the regular CD edition, the second one for the bonus edition which will include a DVD with videos.

The Radio Music Society is coming out March 20, 2012. Esperanza describes the new recording as funkier and more up to date than its predecessor. She has described the Radio Music Society as presenting improvised music in a radio-friendly format, and will incorporate soul, R&B, pop and hip-hop influences.

Here is the track list as posted on Amazon.com:

1. Radio Song
2. Cinnamon Tree
3. Crowned & Kissed
4. Land Of The Free
5. Black Gold (Featuring Algebra Blessett and Lionel Loueke)
6. I Can't Help It (Featuring Joe Lovano)
7. Hold On Me
8. Vague Suspicions
9. Endangered Species (Featuring Lalah Hathaway)
10. Let Her
11. City Of Roses
12. Smile Like That

Esperanza Spalding Tour Dates
April 18 - Buffalo, NY - Center for the Arts - tickets onsale January 20
April 19 - Cleveland, OH - Metro Campus Auditorium - tickets onsale January 20
April 21 - New York, NY - Webster Hall - tickets onsale January 20
April 22 - Boston, MA - Orpheum Theatre - tickets onsale January 17
April 24 - Seattle, WA - Paramount Theatre - tickets onsale January 27
April 25 - Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom - tickets onsale January 27
April 27 - Hollywood, CA - The Music Box - tickets onsale January 21
April 28 - Phoenix, AZ - JW Desert Ridge Jazz Festival - tickets onsale January 16
May 1 - Dallas, TX - House of Blues - tickets onsale January 16
May 2 - Houston, TX - House of Blues - tickets onsale January 16
May 3 - New Orleans, LA - New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival - tickets on sale now
May 5 - Austin, TX - Paramount Theatre - tickets onsale January 20
May 23 - Paris, France - La Cigale - tickets onsale TBD
May 28 - London, UK - KoKo - tickets onsale TBD
June 27 - Ottawa, ON - Ottawa Jazz Festival - tickets onsale TBD
June 29 - Montreal, QC - Metropolis Theatre - tickets onsale now
June 30 - Saratoga Springs, NY - Saratoga Performing Arts Center - tickets onsale TBD

Two tracks from Radio Music Society, Radio Song, and Black Gold. Also, a brief, delightful interview with Esperanza about the new CD:

One of the tracks on the Radio Music Society is a Wayne Shorter song, Endangered Species. Esperanza has actually been performing this song life for a couple of years. Here is her performance of the song on Austin City Limits from February, 2009:

Last year, we got a sneak preview of the Radio Music Society with the song, Morning. Morning was issued as a bonus track on the vinyl edition of her Chamber Music Society album. I made a video for the song, and posted it on Youtube- it has had 16,410 views. You may view it here: Morning Video.

Here are some more pictures from the Radio Music Society CD:

Video Black Gold by Esperanza Spalding with Algebra - Black History Month

2012-02-04T19:29:00.000-08:00

Esperanza Spalding's new upcoming CD, Radio Music Society, Features a wonderful track, Black Gold. Black Gold celebrates the African-American heritage. The accompanying video was shot in September in New York, and it is produced to celebrate of Black History Month. The song is performed with R&B singer Algebra Blesset, and the two ladies sing beautifully together. The video that accompanies this track feature Esperanza and her band with Algebra performing the song in a New York City neighborhood. In the video there is also a story line with a young African-American father teaching his sons about Black History. I also have included in my Youtube Playlist here a couple of other videos from the shoot, including Esperanza and her band jamming, and also performing Kool and the Gang's Jungle Boogie. All of the songs for Esperanza's Radio Music Society will have videos, and will be available with the deluxe edition of the Radio Music Society, which will include a CD and DVD.

Matthew Fox's 95 Theses for the Third Millennium

2012-02-04T00:24:00.000-08:00

Like Luther, I present 95 theses or in my case, 95 faith observations drawn from my 64 years of living and practicing religion and spirituality. I trust I am not alone in recognizing these truths. For me they represent a return to our origins, a return to the spirit and the teaching of Jesus and his prophetic ancestors, and of the Christ which was a spirit that Jesus’ presence and teaching unleashed.

1. God is both Mother and Father.

2. At this time in history, God is more Mother than Father because the feminine is most missing and it is important to bring gender balance back.

3. God is always new, always young and always “in the beginning.”

4. God the Punitive Father is not a God worth honoring but a false god and an idol that serves empire-builders. The notion of a punitive, all-male God, is contrary to the full nature of the Godhead who is as much female and motherly as it is masculine and fatherly.

5. “All the names we give to God come from an understanding of ourselves.” (Eckhart) Thus people who worship a punitive father are themselves punitive.

6. Theism (the idea that God is ‘out there’ or above and beyond the universe) is false. All things are in God and God is in all things (panentheism).

7. Everyone is born a mystic and a lover who experiences the unity of things and all are called to keep this mystic or lover of life alive.

8. All are called to be prophets which is to interfere with injustice.

9. Wisdom is Love of Life (See the Book of Wisdom: “This is wisdom: to love life” and Christ in John’s Gospel: “I have come that you may have life and have it in abundance.”)

10. God loves all of creation and science can help us more deeply penetrate and appreciate the mysteries and wisdom of God in creation. Science is no enemy of true religion.

11. Religion is not necessary but spirituality is.

12. “Jesus does not call us to a new religion but to life.” (Bonhoeffer) Spirituality is living life at a depth of newness and gratitude, courage and creativity, trust and letting go, compassion and justice.

13. Spirituality and religion are not the same thing any more than education and learning, law and justice, or commerce and stewardship are the same thing.

14. Christians must distinguish between God (masculine and history, liberation and salvation) and Godhead (feminine and mystery, being and non-action).

15. Christians must distinguish between Jesus (an historical figure) and Christ (the experience of God-in-all-things).

16. Christians must distinguish between Jesus and Paul.

17. Jesus, not unlike many spiritual teachers, taught us that we are sons and daughters of God and are to act accordingly by becoming instruments of divine compassion.

18. Ecojustice is a necessity for planetary survival and human ethics and without it we are crucifying the Christ all over again in the form of destruction of forests, waters,
species, air and soil.

19. Sustainability is another word for justice, for what is just is sustainable and what is unjust is not.

20. A preferential option for the poor, as found in the base community movement, is far closer to the teaching and spirit of Jesus than is a preferential option for the rich and powerful as found in, for example, Opus Dei.

21. Economic Justice requires the work of creativity to birth a system of economics that is global, respectful of the health and wealth of the earth systems and that works for all.

22. Celebration and worship are key to human community and survival and such reminders of joy deserve new forms that speak in the language of the twenty-first century.

23. Sexuality is a sacred act and a spiritual experience, a theophany (revelation of the Divine), a mystical experience. It is holy and deserves to be honored as such.

24. Creativity is both humanity’s greatest gift and its most powerful weapon for evil and so it ought to be both encouraged and steered to humanity’s most God-like activity which all religions agree is: Compassion.

25. There is a priesthood of all workers (all who are doing good work are midwives of grace and therefore priests) and this priesthood ought to be honored as sacred and workers should be instructed in spirituality in order to carry on their ministry effectively.

26. Empire-building is incompatible with Jesus’ life and teaching and with Paul’s life and teaching and with the teaching of holy religions.

27. Ideology is not theology and ideology endangers the faith because it replaces thinking with obedience, and distracts from the responsibility of theology to adapt the wisdom of the past to today’s needs. Instead of theology it demands loyalty oaths to the past.

28. Loyalty is not a sufficient criterion for ecclesial office—intelligence and proven conscience is.

29. No matter how much the television media fawn over the pope and papacy because it makes good theater, the pope is not the church but has a ministry within the church. Papalolotry is a contemporary form of idolatry and must be resisted by all believers.

30. Creating a church of Sycophants is not a holy thing. Sycophants (Webster’s dictionary defines them as “servile self-seeking flatterers”) are not spiritual people for their only virtue is obedience. A Society of Sycophants — sycophant clergy, sycophant seminarians, sycophant bishops, sycophant cardinals, sycophant religious orders of Opus Dei, Legioneers of Christ and Communion and Liberation, and the sycophant press--do not represent in any way the teachings or the person of the historical Jesus who chose to stand up to power rather than amassing it.

31. Vows of pontifical secrecy are a certain way to corruption and cover-up in the church as in any human organization.

32. Original sin is an ultimate expression of a punitive father God and is not a Biblical teaching. But original blessing (goodness and grace) is biblical.

33. The term “original wound” better describes the separation humans experience on leaving the womb and entering the world, a world that is often unjust and unwelcoming than does the term “original sin.”

34. Fascism and the compulsion to control is not the path of peace or compassion and those who practice fascism are not fitting models for sainthood. The seizing of the apparatus of canonization to canonize fascists is a stain on the church.

35. The Spirit of Jesus and other prophets calls people to simple life styles in order that “the people may live.”

36. Dancing, whose root meaning in many indigenous cultures is the same as breath or spirit, is a very ancient and appropriate form in which to pray.

37. To honor the ancestors and celebrate the communion of saints does not mean putting heroes on pedestals but rather honoring them by living out lives of
imagination, courage and compassion in our own time, culture and historical moment as they did in theirs.

38. A diversity of interpretation of the Jesus event and the Christ experience is altogether expected and welcomed as it was in the earliest days of the church.

39. Therefore unity of church does not mean conformity. There is unity in diversity. Coerced unity is not unity.

40. The Holy Spirit is perfectly capable of working through participatory democracy in church structures and hierarchical modes of being can indeed interfere with the work of the Spirit.

41. The body is an awe-filled sacred Temple of God and this does not mean it is untouchable but rather that all its dimensions, well named by the seven charkas, are as holy as the others.

42. Thus our connection with the earth (first chakra) is holy; and our sexuality (second chakra) is holy; and our moral outrage (third chakra) is holy; and our love that stands up to fear (fourth chakra) is holy; and our prophetic voice that speaks out is holy (fifth chakra); and our intuition and intelligence (sixth chakra) are holy; and our gifts we extend to the community of light beings and ancestors (seventh chakra) are holy.

43. The prejudice of rationalism and left-brain located in the head must be balanced by attention to the lower charkas as equal places for wisdom and truth and Spirit to act.

44. The central chakra, compassion, is the test of the health of all the others which are meant to serve it for “by their fruits you will know them” (Jesus).

45. “Joy is the human’s noblest act.” (Aquinas) Is our culture and its professions, education and religion, promoting joy?

46. The human psyche is made for the cosmos and will not be satisfied until the two are re-united and awe, the beginning of wisdom, results from this reunion.

47. The four paths named in the creation spiritual tradition more fully name the mystical/prophetic spiritual journey of Jesus and the Jewish tradition than do the three paths of purgation, illumination and union which do not derive from the Jewish and Biblical tradition.

48. Thus it can be said that God is experienced in experiences of ecstasy, joy, wonder and delight (via positiva).

49. God is experienced in darkness, chaos, nothingness, suffering, silence and in learning to let go and let be (via negativa).

50. God is experienced in acts of creativity and co-creation (via creativa).

51. All people are born creative. It is spirituality’s task to encourage holy imagination for all are born in the “image and likeness” of the Creative One and “the fierce power of imagination is a gift from God.” (Kaballah)

52. If you can talk you can sing; if you can walk you can dance; if you can talk you are an artist. (African proverb and Native American saying)

53. God is experienced in our struggle for justice, healing, compassion and celebration (via transformativa).

54. The Holy Spirit works through all cultures and all spiritual traditions and blows “where it wills” and is not the exclusive domain of any one tradition and
never has been.

55. God speaks today as in the past through all religions and all cultures and all faith traditions none of which is perfect and an exclusive avenue to truth but all of which can learn from each other.

56. Therefore Interfaith or Deep Ecumenism are a necessary part of spiritual praxis and awareness in our time.

57. Since the “number one obstacle to interfaith is a bad relationship with one’s own faith,” (the Dalai Lama) it is important that Christians know their own
mystical and prophetic tradition, one that is larger than a religion of empire and its punitive father images of God.

58. The cosmos is God’s holy Temple and our holy home.

59. Fourteen billion years of evolution and unfolding of the universe bespeak the intimate sacredness of all that is.

60. All that is is holy and all that is is related for all being in our universe began as one being just before the fireball erupted.

61. Interconnectivity is not only a law of physics and of nature but also forms the basis of community and of compassion. Compassion is the working out of our shared interconnectivity both as to our shared joy and our shared suffering and struggle for justice.

62. The universe does not suffer from a shortage of grace and no religious institution is to see its task as rationing grace. Grace is abundant in God’s universe.

63. Creation, Incarnation and Resurrection are continuously happening on a cosmic as well as a personal scale. So too are Life, Death and Resurrection (regeneration and reincarnation) happening on a cosmic scale as well as a personal one.
64.
Biophilia or Love of Life is everyone’s daily task.
65.
Necrophilia or love of death is to be opposed in self and society in all its forms.
66.
Evil can happen through every people, every nation, every tribe, and every individual human and so vigilance and self-criticism and institutional criticism are always called for.

67. Not all who call themselves “Christian” deserve that name just as “not all who say ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven” (Jesus).

68. Pedophilia is a terrible wrong but its cover-up by hierarchy is even more despicable.

69. Loyalty and obedience are never a greater virtue than conscience and justice.
70.
Jesus said nothing about condoms, birth control or homosexuality.

71. A church that is more preoccupied with sexual wrongs than with wrongs of injustice is itself sick.

72. Since homosexuality is found among 464 species and in 8 percent of any given human population, it is altogether natural for those who are born that way and is a gift from God and nature to the greater community.

73. Homophobia in any form is a serious sin against love of neighbor, a sin of ignorance of the richness and diversity of God’s creation as well as a sin of exclusion.

74. Racism, Sexism and militarism are also serious sins.

75. Poverty for the many and luxury for the few is not right or sustainable.

76. Consumerism is today’s version of gluttony and needs to be confronted by creating an economic system that works for all peoples and all earth’s creatures.

77. Seminaries as we know them, with their excessive emphasis on left-brain work, often kill and corrupt the mystical soul of the young instead of encouraging the mysticism and prophetic consciousness that is there. They should be replaced by wisdom schools.

78. Inner work is required of us all. Therefore spiritual practices of meditation should be available to all and this helps in calming the reptilian brain. Silence or contemplation and learning to be still can and ought to be taught to all children and adults.

79. Outer work needs to flow from our inner work just as action flows from non-action and true action from being.

80. A wise test of right action is this: What is the effect of this action on people seven generations from today?

81. Another test of right action is this: Is what I am doing, is what we are doing, beautiful or not?

82. Eros, the passion for living, is a virtue that combats acedia or the lack of energy to begin new things and is also expressed as depression, cynicism or sloth (also known as “couchpotatoitis”).

83. The Dark Night of the Soul descends on us all and the proper response is not addiction such as shopping, alcohol, drugs, TV, sex or religion but rather to be with the darkness and learn from it.

84. The Dark Night of the Soul is a learning place of great depth. Stillness is required.

85. Not only is there a Dark Night of the Soul but also a Dark Night of Society and a Dark Night of our Species.

86. Chaos is a friend and a teacher and an integral part or prelude to new birth. Therefore it is not to be feared or compulsively controlled.

87. Authentic science can and must be one of humanity’s sources of wisdom for it is a source of sacred awe, of childlike wonder, and of truth.

88. When science teaches that matter is “frozen light” (physicist David Bohm) it is freeing human thought from scapegoating flesh as something evil and instead reassuring us that all things are light. This same teaching is found in the Christian Gospels (Christ is the light in all things) and in Buddhist teaching (the Buddha nature is in all things). Therefore, flesh does not sin; it is our choices that are sometimes off center.

89. The proper objects of the human heart are truth and justice (Aquinas) and all people have a right to these through healthy education and healthy government.

90. "God” is only one name for the Divine One and there are an infinite number of names for God and Godhead and still God “has no name and will never be given a name.” (Eckhart)

91. Three highways into the heart are silence and love and grief.

92. The grief in the human heart needs to be attended to by rituals and practices that, when practiced, will lessen anger and allow creativity to flow anew.

93. Two highways out of the heart are creativity and acts of justice and compassion.

94. Since angels learn exclusively by intuition, when we develop our powers of intuition we can expect to meet angels along the way.

95. True intelligence includes feeling, sensitivity, beauty, the gift of nourishment and humor which is a gift of the Spirit, paradox, being its sister.

source:
Matthew Fox

Bishop John Shelby Spong on Adult Faith

2012-02-04T00:05:00.000-08:00

Bishop Spong says that instead of being "born again," people need to grow up and have an adult faith.

Catherine Russell Performs Troubled Waters on Dutch Radio

2012-02-02T19:00:00.000-08:00

Tonight on KBEM Jazz 88, the local Twin Cities Jazz Station, I heard jazz singer Catherine Russell sing this blues/jazz song, and it was very moving. Catherine was interviewed tonight and she talked about the background of this song, how it was a favorite of Duke Ellington in the Cotton Club days. She shared how this song reflects the African-American experience.

The person speaking in the song speaks of how others call her "one of the devil's daughters," how "they speak of her in scorn" and "go around scandalize my name."

But the troubled waters which "are way beyond [her] control will wash away [her] sins before the Lord."

The Single Mother Has No Food

2012-02-02T09:28:00.001-08:00

She sits in the dark on her chair.

Glad she lives in a warm climate

Her lights are shut off

Could not pay the bill

She feels her tummy growl

Her baby kick

But there is no food in the apartment

Her stingy food stamp allotment exhausted

She only has 10 minutes left

On her phone

She can’t turn it back on

Meanwhile a billionaire

Runs for office

He’s not worried about the poor

He says

Another one says he’s prolife

They both want to cut Medicaid

The only benefit our girl

Has left

A tear slides down her cheek

The hunger isn’t abated

By the last handful of Cap’n Crunch

Left in her empty cupboard

copyright © 2011 Lance Goldsberry

Favorite Albums: Modern Man by Stanley Clarke

2012-01-30T10:06:00.000-08:00

In the 1970’s, as a young aspiring bassist, my hero was Stanley Clarke. This young man sporting an Afro had a flashy, virtuoso style of playing both the upright and electric bass. He was also an accomplished songwriter and he pushed the boundaries of jazz, being one of the pioneers of jazz-rock fusion.

I see parallels in his career and that of Esperanza Spalding in recent years- they both were young African-American musicians in their mid-twenties when the came on the scene, known for being virtuosos on the bass and for their clever, genre-defying song-writing. They have both brought jazz to a wider audience.

All of Stanley Clarke’s 1970’s albums are great, in my view. Probably Journey to Love is his best. But Modern Man is a personal favorite of mine. It combines jazz with rock and funk, and displays Clarke’s funky virtuosity in brilliant form.

The key track on the album is Rock and Roll Jelly, which was performed with guitarist Jeff Beck, an exhilarating jazz-rock fusion song. On it Clarke plays chords and speedy solos on his trade-mark Alembic bass.

This is the kind of album that makes one want to play bass, and be in a band. It is one of my favorites.

Stanley, now 60, is still the exciting bassist and musician he was back in the 70's. His most recent CD, the Stanley Clarke Band, won a 2011 Grammy for Best Jazz Album. I am sure he will give us much more great music and playing for years to come!

Modern Man Track Listing

All tracks composed by Stanley Clarke, except where noted.
Side one
1."Opening (Statement)" – 4:22
2."He Lives On (Story About the Last Journey of a Warrior)" – 4:24
3."More Hot Fun" – 4:31
4."Slow Dance" – 3:16
5."Interlude: A Serious Occasion" – 0:21
6."Got to Find My Own Place" (Clarke, Michael Garson, Raymond Gomez, Gerry Brown) – 3:17

Side two
1."Dayride" – 4:06
2."Interlude: It's What She Didn't Say" – 1:24
3."Modern Man" – 3:31
4."Interlude: A Relaxed Occasion" – 1:24
5."Rock 'n Roll Jelly" – 5:07
6."Closing (Statement)" – 2:37

The Woman Behind the President

2012-01-30T08:06:00.000-08:00

From a friend on Facebook:

One night President Obama and his wife Michelle decided to do something out of routine and go for a casual dinner at a restaurant that wasn't too luxurious. When they were seated, the owner of the restaurant asked the President's secret service if he could please speak to the First Lady in private. They obliged and Michelle had a conversation with the owner. Following this conversation President Obama asked
Michelle, why was he so interested in talking to you. She mentioned that in her teenage years, he had been madly in love with her. President Obama then said, "so if you had married him, you would now be the owner of this lovely restaurant", to which Michelle responded, "no, if I had married him, he would now be the President."

Reflections on Today's Bible Readings on My Birthday

2012-01-30T05:04:00.000-08:00

"I cry to God Most High, to God who fulfils his purpose for me." - Psalm 57.2

- from today's Daily Office, an apt birthday prayer to have God's purpose fulfilled for my life. Notice it is GOD who fulfills my purpose. This fits in well with another passage from today's readings:

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." - Hebrews 11.1

I must see the fulfillment of my life. I visualize my life in the future, with all the blessings God has in store for me, with God's purpose for me in mind.

Notice that in today's gospel, Jesus uses the word "see" as a synonym for faith:

"This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day." - John 6.40.

To have faith in the Son of God is to "see" him. St. Peter speaks of how we "do not see him but love him." But we do see Christ with the eyes of faith.

Poetry: Lost in a Beautiful Moment

2012-01-23T07:57:00.000-08:00

To play with such joy and freedom

To be lost in a moment

Is a beautiful thing

A woman enlivened by spirit

Giving flower to art

Is wonderful to behold

To share that moment with her

Is healing for the soul

Favorite Albums: Flowers in the Dirt and Tripping the Live Fantastic by Paul McCartney

2012-01-22T11:40:00.000-08:00

In 1989, Paul McCartney released Flowers in the Dirt, arguably his best album since Band on the Run. It is my personal favorite.

Paul's career had hit a plateau in the mid-Eighties. Paul found he was not selling as big as he was in the 1970's, when he enjoyed multi-platinum success with Wings. In 1984, he had a charming, but somewhat amateurish movie called Give My Regards to Broadstreet flop at the Theaters. Paul was booed on stage when his microphone was accidentally disconnected during his performance of Let it Be during Live Aid. His 1986 album, Press to Play, even though clever and well-performed and produced, did not even certify Gold in the United States.

Elton John suggested to Paul that he needed to go on tour to give a boost to his career. Paul had not toured since 1980, and that tour was cut short by Paul's infamous drug bust in Japan.

Paul listened to his friend, and decided to record a new album, and to go on a major world tour.

Paul assembled a crack band for his new project. Led by Average White Band alum Hamish Stuart, the new Paul McCartney band included Pretenders veteran Robbie McIntosh on Guitar, Paul “Wix” Wiggins on keyboards, Chris Witten (Dire Straits, Waterboys) on drums, and of course, Linda on keyboards. This band was arguably better as a unit than any of the configurations of Wings. Paul toyed with the idea of naming the band Wings for his tour, but decided against it. He wanted to write a new chapter.

Paul and the band recorded Flowers in the Dirt in 1988 and 1989. There was some work left over from the 1986 Press to Play sessions. Joining Paul and his band for the album were several other luminaries such as David Gilmour, Trevor Horn, and Elvis Costello, who also co-authored with Paul several songs on the album, including the hit, My Brave Face.

The album and the tour were a big success. The album reached #21 in the US, and quickly went Gold, and was #1 in the U.K. The tour was huge, garnering record ticket sales. The tour was called the Get Back Tour. Originally booked in arenas, Paul found he had to quickly move to stadiums to accommodate the large fan demand for tickets. On this tour, Paul performed several songs from his Flowers in the Dirt album, but also was comfortable again playing Beatles songs, some of which had never been performed live before. Such Beatle hits as Back in the U.S.S.R., Things We Said Today, Get Back, Eleangor Rigby, Let it Be, Fool on the Hill, Hey Jude, and many others were performed on the tour. Many Wings and solo McCartney hits such as Maybe I'm Amazed, Band on the Run, Ebony and Ivory, Coming Up and others were also performed.

There is no doubt that the success of Flowers in the Dirt and the tour that supported it from 1989-1991 rejuvenated Paul's career, and put him back on a level where his subsequent albums began selling gold and platinum again.

There are two live CDs that capture the excellent performances from the tour, Tripping the Live Fantastic! (GOLD) and Tripping the Live Fantastic! Hightlights (Platinum). I have both CD versions, and the single record vinyl version of the album.

There is also an award-winning performance video of the Tour, Get Back, produced by Richard Lester, who also produced A Hard Day's Night and Help!

Flowers in the Dirt is my favorite Paul McCartney album. I have this album both on vinyl and CD. Much of it sounds very Beatle-esque, and the hit single, My Brave Face, can stand up to anything Paul did with the Beatles. One critic compared it favorably with She Loves You, the Beatles biggest selling single in Britain of all time.

For the tour and album, Paul used, in addition to his famous Hoftner Beatle-Bass, a five-string Wal Bass Guitar that Linda bought him for his birthday. It provided a deep powerful bass line for the song, Rough Ride.

Below is my video play list for both albums and the tour. I do not feature all the songs, but four of what I think are the best ones- My Brave Face, This One, Figure of Eight, Rough Ride.

Flowers in the Dirt Track List:

1. My Brave Face
2. Rough Ride
3. You Want Her Too
4. Distractions
5. We Got Married
6. Put It There
7. Figure of Eight
8. This One
9. Don't Be Careless Love
10. That Day Is Done
11. How Many People
12. Motor of Love
13. Ou Est le Soleil

Buy Flowers in the Dirt here.

Tripping the Live Fantastic! Track listing

All songs by Paul McCartney, except where noted.

Disc one
"Showtime" – 0:38
"Figure of Eight" – 5:32
Recorded in Rotterdam, 10/11/89.
"Jet" – 4:02
Recorded in Wembley, 17/01/90.
"Rough Ride" – 4:48
Recorded in Paris, 10/10/89.
"Got to Get You into My Life" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 3:21
Recorded in Dortmund 17/10/89.
"Band on The Run" – 5:09
Recorded in Wembley, 16/01/90.
"Birthday" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 2:43
Concurrently released as a single to commemorate what would have been John Lennon's 50th birthday, recorded in Knebworth, 30/06/90.
"Ebony and Ivory" – 4:00
Recorded in Rotterdam, 08/11/89.
"We Got Married" – 6:38
Recorded in Wembley, 16/01/90.
"Inner City Madness" (Paul McCartney/Linda McCartney/Hamish Stuart/Robbie McIntosh/Paul Wickens/Chris Whitten) – 1:22
A soundcheck jam by McCartney and his touring band, recorded in Birmingham, 02/01/90.
"Maybe I'm Amazed" – 4:41
Recorded in Rotterdam, 08/11/89.
"The Long and Winding Road" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 4:18
Recorded in Rio de Janeiro, 19/04/90.
"Crackin' Up" (Ellas McDaniel) – 0:49
Recorded in Los Angeles, 23/11/89.
"The Fool on the Hill" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 5:01
Recorded in Wembley, 13/01/90.
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 6:23
Recorded in Los Angeles, 23/11/89.
"Can't Buy Me Love" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 2:14
Recorded in Munich, 21/10/89.
"Matchbox" (Carl Perkins) – 3:09
Recorded in Wembley, 21/01/90.
"Put It There" – 2:43
Recorded in Gothenburg, 28/09/89.
"Together" (Paul McCartney/Linda McCartney/Hamish Stuart/Robbie McIntosh/Paul Wickens/Chris Whitten) – 2:17
Another soundcheck jam, recorded in Chicago, 05/12/89.

Disc two
"Things We Said Today" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 5:01
Recorded in Madrid, 02/11/89.
"Eleanor Rigby" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 2:36
Recorded in Worcester, 08/02/90.
"This One" – 4:28
Recorded in Detroit, 01/02/90.
"My Brave Face" (Paul McCartney/Declan MacManus) – 3:09
Recorded in Wembley, 19/01/90.
"Back in the U.S.S.R." (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 3:15
Recorded in Tokyo, 05/03/90.
"I Saw Her Standing There" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 3:25
Recorded in Montreal, 09/12/89.
"Twenty Flight Rock" (Eddie Cochran/Fairchild) – 3:09
Recorded in Wembley, 13/01/90.
"Coming Up" – 5:18
Recorded in Tokyo, 03/03/90.
"Sally" (Haines/Leon/Towers) – 2:03
Recorded in Wembley, 21/01/90.
"Let It Be" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 3:53
Recorded in Miami, 14/04/90.
"Ain't That a Shame" (Fats Domino/Bartholomew) – 2:40
Recorded in Tokyo, 09/03/90.
"Live and Let Die" – 3:11
Recorded in Gothenburg, 28/09/89.
"If I Were Not upon the Stage" (Sutton/Turner/Bowsher) – 0:36
A faux beginning to the next song, Recorded in Cincinnati, 26/09/89.
"Hey Jude" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 8:03
Recorded in Cincinnati, 12/02/90.
"Yesterday" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 2:06
Recorded in Worcester, 09/02/90.
"Get Back" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 4:11
Recorded in Tokyo, 13/03/90.
"Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 6:41
Recorded in Toronto, 07/12/89.
"Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" (Greene) – 4:31
Recorded in Montreal, 09/12/89.

Tripping the Live Fantastic: Highlights!
"Got to Get You into My Life" – 3:15
"Birthday" – 2:43
Concurrently released as a single to commemorate what would have been John Lennon's 50th birthday
"We Got Married" (McCartney) – 7:09
"The Long and Winding Road" – 3:48
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" – 6:21
"Can't Buy Me Love" – 2:14
"All My Trials" (Traditional) – 3:14 (UK only)
"Put It There" (McCartney) – 2:44 (US only)
"Things We Said Today" – 5:01
"Eleanor Rigby" – 2:36
"My Brave Face" (McCartney, Declan MacManus) – 3:09
"Back in the U.S.S.R." – 3:15
"I Saw Her Standing There" – 3:25
"Coming Up" (McCartney) – 5:18
"Let It Be" – 3:53
"Hey Jude" – 8:03
"Get Back" – 4:11
"Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End" – 6:41

Tripping the Live Fantastic: Highlights! Single Record Vinyl limited edition

Side One
Birthday
The Long And Winding Road
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Can't Buy Me Love
All My Trials

Side Two
Eleanor Rigby
My Brave Face
I Saw Her Standing There
Coming Up
Let It Be
Hey Jude
Get Back

Bill Maher and Bernie Sanders: Why Don't Americans Want Good Social Benefits?

2012-01-21T10:58:00.000-08:00

I don't understand it either. Americans are so brainwashed, they think that to have universal health care and reasonable vacation time is somehow impinging on their freedom. It is a grotesque irony for Americans to think that a society that does not help ensure the common good is some how more free than societies that have a generous social welfare state and benefits for workers and retirees (which is by the way, almost all the rest of the developed world).

In this video, Bill Maher and Bernie Sanders lay it on the line.

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"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." - John Steinbeck

The God/Spirituality versus Religion Question

2012-01-19T19:55:00.000-08:00

My nephew asked me recently what I thought about the whole God versus religion, or Jesus versus religion, controversy. He shared with me a video by a hipster-Emergent type. It actually was pretty good for the most part.

Sometimes people say they are spiritual, not religious. Sometimes people insist one can only find or know God through a particular church or religion. For them, there is only one true church or religion.

My own belief is that the truth does not fall neatly into the religion versus God/spirituality framework.

I have experienced God both within and without the boundaries of religion. I have experienced God's grace powerfully in Church, especially in the Blessed Sacrament. But I have also experienced God's touch and healing through a number of different channels- through a lover, through a cathartic moment in therapy, through music. God has manifested powerfully through all these channels for me; I cannot deny my experience. I have experienced God both in the Church, and completely outside of any religious context. God's grace and healing often do not come in religious envelopes.

Those in the “God/Jesus/Spirituality – Not – Religion” camp sometimes cannot honor that some people find true solace and healing through their religious observance. Religious traditions and practices often are time-tested methods for helping people to know God. These same venerable practices might get in the way or become ends in themselves for some people.

Religious people, especially the scrupulously orthodox, often cannot acknowledge that the Spirit blows where it wills, as it says in John's gospel; we hear the voice thereof, but we know not whence it comes or whither it goes. Some religious people really see themselves as gatekeepers, wanting to control access to God. But it is ridiculous to think God can be circumscribed.

This week in our Daily Office readings, Jesus will tell the woman at the Jacob's Well that the time is coming when people will not worship God “on this mountain or in Jerusalem.” No one can franchise God. God operates in freedom.

I will say one thing, as a person who is in fact “religious” (that is, I have daily religious practice and go to church): Religion sometimes strikes me as placing distance between people and the divine. I do not believe that there is any distance, for as St. Paul says, quoting the Greek pagan poets, “In God we live, and move and have our being.” I think knowing God is to acknowledge the true state of things, the divine in and all around us.

Religion at its best helps us to open up to God and others; it provides for community and worship. At its worst, it becomes oppressive, an idol. It can be a barrier to God.

I believe that Christianity has it right in insisting on God's grace, God takes the initiative toward us. The Eastern Religions are correct in recognizing God's Presence everywhere (the Bible teaches us this too, but it is somehow lost on us). We must be open.

So whether we are religious or not, we can be open to God's activity and presence in our lives. We can seek God. God is already seeking us. It is only a matter of us recognizing it.

The question is not so much God/Spirituality versus religion; the question is, how big are our hearts? How open are we to the Divine Presence?

Sherrilyn Ifill on the Legacy of Dr. King- Scott Walker and his wife look uncomfortable!

2012-01-19T10:42:00.000-08:00

This video features a speech that Professor Sherrilyn Ifill delivered on Martin Luther King Day at the Wisconsin state capital in Madison. Professor Ifill gives an eloquent speech, suggesting how Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would think about some of the issues of racial and economic justice today. Governor Scott Walker and his wife look very uncomfortable. Dr. King of course, died while supporting a sanitation worker's strike, he would have spoke against Walker's attack on unions.

from the description on Youtube:
"Sherrilyn Ifill, a law professor and a civil rights lawyer speaks to the MLK Day event at the Capitol and shares how the Reverend felt about some issues that we still find ourselves dealing with, like housing discrimination and predatory banking practices, the culture of war and how money and resources spent on war is money and resources not spent helping those in need, but the biggest response of the day was when she brought up the discriminatory voter disenfranchisement law that Walker pushed through."

Sherrilyn Ifill bio

Martin Luther King Jr. - A Prophetic and Subversive Legacy

2012-01-15T12:10:00.000-08:00

Today we honor the heritage of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

People of all political stripes seek to honor King or to claim him. Dr. King is honored in our nation largely for his role in the civil rights movement. There is no doubt that his prophetic ministry help lead to the advancement of civil rights for African-Americans, and that therefore, he is rightfully an icon for the African-American community.

Dr. Martin Luther King also spoke on behalf of workers, and against the Vietnam War. When he was assassinated, he was in Memphis supporting a garbage worker's strike. He gave a famous speech against the Vietnam War in 1967. Dr. King was subversive of the American Imperialist system. He prophetical denounced the oppression of people of color and the working class. He spoke against the imperial actions of the United States in South East Asia and elsewhere. He even on a few occasions referred to himself as a "democratic socialist."

So as we honor Dr. King, let us not domesticate him. Let us remember how radical his advocacy of African-American Civil rights really was at the time. Let us not take it for granted. His dream is still not fulfilled, even though an African-American resides in the White House. There is still systemic racism in our society.

Let us remember, at a time when unions are being busted and workers are losing wages, benefits and striking rights, that Dr. King was for economic justice, rights for workers, and unions. I believe Dr. King would have joined the protesters last year in Madison, and the Occupy movement.

Let us remember at a time, when we have engaged in two imperialist wars, and have had a policy of torture and indefinite internment, that Dr. King was against imperial aggression and war.

Dr. King still speaks, his work is not done.

Read Martin Luther King Jr.s Speech on the Vietnam War here.

The New American Poor- Video with Cornel West, Barbara Ehreneich, and Tavis Smiley

2012-01-12T11:34:00.000-08:00

Cornel West, Barbara Ehreneich, and Tavis Smiley appeared on Al Jeezera last night discussing poverty in America. While Corporations enjoy record profits, nearly 1 in 2 Americans are living in or near poverty.

Monk Montgomery- Pioneer Electric Bassist

2012-01-11T10:04:00.000-08:00

Monk Montgomery is perhaps the first electric bassist of significance to jazz, introducing the Fender Precision Bass to the genre in 1951. Montgomery also played the double bass. His professional career did not start until after his younger brother Wes, at the age of 30. Montgomery died of cancer in Las Vegas on May 20, 1982.

Back in the 1970's, when I took up bass, I got very interested in Jazz. I bought every record I could by Jazz bassists, whether electric or upright- Stanley Clarke, Jaco Pastorius, Charles Mingus, Ron Carter, Charlie Haden. But one of the most interesting and enigmatic records I purchased during that time was one by Monk Montgomery called Bass Odyssey. On that record, I heard cool, tasteful bass playing by a master on the Fender Precision Bass. I have always loved Monk Montgomery's playing since then, and I am extremely disappointed at how hard it is to find his records.

This is my tribute to a master. Before there was Larry Graham or Stanley Clarke, there was Monk Montgomery.

- Lance

Monk Montgomery Facebook Page

Description From Wikipedia: Monk Montgomery is perhaps the first electric bassist of significance to jazz, introducing the Fender Precision Bass to the genre in 1951. Montgomery also played the double bass. His professional career did not start until after his younger brother Wes, at the age of 30. From 1951 to 1953 he worked in Lionel Hampton's Orchestra. After that he worked with his brothers and Alonzo Jo...hnson in the Montgomery Johnson Quintet. In 1955 he moved to Seattle to form the Mastersounds from 1957–1960. Later from 1966–1970, he freelanced with Cal Tjader and continued to play where he settled in Las Vegas, Nevada with The Red Norvo Trio. In his final years he was active in the Las Vegas Jazz Society, which he founded. He had also been planning a world jazz festival. Montgomery died of cancer in Las Vegas on May 20, 1982. He had a wife, Amelia, three sons, and four stepchildren.

Biography From the website http://www.bassguitar.com/ :

Monk Montgomery

To say that William Howard Montgomery came from a musical family would be an understatement. The man nicknamed "Monk" was the oldest of three musical brothers. All three brothers were big names in the music scene of the late '40s, '50s, and throughout the '60s. Wes, the middle brother, played guitar and started before Monk despite bei...ng younger. Buddy, the baby of the bunch, became an accomplished pianist and vibraphonist.

Although Monk didn't get his start in music until the age of 26, and didn't start playing bass until 30, he took to it as though he'd been playing since birth. In 1951, the year he first picked up a bass guitar, he played well enough to join Lionel Hampton's Orchestra. Despite starting out playing the double bass, it was the electric bass guitar that brought Monk popularity. He was the first musician to ever take it on tour, playing Fender's Precision bass. During his time with Hampton's jazz big band, 1951-1953, he played with such greats as saxophonist Johnny Griffin, keyboardist Milt Buckner, and vocalist Dinah Washington. He also toured Europe with Hampton's group in 1953.

Shortly after leaving the orchestra, Monk joined both of his brothers, along with Alonzo and Robert Johnson, to form the Montgomery Johnson Quintet. He toured for nearly a decade in support of the various recordings by himself and his siblings; these albums included Almost Forgotten, Groove Yard, and The Montgomery Brothers Plus Five Others. Despite the rising popularity of his brother Wes, it was Monk and Buddy who moved together to Seattle and formed the group, The Mastersounds. The Mastersounds gained some popularity during the late 1950s and recorded ten total albums under three separate labels. Wes rejoined his brothers for one of those albums in 1958.

Monk had some guest spots on various albums in the early '60s before moving where he finally settled down in 1966 in Las Vegas, Nevada. From 1966 to 1970 he would freelance with Cal Tjader as well as play with the Red Norvo Trio, lead sessions for the Chisa, even perform some disc jockey work. The final twelve years of Monk's life may have been his most active. He was extremely busy with the Las Vegas Jazz Society, which he had founded, and had been planning a world jazz festival. It was during this time that he discovered he had bone cancer. Despite the knowledge of his illness, he never slowed down.

Monk passed away after his battle with cancer on May 20, 1982 at the age of 60. It was never his flash or overpowering sound which attracted him to so many bands and projects. It was a basic, soul-wrenching love of music. It seemed that anyone who ever had the opportunity to play with Monk regarded him as underrated and over-talented. Despite starting in music at such a late age, Monk will forever be known as an innovator, a pioneer, and one of the great jazz bassists of all time.

Playing Style There was never anything fancy or complicated about Monk's playing. He was good, he learned fast and he didn't try to show off with a lot of flash and glamour. He just went out, used finger-style techniques that he had learned on the double bass, and made everyone around him sound better. There was never a lot of slap, pop or speed to Monk's playing; it was just a smooth rhythm that he made look so easy, yet very few could ever accomplish.

Equipment
Monk's biggest claim to fame was that he was the first bassist to ever take the electric on tour. He used one of the first Fender Precisions, which was a 4-string, coupled with a Fender cabinet and head unit.
http://www.bassguitar.com/william-howard-montgomery.html

In Praise of the Revised Standard Version

2012-01-10T10:57:00.000-08:00

In 1946, perhaps the most monumental event in Bible publishing in the 20th century took place- the publishing of the Revised Standard Version (RSV) New Testament. The Complete Bible was released in 1952, and it immediately became the standard for the mainline churches in America. The New Testament was revised in 1971. For me, the RSV is the greatest English translation currently available, combining literal accuracy and literary beauty. The RSV is held in high esteem by nearly all Christians- Anglicans, Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, liberals and conservatives alike.

In its preface, the RSV is described as “…an authorized revision of the American Standard Version, published in 1901, which was a revision of the King James Version, published in 1611.” The RSV retains much of the familiar phraseology of the King James Version. The title page of the RSV reads: “The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version containing the Old and New Testaments, translated from the original tongues: being the version set forth A.D. 1611, revised A.D. 1881-1885 and A.D. 1901: compared with the most ancient authorities and revised A.D. 1946-52. — 2nd ed. of New Testament A.D. 1971.”

The RSV was the pew Bible in mainline churches, until 1989 when it’s successor, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), was released. Much derided by conservative Christians upon its initial release, the RSV has ironically become the Bible of choice for many theologically conservative Orthodox, Catholics, and Protestants.

The RSV is the most ecumenical Bible since the Reformation. In 1957, an edition of the RSV with the Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal books, requested by the Episcopal Church, was published. In 1966, upon a request from the Catholic Biblical Association of Great Britain, the RSV Catholic edition (RSVCE) was published which interspersed the Deuterocanonical books in the traditional Catholic order in the Old Testament. In 1973, the RSV Common Bible was released. Finally, in 1977, Oxford released an edition with all of the Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal books found in the Greek Septuagint, including 4^th Maccabees and Psalm 151, making the RSV more acceptable to Eastern Orthodox Churches.

In 1962, Oxford published the Oxford Annotated Bible, a study Bible featuring the RSV. It was published with the Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal books in 1965, and received an imprimatur from Richard Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston. In 1977, the New Oxford Annotated Bible (NOAB) RSV was released, which contained the fuller version of the Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal books (see above). The NOAB RSV is still readily available, and has been a staple in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox seminaries for decades. It is traditionally the preferred study Bible for scholars. It is the only edition of the ecumenical version of the RSV still available as far as I know.

Although the RSV quickly became the pew and pulpit Bible for mainline churches, it was not initially well liked by fundamentalists and evangelicals. There were many omissions in the RSV text from the King James text which, though supported by textual criticism, was initially off-putting to many conservative Christians. The story of the woman caught in adultery, traditionally John 8.1-11, was dropped from the text for want of textual support, as was the longer ending of Mark's Gospel (Mark 16.9-20).

But perhaps the biggest scandal for conservative Christians at the time the RSV was released was the translation of Isaiah 7.14. In the traditional King James Version, the verse reads: "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." But in the RSV, the text reads: "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Imman'u-el." The word translated young woman in Hebrew is almah which is a young woman of marriageable age, but it is not the specific word for virgin. It is the Greek Septuagint (which much of Christian tradition considers inspired in its own right) that features the word parthenos in Isaiah 7.14, which is definitely the word for virgin. Matthew quotes the Septuagint in Matthew 1.23 to buttress the Virgin Birth. But since the RSV is translated from the Hebrew, young woman is a perfectly acceptable translation for Isaiah 7.14. I personally think it is disingenuous for some translations to use the term virgin at Isaiah 7.14, if it purports to be translated from the Hebrew, and does not have a footnote explaining the textual issues.

Initially, evangelicals shunned the RSV. But as time went on they began to appreciate it more. Baptist Bible Scholar Harold Lindsell produced a study Bible called the Harper Study Bible based on the RSV in 1962. Evangelicals began to appreciate the virtues of the RSV, and many began to reconsider it, and gradually accepted it for its scholarship and beauty.

The fact that the RSV has spawned several revisions is a tribute to its greatness.

Originally released in 1965 and 1966, the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (RSVCE) was a great milestone along the way to a common Bible. The RSVCE went out of print after a time, but in the 1990's Ignatius Press and Scepter Publishers began reprinting the RSV Catholic Edition in order to satisfy a demand for a more reliable and dignified Bible translation for Catholics. Conservative and traditional Roman Catholics, who have been greatly disappointed by inclusive language and skeptical commentary notes in the official Catholic New American Bible version, have turned to the RSVCE. In 2006, Ignatius Press also published Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition, which eliminates archaic language ("thees" and "thous") and makes some other changes, such as the use of the word virgin in Isaiah 7.14.The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), which was intended to be the RSV for the 21st century, has been greeted with both enthusiasm and hostility. In many ways, it continues many of the virtues of the RSV, being generally a literal and literary translation. But the NRSV has met with some fierce criticism, reminiscent of some of the initial rejection of it parent in 1952. The NRSV makes use of inclusive language, or what some proponents call “gender accurate” language. Although I believe that in most cases the inclusive language is appropriate, it does appear to be ideologically at times, especially where it produces some inelegant and inaccurate translations.

The NRSV nevertheless is the choice of scholars, and is the pew Bible for mainline churches, including the Episcopal Church. It is what we use for our lectionary readings.

The NRSV continues the tradition of the New Oxford Annotated Bible, being available now in the 4^th edition of the NOAB.

One Bible scholar I know believes that the NRSV has a much better grasp of the Hebrew than the RSV, and that the NRSV still has many admirable features. I use both the NRSV and the RSV frequently.

In 2001, the English Standard Version (ESV) was published. Evangelicals had made a request to the National Council of Churches back in the 1960’s for an Evangelical version of the RSV, but their request was spurned. However, later in the 1990’s, Crossway Books bought the rights to adapt the 1971 RSV text as a basis for a new revision. Because they bought the rights, they do not have to pay royalties to the National Council of Churches. Anglican scholar J.I. Packer led a team of Evangelical scholars in revising the RSV. Although considered a distinct translation, the ESV is actually a very light revision of the RSV, and represented initially only a 6% text change from the 1971 RSV text. The ESV may be seen as a legitimate heir to the RSV tradition, especially now that there is an edition with the Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal books produced. There was a revised of the ESV in 2007. I am not pleased with the way 1 Timothy 3.16 is translated, which I feel downplays the church as a source of truth. I have been tempted to use the ESV more, but I think the fact that there is only one edition available with the Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal books has been a drawback for me.

The RSV Today

Unfortunately, the RSV is becoming increasing difficult to find new copies of the RSV for purchase. Oxford Press and Cambridge Bibles in the

have both recently dropped their text editions of the RSV. Plume still publishes a paperback edition of the 1952 RSV Bible, available on Amazon for a very affordable price.

Luckily, Oxford still published in both hard cover and leather, the New Oxford Annotated Bible. The Revised Standard Version Catholic edition is still widely available, with Oxford publishing several attractive editions, as well as Ignatius and Scepter. Used RSV Bibles still appear relatively abundant in used book stores, eBay, and Amazon.com, and sometimes are available for a very small price. Grab one when you find it.

The RSV has gained in stature over the decades and is no doubt the most venerable modern English translation. Many theological conservatives have embraced the RSV because of it accuracy and dignified language. With the onslaught of paraphrases and inclusive language versions, the RSV is now seen for the beautiful, dignified and reliable version it has always been.

I urge you to consider owning and using the RSV if you do not already. It is magnificent translation of the Sacred Scriptures, and a joy to read. When I read it, I know I am reading the Bible.

Wikipedia Articles on the various editions of the RSV and its revisions:

Revised Standard Version

Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition

New Revised Standard Version

English Standard Version

Oxford Annotated Bible

Purchase the Revised Standard Version:

Revised Standard Version, 1952 edition

Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition

New Oxford Annotated Bible, Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha

You can read the Revised Standard Version here:
Revised Standard Version Bible with the Apocrypha online

Pope St. Leo the Great on Usury and Capitalism

2012-01-08T10:21:00.000-08:00

"The money-lender’s trade is always bad....The iniquity of money-lending must absolutely be abjured, and the gain which lacks all humanity must be shunned. A man’s possessions are indeed multiplied by these unrighteous and sorry means, but the mind’s wealth decays because usury of money is the death of the soul. For... he who gets deceitful gain from lending his money on usury is shown to be both an alien from God’s tabernacle and an exile from His holy hill, and in seeking to enrich himself by others’ losses, he deserves to be punished with eternal neediness."

~ Pope St. Leo the Great, (5th C.), On the Fast of the Tenth Month, Sermon 17

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"Usury used to be mortal sin as heinous as murder. Now, it's just called 'capitalism.'" - my friend, Aham Svarupa

Much needed guidance from God

2012-01-08T09:50:00.000-08:00

O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people who call upon thee; and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

- Collect for the First Sunday after Epiphany.

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I have found through out my life that I have occasionally made some poor or wrong choices. I can think of at least three or four bad major life decisions, for which another choice probably would have led to a better outcome for me.

I try not to dwell too much from these mistakes or live in the past, but I do want to learn from my mistakes. As I face challenges ahead, one of my hopes is that I will seek God's guidance and wisdom, and will try to hear what God is saying to me or how God is leading me.

In 12-step recovery programs, the 11th step is: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

This is a most wholesome exercise. I pray for other things besides knowledge of God's will, but I think praying for knowledge of God's will in your life is very important. With pressing life choices and decisions, knowing God's will can be the difference between making a good or bad choice.

Notice that in both the Collect above, and in the 11th step, the power to carry out God's will is mentioned. Sometimes, the right choice may require some sacrifice. It may be that we have to do something difficult or hard for us, at least in the short term. We need God's help, the grace and power that come from God, in order to follow through with making the right choice.

Often making the right choice involves letting go, and sacrifice. Letting go of hurts, resentments, wants, desires. Sacrificing instant gratification or momentary pleasure to be able to enjoy long term satisfaction.

I really should use a concrete examples from my life to help flesh this out, but I am frankly embarrassed by some of my poor choices, and also, some have involved relationships with other people. Suffice to say that choices around lovers and mates, and major purchases, require wise decision making.

With relationships, it is important to be honest about who we are or what we want up front. I have felt that I have often cheated myself by downplaying some aspect of my life with someone I was dating. Also, it is better to be honest with people, in any kind of relationship. Sometimes, in an attempt to spare someone's feelings are smooth out a relationship, we are not honest with another person. We do not lay all our cards on the table. It is better though to be honest upfront. Troublesome issues will eventually come to a head.

Some choices may involve making an ethical decision. Making the ethical choice and following through on it is often a more difficult course of action than an easier path that is unethical. However, the more ethical choice, even if more difficult to begin with, yields better results in the end. We often do not want to deal with difficulty or hardship up front.

Some choices we make may not necessarily have an ethical component, but there are consequences nonetheless. It can be hard to make wise decisions. Common sense can help us in some situations, but not all situations have an apparent common sense choice versus a foolish choice. Choosing a life partner, a home, a school, a job, making a financial decision, can all impact our lives greatly. Sometimes, making the wise choice will involve delaying gratification or taking the common sense approach. Other times it is not so clear. Sometimes we are forced to make decisions around these issues at a difficult time.

We can turn to God when our life is hard, or when life confronts us with difficult choices to make.

In order to be able to hear God speaking to us, and to seek God's guidance, we need to be consistent in prayer. We also need to be dedicated to God. St. Paul expresses this idea beautiful in his epistle to the Romans:

Therefore, my brothers, I implore you by God's mercy to offer your very selves to him: a living sacrifice, dedicated and fit for his acceptance, the worship offered by mind and heart. Adapt yourselves no longer to the pattern of this present world, but let your minds be remade and your whole nature thus transformed. Then you will be able to to discern the will of God, and to know what is good, acceptable, and perfect.

- Romans 12.1-2, New English Bible

St. Paul teaches us here, that in order to discern God's will and be empowered by divine grace, we must be committed to God. It is a commitment to love and follow God, to pray consistently, and to be willing always to do the right thing. We need to keep a consistent life of prayer and meditation, so that we be able to hear God speak to us, or discern God's will for us.

Life is very difficult, but we may have peace in knowing God.

Republicans: The Single Greatest Threat to America- by Sandy Goodman in the Huffington Post

2012-01-07T13:24:00.000-08:00

Goodman here summarizes perfectly my feeling about the Republican Party. This is a party that often cloaks itself in religiosity, but they are actually apostles of greed and selfishness. They are hell-bent on reducing this country to a banana republic, and to destroying the middle class.

It is very important to vote for President Obama next fall. That is partly why I have endorsed him.

The stakes are very high, we are at a crossroads for our democracy and republic.

- Lance

From the article:

The single greatest threat to the United States is not joblessness, foreclosures, another recession or skyrocketing debt or health care costs. Nor is it terrorism, China or declining influence abroad. No, the single greatest threat to our country is today's Republican Party.

That's because the GOP is relentlessly pursuing a policy of the American public be damned, so that next year Republicans can regain the national political dominance they held from 2001 to 2006. Their sole, selfish aim is to complete the transformation of the U.S. to a government of, by and for the rich and the far-right...

George W. Bush's presidency, with Congressional Republicans in lockstep behind him, made an excellent start on the destructive transformation of this country: two unpaid-for wars (one based on lies); failure to prevent the worst terrorist attack on the homeland or punish its instigators; waste of tens of thousands of U.S. and foreign lives, and worldwide diplomatic failure.

At home, approval of torture, warrantless wiretapping and ineptness and indifference in the face of Hurricane Katrina created a permanent stain. Economically, Republican tax cuts created few jobs and increased the national debt by 75 percent. What the Washington Post dubbed "executive grandeur" made income inequality the worst since the 1930s Depression. Finally, the GOP's failed stewardship of the economy resulted in a crisis that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke testified was even worse than the Depression...

American business hates government -- except when it needs government help. Which is just about all the time. And it's just fine with Republicans whenever business goes to the government for help. In fact, GOPers are almost always corporate-friendly, as opposed to people-friendly. And they have a right-wing Supreme Court majority that helps them buy legislation by equating money with speech and corporations with human beings.

But heaven forbid the average citizen should try to get a government benefit, or a job or more unemployment insurance or aid in taking back a home seized (often illegally) by the bank, or getting health care for a gravely ill child with a pre-existing condition. Republicans are happy to vote overwhelmingly against him, ignoring the Constitutional command that government "promote the general welfare."

You may read Goodman's entire essay here:
Republicans: The Single Greatest Threat to America

Sandy Goodman, a retired producer for NBC Nightly News, is a freelance writer. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and the Columbia Journalism Review.

The Epiphany: He Will Crush the Oppressor

2012-01-06T13:58:00.000-08:00

The Manifestion of Our Lord Jesus Christ to the Gentiles

German, Würzburg, about 1240 (Getty Museum)

O GOD, who by the leading of a star didst manifest thy only-begotten Son to the Gentiles; Mercifully grant that we, who know thee now by faith, may after this life have the fruition of thy glorious Godhead; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

- Collect for the Epiphany, or the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

Give the king your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to a king’s son.
May he judge your people with righteousness,
and your poor with justice.
May the mountains yield prosperity for the people,
and the hills, in righteousness.
May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,
give deliverance to the needy,
and crush the oppressor.

For he delivers the needy when they call,
the poor and those who have no helper.
He has pity on the weak and the needy,
and saves the lives of the needy.
From oppression and violence he redeems their life;
and precious is their blood in his sight.

- Psalm 72.1-4, 12-14, NRSV, from the Daily Office Readings for the Epiphany.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, or the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. In today's Gospel, the Magi from the East, probably astrologers from Persia, follow a Star and reach the Christ Child in Bethlehem. They present him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These gifts symbolize Christ's role as King, Priest, and Prophet respectively.

Today I was struck by Psalm 72, the Morning Psalm appointed in the Daily Office from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer for the Feast of the Epiphany. Psalm 72 is a Messianic Psalm, prophetic of Christ's rule. In the Psalm, the Messiah-King is portrayed as a Liberator, a dispenser of Justice. He not only will hear the cries of the poor and oppressed, but he will "crush the oppressor."

The commentary for Psalm 72 in the Oxford Study Bible-Revised English Bible, which I was using this morning for my office readings, is quite illuminating. The commentary explains that "the absolute kings of the near east often shed blood with little remorse." One thinks of King Herod and the Holy Innocents. But the commentary points out that the Messianic King "redeems his people from oppression." In commenting on the verse 4 of Psalm 72, the Oxford Study Bible explains that to judge in this Psalm means to "vindicate the poor and to relieve suffering."

If we believe that Psalm 72 is prophetic of Christ, we should accept that God does take sides with the poor and oppressed, against the oppressor.

Geevarghese Mar Osthathios, Metropolitan Archbishop Emeritus for the Syrian Orthodox Church in India, counts Psalm 72 as his favorite Psalm. Mar Osthathios has spoken eloquently on the liberationist message of the Bible.

Christianity should not be a domesticated religion, but a prophetic one. Authentic Christianity "rebukes the oppressor (Isaiah 1.17, NKJV)." True Christianity is a force for liberation and justice, not a defender of the status quo. It is not an other-wordly religion. Archbishop Desmond Tutu has remarked that Christianity is a "materialist religion."

In the Epiphany, God is revealed to the Gentiles. God is revealed as a Liberator in today's Psalm. If we accept Christ as our Lord and God, we must accept Him as a Liberator, for He has revealed Himself as such. We can rejoice that Christ is against Oppression. Followers of Christ should resonate with this prayer for social justice from the Book of Common Prayer:

ALMIGHTY God, who hast created man in thine own image; Grant us grace fearlessly to contend against evil, and to make no peace with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom, help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice among men and nations, to the glory of thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Endorsement: I am voting for President Obama

2012-01-05T18:52:00.000-08:00

I am voting for President Obama. My Ron Paul-supporting friend tells me I will be voting for a "Republican" next fall.

So what is the difference between Obama and a Republican? Besides the fact that he is clearly the only adult in the room, especially when compared to the congress and that insane clown posse that passes as the Republican field, there are several significant differences between President Obama and Republicans:

The difference between people with pre-existing conditions dying without health care, and people getting health insurance to help save their lives.
The difference a year of unemployment benefit extensions for the long-term unemployed, and seeing the unemployed lose their benefits
The saving of the auto industry, versus allowing it to die and lose millions of jobs
The end of don't ask, don't tell, versus continued institutionalized discrimination against gay and lesbians willing to serve their country
Two Supreme Court Justices who aren't Nazis.

In these momentous times, these are not negligible differences for those living on the margins; and of course there are many other accomplishments by President Obama as well.

Look, I would love to brag at the coffee shop or bar how I voted for the Socialist, Green, or a Communist; or that I wrote in Bernie Sanders. But my own ideological purity is not nearly as important to me as voting to help make realistic, attainable change, that will really help people. I am not living in an ivory tower. I have been on unemployment myself, I know what it is like.

Sometimes in history there are big revolutions that changes things quickly. But more often, I believe, huge changes are proceeded by years of incremental, non-sensational changes. Change is often frustratingly incremental.

I would rather see people get health care and their unemployment benefits than please my left-wing friends with my vote. I don't care about being cool.

Maybe people are right that both parties are corporatized slaves to the imperialist, capitalist system. However, I am going to vote for the "corporatist" candidate who wants to save lives, not the one who mocks the dying; I am going to vote for the candidate who took decisive action to save the auto industry and millions of jobs along with it, not the ones who were willing to see it die.

If I have a choice between "two corporatist candidates," I am going to vote for the one who is working to help people right now, and who will provide room for progressive changes to unfold.

President Obama has the ship turned in the right direction. President Obama has demonstrated that he has the country's best interest at heart, and his accomplishments, as modest as they might seem to the purists, are significant enough for me to want to stay the course.

"Obama Care"

2012-01-05T17:57:00.000-08:00

The Holy Name - January 1st- Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T09:48:00.000-08:00

Eternal Father, who didst give to thine incarnate Son the holy name of Jesus to be the sign of our salvation: Plant in every heart, we beseech thee, the love of him who is the Savior of the world, even our Lord Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

- Collect for the Holy Name, January 1.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
[19] Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily.

But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
[21] And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
[22] Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
[23] Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
[24] Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife:
[25] And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.

- Matthew 1.18-25, Gospel Reading for the Holy Name

Poem: My heart belongs to you my love

2011-12-31T16:28:00.003-08:00

My heart belongs to you my love
As we lie naked here
My love for you has only grown
As we come to this new year

I lie with you in perfect peace
In my mind I see my heart
Move from me to you
Into your soul
I loved you from the start

This night is perfect
And we make love
Well into long dark night
And we will again as the morning dawns
And we wake to greet the light

copyright © 2011 Lance Goldsberry

The revolutionary hope of Christmas - by Tim Yeager

2011-12-28T10:43:00.000-08:00

"The Magnificat is a song of high revolution." - Geevarghese Mar Osthathios

Christmas time can be so depressing. It brings out some of the worst features of capitalism and rubs them in our faces. You can't escape, whatever your philosophical or religious belief.
Advertisements spur on feelings of guilt if you don't buy enough of the right kinds of consumer products for people you love. Creative financing is offered so that lenders can make even more profit. And it is an environmental disaster ... more plastic, cardboard and packaging is produced, carted about, and dumped into landfills, vacant lots, and incinerators at Christmas time than at any other time of the year.
And yet ... Nearly smothered beneath piles of gift catalogs and sale circulars, nearly drowned in a sea of synthesized elevator-music Christmas carols, in a locked theological vault guarded down through the centuries by legions of preachers, priests and pontiffs, there burns a persistent secret flame. It is the flame of a revolutionary hope - hope for a better world, a more just society, where the social order is turned upside down so that the poor are fed and the rich are relieved of their ill-gotten gains. And it is something that working people of any culture, any religious or philosophical background can relate to.
What does Christmas have to do with the class struggle? In a word - everything. The story goes like this:
Once upon a time, in a land far away on the edge of a great empire, there was a people with an ancient culture, a storied past, and a great literature, who had been conquered by a technologically advanced imperial power. They were occupied by foreign soldiers and ruled by corrupt local despots who collaborated with the foreign oppressors. There were periodic revolts of local peasants and slaves that were put down mercilessly.
In the midst of all that, a young unmarried girl becomes pregnant out of wedlock. You might think she would regret this development, but on the contrary, she finds in the anticipated birth of a child a reason to rejoice and to hope for a better world. In her joy and determination, she sings an ancient song of liberation:

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me -- He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, he has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. (Luke 1:46-53)

She and her fiancee are then forced to make a difficult journey while she is in the last weeks of her pregnancy, ostensibly to comply with the demands of their imperial rulers to register for a census. They are denied lodging in local inns. Homeless, the young family takes shelter in a stable, where the mother goes into labor and gives birth to a baby boy among barnyard animals.
Hardly an auspicious beginning for a child in whom his mother had placed such hope. And then things get worse. The local ruler, a collaborator who is kept in power through an occupation army, decides on an act of terror. Convinced that a revolt is brewing in the village where the young couple has just had their baby, he sends in death squads to kill all the male children under a certain age.
Fortunately, the young family is tipped off and they flee into a neighboring country. There they wait until they receive news of the death of their corrupt local despot, and thereafter return to raise their son in their hometown. When he grows up, the boy becomes a carpenter. As if to fulfill the revolutionary hope expressed in his mother's song, he goes on to organize a movement for social and economic change. It is composed of a coalition of fishermen, reformed prostitutes, the unemployed and low-level public servants, with a cross-section of men and women, and people of different ethnic backgrounds.
The aims of the movement are clear from the very beginning:

Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight ... (Luke 3:4-5) .

He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable Year of the Lord. (Luke 4:18-19)

And so, when you look at the Christmas story closely, you find a story of working-class people living in difficult times, in circumstances not too different from those faced by millions of people today. These are people who are aware of their history of struggle. They draw strength from the lessons of the past and nourish hopes and dreams for a better world.
Mary, the young mother in the Christmas story is supremely confident that the future will be better. Her song, known as the Magnificat, is nothing less than revolutionary.
This revolutionary aspect of Christmas is also found in the popular Christmas carol "O Holy Night" (Cantique de Noel). The words were written by the French socialist Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure and it was translated into English by the American abolitionist John Sullivan Dwight. The music was written by Adolphe Charles Adam, a friend of Cappeau's who was Jewish. One verse of the carol states:
"Truly he taught us to love one another; his law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother; and in his name all oppression shall cease!"
The political ramifications of this carol were well understood by some reactionaries in our own country and it continues to be controversial. The song was banned for years in many conservative churches in the U.S. and many radio stations in the South refused to play it.
So, whenever you get weary of the holidays and all the claptrap that surrounds them, remember the young family of the Christmas story, how they hoped and dreamed for a revolutionary transformation of their country and how they persevered in the face of oppression.
Whoever you are, have a merry and revolutionary Christmas. And let us then enter the new millennium resolved to wipe out homelessness, poverty, racism and injustice once and for all!

This article originally appeared in the Peoples' Weekly World, Dec. 22, 1999.
Tim Yeager is the chair of the Communist Party Religion Commission.

This article was posted on the Communisty Party, USA website: The revolutionary hope of Christmas

Prayer For Social Justice

2011-12-27T19:58:00.000-08:00

ALMIGHTY God, who hast created man in thine own image; Grant us grace fearlessly to contend against evil, and to make no peace with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom, help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice among men and nations, to the glory of thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

- from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer

Green Bay is TITLE TOWN USA! The Packers are America's Team

2011-12-27T19:16:00.001-08:00

I have been a fan of the Packers since I was a Bart Starr and Vince Lombardi fan in the 1960's as a small boy. I am no less a fan now, in the Mike McCarthy-Aaron Rodgers Era. The Packers have always gone to the Super Bowl in pairs (1966-1967; 1996-1997), and the road to the SuperBowl this year in the NFC cuts through Green Bay. This year, I believe that the Packers will repeat as Super Bowl Champions and will add another title to jewel of the crown of TITLETOWN USA. The Packers have NFL Championships in 1929, 1930, 1931, 1936, 1939, 1944, 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1996, 2010. They have 13 world championships, the most in NFL history. It is the Packers who are truly "America's team." They are the NFL's only community owned team, in the blue-collar town of Green Bay.

The Magical Mystery Tour Premiered on Boxing Day 1967

2011-12-26T14:33:00.000-08:00

Forty-four years ago today, on Boxing Day in 1967, viewers of the BBC in the United Kingdom were treated to the Beatle's self-made movie, the Magical Mystery Tour. A project largely conceived by Paul, the Beatles went out to the country side in a painted bus, and filmed the movie, which largely consisted of made-up adventures, psychedelic fantasy and dream sequences, and great videos of Beatle songs. The movie at the time was savaged by the critics, but since has become a Beatle fan favorite. As Paul McCartney once said, "What other movie can you watch and see John Lennon singing 'I am the Walrus?'"

In England, the six movie songs were released as a double 45RPM Extend Play (EP); in the United States, a full album was released, which in addition to the movie songs contained both sides of their last three non-album singles. It was a number one LP in the United States, and the Britain eventually put out the album version later, in 1978.

As an album, it is one of the Beatle's finest, but then again, all the Beatle albums are great. Such Beatle classics as the title track, I am the Walrus, and number #1 singles Hello Goodbye, Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane, and All You Need is Love appear on the album. The Magical Mystery Tour is a personal favorite of mine.

I had the enormous pleasure of watching Paul McCartney perform Hello Goodbye, Penny Lane, and Magical Mystery Tour in concert.

Here is the song list:

Magical Mystery Tour
Fool on the Hill
Flying
Blue Jay Way
Your Mother Should Know
I Am the Walrus
Hello Goodbye
Strawberry Fields Forever
Penny Lane
Baby You're a Rich Man
All You Need is Love

Below I have both my Youtube play list for both the entire movie of the Magical Mystery Tour, and for the videos of all 11 songs on the album. Enjoy!

The Magical Mystery Tour Movie

The Magical Mystery Tour album.

Christmas with the Beatles!

2011-12-24T16:19:00.000-08:00

Two of my favorite things in the world are Christmas and the Beatles! When the Beatles were together, they issued a Christmas record every year for their fan club. John Lennon and Paul McCartney both released Christmas singles that are now classic staples on radio. And of course, Ringo Starr released a wonderful Christmas CD a few years ago.

Below I have Christmas videos by the Beatles, John Lennon & Yoko Ono & the Plastic Ono Band, Paul McCartney & Linda McCartney & Wings, and Ringo Starr. Enjoy, and have a Merry Christmas!

Christmas Time is Here Again! by the Beatles

Happy Xmas (War is Over!) John Lennon & Yoko Ono with the Plastic Ono Band

Wonderful Christmas Time by Paul & Linda McCartney and Wings

Winter Wonderland by Ringo Starr

The Message of Christmas- God's free Grace given to us in Christ Jesus

2011-12-24T15:12:00.000-08:00

I love the readings for Christmas. The message of Christmas is a message of Grace. Christmas beautifully expresses the Catholic emphasis on the Incarnation and the Evangelical emphasis on Grace.

In many religious systems, human beings grope after God. But in Christianity, God comes to us, God seeks human beings. God is the one who takes initiative in salvation. Not content to wait for humans to respond to God, God came to us in the Person of Jesus Christ. God not only came to us, but as John's Gospel says, "became flesh and lived among us (literally, 'tabernacled among us,' or 'pitched his tent among us')."

God shared our life, that we might share God's life. Joan Osborne had a hit in the 1990's called, What if God Was One of Us? But Christianity claims that God indeed was, and is, one of us.

God was born of a woman, experienced birth and was an infant. Luke's gospel states that Jesus "grew in wisdom and stature," just like all human beings must do. He suffered. He experienced pain and hunger, heart ache and sorrow, joy and happiness. Jesus is like us in all things, yet, "without sin" the writer of Hebrews tells us.

The Incarnation is an expression of God's grace. In the Incarnation, God unites human and divine nature, by God's own initiative.

The readings for Christmas reminds us that we are saved by God's grace, and that we only need to receive Christ in order to be saved, and have communion with God.

The gospel reading from John chapter 1 says, "But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God (John 1.13)."

The epistle reading from Titus 3 says "But when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit."

We cannot be saved by our good works, but only by the grace of Christ. This grace is clearly shown us in the Incarnation. We need only to receive Christ to receive God's Grace.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Collect:
"Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin; Grant that we being regenerate, and made children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen".

-Collect for the Nativity of our Lord from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer

Epistle Reading:

But when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. - Titus 3.4-7, NRSV

Gospel Reading:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” ’) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

- John 1.1-18, NRSV

Pope Benedict Peace Message Calls For Wealth Redistribution - from the Huffington Post

2011-12-19T05:54:00.000-08:00

The pope on World Peace Day, December 16th, called for a "redistribution of wealth." Well of course, that fits Biblical teaching. The Catholic righties of course will dismiss the pontiff's call, attributing his mere "prudential judgment," or perhaps, in the case of extreme traditionalists, even accusing him of heresy. They are more Catholic than the pope, of course.

from the article:
The message laments that "some currents of modern culture, built upon rationalist and individualist economic principles, have cut off the concept of justice from its transcendent roots, detaching it from charity and solidarity."

Read the article here: Pope Benedict Peace Message Calls For Wealth Redistribution

The Meeting

2011-12-18T11:00:00.000-08:00

I approach the rail, to kneel and receive
Thy most precious body and blood.

I kneel besides others at the rail
as I wait for the priest to approach me

I carry with me all the sorrows and burdens
of the week
I carry with me all the heart ache
and loss

my head bowed, my right palm resting on my left
the priest places the sacred host on my hand.
“the body of Christ, the bread of heaven...”
I raise my palm to my mouth
I consume the host

the deacon comes by with the chalice
“the blood of Christ, the cup of salvation”
I draw the chalice to my lips, and drink the sacred blood.

I cross myself and rise up
tears flood my eyes
I encounter the invisible Christ
he stands by the rail
he looks at me

“I know you are frail; I know what you suffer
I have been there before
I know how hard things are
I am with you
I am here”

I walk back to my seat
I kneel in the pew
his hand on my shoulder
“I have been there I know your hardship”

I have this meeting with Christ
every week
I meet him at the rail every week
He is there
He knows
He walks with me
all the time
I just sometimes forget
till I kneel at the rail

The Holy Rosary- Bedrock

2011-12-14T07:38:00.000-08:00

I have felt sometimes recently that God has abandoned me, or at least, that God cannot do too much about our lives. I was very depressed this morning and did not feel like praying. So I prayed the Rosary on the bus to work.

Some Christians do not understand traditional prayers, they think they are "vain repetitions." They do not understand that they are life preservers when one is drowning.

When I got down town, I sat at a table in a public lounge area and read the Bible readings from the Daily Office.

When I do not feel like praying, the Holy Rosary is bedrock.

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

2011-12-12T05:51:00.001-08:00

Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This feast commemorates the Apparition in 1531 of our Blessed Mother to St. Juan Diego, an Indian peasant in Mexico.

In this apparition, the Mother of God appeared as an indigenous woman. Our Blessed Mother left an image, an "icon not made with human hands" on Juan Diego's cloak. This image is still preserved in tact, almost 500 years later, with no degradation.

The image bears indigenous symbolism as well as traditional Christian symbolism. Our Lady of Guadalupe is the Patroness of the Americas and the indigenous people. She also has been seen as a symbol of liberation for the oppressed.

Mary indeed is a liberator, as expressed in her Magnificat:

And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord,
[47] and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
[48] for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed;
[49] for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
[50] And his mercy is on those who fear him
from generation to generation.
[51] He has shown strength with his arm,
he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts,
[52] he has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree;
[53] he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent empty away.
[54] He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
[55] as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his posterity for ever."
- Luke 1.46-55, RSV

MEMORARE TO OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary of Guadalupe, that in thy celestial apparitions on the mount of Tepeyac, thou didst promise to show thy compassion and pity towards all who, loving and trusting thee, seek thy help and call upon thee in their necessities and afflictions.

Thou didst promise to hearken to our supplications, to dry our tears and to give us consolation and relief. Never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession, either for the common welfare, or in personal anxieties, was left unaided.

Inspired with this confidence, we fly unto thee, O Mary, ever Virgin Mother of the True God! Though grieving under the weight of our sins, we come to prostrate ourselves in thy august presence, certain that thou wilt deign to fulfill thy merciful promises. We are full of hope that, standing beneath thy shadow and protection, nothing will trouble or afflict us, nor need we fear illness, or misfortune, or any other sorrow.

Thou hast decided to remain with us through thy admirable image, thou who art our Mother, our health and our life. Placing ourselves beneath thy maternal gaze and having recourse to thee in all our necessities we need do nothing more. O Holy Mother of God, despise not our petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer us.

[Here mention your petition.]

Then recite five Hail Marys. . . in gratitude for the four apparitions to Juan Diego and the one to Juan Bernardino.

Wikipedia article on Our Lady of Guadalupe

Congratulations to Metropolitan Savas Zembillas

2011-12-08T10:54:00.000-08:00

I want to congratulate my friend Metropolitan Savas Zembillas, who is being enthroned today as the Metropolitan of Pittsburgh for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America.

Metropolitan Zembillas was an Auxillary Bishop and director of Communications for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese. He has offered a wonderful ministry on Facebook, friending people from all walks of life and religious backgrounds. He is an all-around great guy, really "hip" without trying to be. He will share everything from articles about the daily readings and church fathers to NPR articles, to articles about the Rolling Stones. He has a passion for social justice and the poor. He has his critics for that, which I acknowledge as a "seal of approval." When the right wing quasi-religious bloggers are going after you, you know you are listening to and speaking in the Spirit.

I pray for Metropolitan to provided many years of Spirit-led and wise shepherding for the Greek Orthodox faithful in the Metropolia of Pittsburgh, and to continue his outreach to all people.

So many of my friends and I admire this man, and pray God's mercy and protection on him.

Congratulations your Eminence! God grant you many years! Axios!

Lance's Blog

Giving to the Poor is Giving to God

Favorite Albums: The Milestone Jazz Stars in Concert- Sonny Rollins, Ron Carter, and McCoy Tyner

Favorite Albums: Anita Baker – Rapture

Poetry: My Young Lady Friend and the Woman I Love

God has no case to make against us

Patriarch Bartholomew on Apophatic Theology

Favorite Albums: Electric Guitarist by John McLaughlin (1978)

For Lent: Healing from God

The God Who is Mystery Can Be Found Within

Rising above individualistic concerns

Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination By Brian J. Walsh

Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian ImaginationBy Brian J. Walsh

Esperanza Spalding Performs at the 84th Oscars

The Spirituality of George Harrison: in Honor of George's Birthday

Barack Obama's Christian Testimony

The Foolishness of Franklin Graham

The Divine within us, rather than the bearded man in the sky

Thoughts on Universalism and the Love of God

Kevin Costner's Message of Grace at Whitney Houston's Funeral

Music Review: Kisses on the Bottom by Paul McCartney

Tyler Perry: Whitney loved the Lord- Nothing can separate us from the Love of God

93 Economists Say Obama Stimulus Plan Worked

Whitney Houston's Accapella version of How Will I Know?

Nelson Mandela pays tribute to Whitney Houston

Barry Goldwater on the Danger of Religion in the Republican Party

War on Religion or War on Democracy? by Rev. Susan Russell in the Huffington Post

Poetry: My Lovely Valentine

Prayer for Whitney Houston

My Tribute to Whitney Houston- A Youtube Play List

Rest In Peace, Sweet Angel: Whitney Houston found dead at 48

Barbara Harris, First Female Bishop in the Episcopal Church

Bishop John Shelby Spong on John A.T. Robinson. NT. Wright comments on Honest to God

JOHN A.T. ROBINSON REMEMBEREDby the Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong, Bishop of Newark (source: http://www.dioceseofnewark.org/vox30995.html )

Henry Winston, African American political leader and Marxist civil rights activist - Black History Month

You are Accepted by Paul Tillich

The Episcopal Church and Social Justice

Long Live the Queen! Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Anniversary Today!

Freedom of Spirit

Robert Kennedy and Cesar Chavez in 1968

Frank Schaeffer- President Obama Will Be Vindicated

3 Songs from Esperanza Spalding's forthcoming Radio Music Society

Video Black Gold by Esperanza Spalding with Algebra - Black History Month

Matthew Fox's 95 Theses for the Third Millennium

Bishop John Shelby Spong on Adult Faith

Catherine Russell Performs Troubled Waters on Dutch Radio

The Single Mother Has No Food

copyright © 2011 Lance Goldsberry

Favorite Albums: Modern Man by Stanley Clarke

The Woman Behind the President

Reflections on Today's Bible Readings on My Birthday

Poetry: Lost in a Beautiful Moment

Favorite Albums: Flowers in the Dirt and Tripping the Live Fantastic by Paul McCartney

Bill Maher and Bernie Sanders: Why Don't Americans Want Good Social Benefits?

The God/Spirituality versus Religion Question

Sherrilyn Ifill on the Legacy of Dr. King- Scott Walker and his wife look uncomfortable!

Martin Luther King Jr. - A Prophetic and Subversive Legacy

The New American Poor- Video with Cornel West, Barbara Ehreneich, and Tavis Smiley

Monk Montgomery- Pioneer Electric Bassist

In Praise of the Revised Standard Version

Pope St. Leo the Great on Usury and Capitalism

Much needed guidance from God

Republicans: The Single Greatest Threat to America- by Sandy Goodman in the Huffington Post

The Epiphany: He Will Crush the Oppressor

Endorsement: I am voting for President Obama

"Obama Care"

The Holy Name - January 1st- Happy New Year!

Poem: My heart belongs to you my love

The revolutionary hope of Christmas - by Tim Yeager

Prayer For Social Justice

Green Bay is TITLE TOWN USA! The Packers are America's Team

The Magical Mystery Tour Premiered on Boxing Day 1967

Christmas with the Beatles!

The Message of Christmas- God's free Grace given to us in Christ Jesus

Pope Benedict Peace Message Calls For Wealth Redistribution - from the Huffington Post

The Meeting

copyright © 2011 Lance Goldsberry

The Holy Rosary- Bedrock

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Congratulations to Metropolitan Savas Zembillas

Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination
By Brian J. Walsh

JOHN A.T. ROBINSON REMEMBERED
by the Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong, Bishop of Newark

(source: http://www.dioceseofnewark.org/vox30995.html )