Good morning, RisingMorningStar - I see you are up early, two minutes after midnight.   Maybe you went to bed late.   Thank you for the morning devotional.

Retributive justice - I recently joined a friend with his friends at their table at the food court at the mall - people I've met occasionally but not part of my usual circle.  I sat quietly and listened to the conversation - weather,  events at the mall, sports, and the News.   The sentencing of someone pleading guilty to 2nd degree murder.    I forget the sentence, but those at the table considered it too light.  'He'll be out in a few years.'   'That's because the prisons are overcrowded.  The judges can't hand out longer sentences, they have to make space for new prisoners coming in.'   'We need more prisons.' 'We need stricter sentences.'  'Bring back the death penalty, that will clear them out.'   'And no more luxury  - they are fed better than I am.'  'Like being in a country club.'

At his point I interjected that I understood that often prisoners were double-bunked in cells meant to be single, 7 X 11, fed through a slot in the door, and allowed out maybe one hour in 24.  Not exactly luxury.'   But my comments were lost.  And I wondered 'who are these people'?   So different from the ones I meet in the church and in my circle, where we think of justice in terms of equal opportunities, fair distribution of wealth, rights to having basic needs met with dignity - forgiveness, rehibilitation, training, opportunities.   

I don't think of disasters, such as the one at Sodom and Gemorrah (which sounds like a volcano to me) or the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, as God's anger or God's punishment.  I think things like this just happen - part of the forces of nature at work deep in the earth.  Other disasters, such as hurricans and floods may partly be planned by our own actions destroying creation and bringing about global warming.  

But I also find hope - rains carried inland by hurrican winds water the wheat fields, floods wash away but also bring nutrients to the soil.  There are stories of heroism and sacrifice.   And opportunities to rebuild, restructure.

I look to Egypt, one of the oldest civilizations in the world.  There was recent unrest and suffering.  Some people were killed.  But people joined together to protest evil and oppression, and they overthrew a corrupt government.  Now comes the opportunity to rebuild - and we hope for a fairer, more just, system of government.  We hope that the same thing can happen in Lybia.  

And in Canada, we have brave people who protest against the government when they see oppression - and sometimes they suffer for it.  But we can hope that somehow the message is getting through.  And with modern technology the message is getting out to more and more people.  In that I see hope.

 Where do I see the possibilities for grace instead of retributive justice? How might I see a nursery where others are only fearful?

 Possibilities or practicalities? Both!

I see NO hope, no room for grace, no humanity in retributive justice at all. It is fundamentally grace-less, it excludes grace.

Forty years ago, as a young journalist, I covered the trials of ringleaders of the Kingston Penitentiary riots. My response was to join the Ten-Plus Club, through which citizens met weekly with inmates serving sentences of 10 years or more. In those days, it included prisoners who had death sentences commuted by the abolition of the death penalty in Canada.

The Kingston Pen riots were horrific, mostly because of the calculated, cold-blooded torture of inmates who were sex offenders or informers; two of whom died. As well as the details of the tortuturers' actions, their background stories and criminal records were presented in Court by the Crown. Each told a story of brutalisation. These destructive life experiences in no way lessened the sickening horror of what these men had done. But all that they did had been long in the making; aggressive fury had been shaped — one could believe systematically and consistently — by what had been inflicted on the perpetrators: childhood abuse, poverty, violence, unemployment, marginalisation and incarceration. Nobody chooses such a life. Crime "pays" only in kind.

Each defendant had become a white hot focus of brutalisation, usually from birth, and when they were locked up together in the hell that was Kingston Pen those concentrations of self-loathing, fury, exclusion from hope by social contempt and hatred, and from compassion by dehumanisation... all came together and exploded; their experiences of violence and suffering found release in the extreme cruelty they inflicted on their victims, each encouraging the other’s plunge into hell.

And there was no expiation in what they had done, no release, no path back. It did not make any one of them feel better.

 It did make many of the god-fearing good people of the community feel better for a time. “Justice” was done by locking these ruined people up yet again. There were some critically needed prison reforms. But none of the outcomes did much, in fact, to lessen crime or violence in the society, improve parenting skills among marginalised families or give at-risk kids more opportunities… nothing that might prevent the moulding of new monsters. Few people read into that whole savage orgy of horror any indication that they may themselves have contributed. Fundamentally, it was seen as a prison management issue.

 So people kept telling their kids not to play with “those” children because they come from “bad” families. And the kids from “bad families” continued to defend their parents, no matter how “undeserving”, and lose their desire to interact with the “other” kids whose parents had drawn an uncrossable line. They learned resistance to society and lost respect for its authority because they experienced so little of its compassion. The “good people” respond by stoking their fear. They vote for tougher sentencing and buy better home security systems; they remove themselves to “better” neighbourhoods and enclaves of rectitude; seldom, it seems, do they make a point of befriending “bad families” to help them to feel a part of the community. After all, "we're not social workers.".

 The Ten-Plus Club started helping in the community; I remember painting a school and a little community gathering where the inmates were thanked for their work and given cups of tea and home baking. It was all very cozy except that the inmates were finding it hard to enter into the hospitality: try eating a muffin and drinking a cup of tea at the same time with one hand chained to a prison guard.

Afterwards, most of these guys felt they’d been on display, paraded to show what a great job the prison system was “really” doing. Afterwards, the “screws” felt they too had been on display in an embarrassing way. Have you experienced a social chat with someone who is handcuffed to a man in uniform? Have you been that man in uniform and, knowing what you know, not found such conversations surreal? Still, among the hosts of this little function there were some who seemed to feel vindicated. They had fraternised in an officially sanctioned way with the social enemy.

 There ARE other ways: let me BEG YOU to read, if you haven’t, Howard Zehr’s book: Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice. If you are up for it, read Rupert Ross’ Dancing With A Ghost, which throws a chink of light on the way, we stigmatise and criminalise aboriginal peoples. Both are prophetic statements and should be school textbooks and required reading for citizenship qualification.

 Retributive justice will have no place in the world of the future. Its roots are fierce tribalistic vengeance. And it haunts us still in every vicious “just” war, in every violence-inspiring mythology, in every punitive judicial system and in every vengeance-torn mind on the planet. It is as unsustainable as the "carbon economy" and unfettered capitalism. It is as destructive. The transition will not be quick or easy, but it is inevitable.

 I’m proud to know a minister and his wife in the United States who, not only forgave the man who murdered their son but also became outspoken, vigorously active opponents of the death penalty in the United States. Theirs is an inspiring path of peace and love.

 I am proud of the United Church’s Truth and Reconciliation work.

 It’s the path all Christians are called to walk. At Lent and Easter, it is a call that resonates with particular passion. The crucifixion is the paramount example of retributive justice’s puffed-up conceit and insane futility. The resurrection calls us all to lives beyond that way of thinking.

And I see hope-filled signs that we may be starting to listen.

I'm reading very wise words within the previous posts with much appreciation.

It seems that when grace is offered, it creates change, inside of us and others.  We must know God to understand grace.

Thank-you Mike, Thank-you Seeler.

I found the writing today disjointed.  I am sure it was me, the hour shift, my sense of place in the world right now.  You both have given me something to hold onto.  I wil  ponder your words, and waterfall's post, and hopefully have more to offer later.

 Has anyone else signed the Charter for Compassion?

See: charterforcompassion.org/share/the-charter/

I always think of the earlier part of the story, where God tells Abraham that he plans to wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham, his favourite and chosen one argues him down. Okay, it didn't exactly work out in the end, but I've thought about that a lot and how the cities could stand for people.

If indeed the line between good and evil runs through the centre of every human heart, then we cannot divide the righteous and the wicked in the same way as God did in Genesis, but must look to each soul.

What if there is a person who has done evil things, but has a strong light of good in their soul? Can we condemn them to merciless retribution then?

What if it's only a faint light of good? The tiniest glimmer of hope, does evil outweigh that forever and without mitigation?

 Retributive justice?  Well don't get me started!  Sorry! ... Too late!

Firstly, let me say that the principals of retribution and punishment do not have a place in criminal law.  I am not talking here about the "ought" here but about the reality.  The principals of criminal law do not allow any judge when making a sentence to consider the requirement for retribution.  Retribution is irrelevant.  Punishment is not an objective in modern criminal theory.  Retribution is recognized not to serve the public interest. Retribution does not even come into the calculations.  

The criminal law is public law designed to serve the public interest.  Retribution and revenge is a private interest which the public ought not to be required to finance or spend its resources on.  The pressure for retribution comes not from the bench or the bar (and I would say that this is generally true for all English common law countries).  The common law principals governing criminal law evolved out of and incorporate the Christian ideals of redemption and grace which long ago pushed aside the logic of retribution and revenge.  

The two proper purposes of criminal law are, firstly, the protection of the public from the danger posed by the likelihood of re-offence by the person convicted of a criminal offence and secondly, the rehabilitation of the convicted criminal.  Rehabilitation is desirable, firstly, because it is the right thing to do according to Christian principals which are the principals which have formed Western civilization and secondly, because it is more economical and less socially damaging than permanent incarceration, and thirdly, it reduces the chances of reoffence toward zero. 

All of us are God's children.  Each of has within us the ability to lead a good and productive life.  All men fall into error.  Forgiveness is quality to which all persons should aspire.  What does it say about us and our beliefs if we reject the possibility of redemption and do not recognize that it extends to every person?  What does such a rejection say about our own chances for redemption either here on earth or in heaven?  Life must be lived forward and the failure to forgive and to offer the opportunity for redemption traps irrevocably in the past.

In any case, once a person has been found guilty of a criminal act there are only two valid factors to be considered in sentencing him or her.  What must be done to reasonably protect the public from the reasonable apprehension of a re-offence and what must be done to rehabilitate the convicted criminal.  What do you do if an accused is found guilty and upon a hearing as to sentence it appears there is no likelihood of re-offence and there is no need to rehabilitate him or her?  Well, you discharge him or her that is what you do.  That is the proper disposition of the case.  To do anything else reintroduces the logic of retribution and revenge and these principals are essentially private (not public principals) which carry high costs and negative effects for the public.

So if the two proper purposes of criminal law are protection of the public from the danger posed by the likelihood of re-offence and rehabilitation of the convicted criminal. where do the calls for retribution come from?  They come from the hockey jacketed denizens of Tim Horton's. They come from sweet blue haired ladies. They come from the person in the pew beside you. In other words, they come from otherwise decent and gentle people who have suddenly and unaccountably become bloodthirsty would be executioners;  from people who have no facts to go on other than the charge, the existence of a verdict and the sentence; from people who have never seen the accused have not heard the details of the case told in detail; who have not observed the demeanour of the witnesses or the accused; who have not heard any evidence or legal argument as to the proper disposition of the case so far as the sentence is concerned; who have not any inkling from testimony and evidence as to the support systems available to the accused to assist in his or her rehabilitation; who do not know the history or the treatment needs of the accused; who do not know the sentencing options or even the terms of sentences handed down in other similar cases; who have no knowledge or experience in judging criminal matters or sentencing criminals; and who are victims seeking private justice as opposed to public justice (something they generally refer to as "closure" ... closure being just another term for "sufficient revenge and retribution" which is a term, a concept, and an argument  which ought to be summarily dismissed and set aside as irrelevant).

But everybody has their opinion and every one of them is apparently better than that of the presiding judge.  The judge, the courtroom and the accused are far from us and we will never have to look the accused in the eye.  Everyone has to talk about something at the water cooler and over coffee and we (as well as our spotless children who we think we know so well) are all very decent upright people who are too smart and too well brought up get involved in that kind of trouble and stand so loftily above the accused that the principal that we ought to do unto others as would be done unto us seems less urgent and compelling.

Thus forms a bloodthirsty and vengeful mob unschooled in law, ignorant of history and the tenets of our founding faith, dismissive of the work and study and expertise of those who have undertaken the responsibility to deal with criminal matters, lacking respect and responsibility, remorseless, and without empathy.  This mob is egged on by corporate media trying to run papers and media outlets on a string and ceaselessly trying to generate "content" without benefit of actual investigative reporting staff, using wire service feeds and gleaning tidbits of content from other outlets and the internet.  Everyone from provider to consumer is looking for the quick information hit and that bit of controversy that will sell another paper and feed another watercooler conversation.  

Of course, once the mob is energized we have cynical politicians such as Mr. Harper who are only too glad to pander to this rabble; to throw out all established principle; and to appeal to the very lowest common denominator in order to gain votes.  It is a bad idea for all the reasons I have outlined above.

I am reminded of the caesars staging blood sports and gladatorial combat in the Colliseum.

Where is the answer?  It is in our own hearts.  We know about grace (or at least some of us do).  Certainly, the law knows about it already and figures it into its calculations.  When you hear someone calling for the death penalty, trampling of the rights of the accused, or retributive sentencing you are speaking to someone inured to casual violence; a person whose ability to empathize has been impaired and is who engaging in the fantasies of a violent society.  

Churches have a role to play in helping people reach past the fear and violence and the violent fantasies to regain a connection with their empathy and decency.

WOW,Qwerty

Now Qwerty would you please drop in on Mr. Seeler's coffee group at the mall and enlighten them.  If I took your essay to read, it would embarass him. 

When I'm thinking of the sheer horrow (looks like I've "invented" a new word - a mixture of horror and sorrow) and loss of thousands of lives resulting from the Japan earthquake I feel nothing but despair.

How is it that nuclear plants can even be considered - let alone built - in known earthquake regions?

With a heavy heart I sit down at my computer with a strong cup of coffee and a despondent sigh.

First I read Mike's post and then qwerty's - a glimmer of hope - there is compassion "out there".

Mike highlights the dangers to society as a whole when we keep groups separate.

"Telling children not to play with those children because they come from bad families".

qwerty emphasises  that retribution shouldn't be a part of the legal process.

How many times, all around us (as seeler mentions) do we hear demands for retribution from the ordinary man in the street?

What is behind this call for retribution?

IMO it's fear. Until we as a society explore the nature of fear and it's resultant corrosion in us as individuals and in society at large, nothing of substance will change.

For those who seek out a devil - he doesn't have horns and a pitchfork - his name is fear.

I believe the church can play a part in turning around living in fear to that of living in love.

Jesus said it best - we are called to love our God and love our neighbour (everybody).

Perhaps the church's should spend more time focussing on living in love, as opposed to living in fear?

Perhaps theologians, ministers, priests etc should put less emphasis on interpreting the Bible and concentrate more on it's essence?

Faith isn't something that existed only thousands of years ago - encourage us to live in this world now with love in our hearts and compassion in our deeds.

IMO it should be the message behind the content of every sermon preached in churches throughout the world.

I would like to see every service end with the words, "Choose love, not fear, in your actions this coming week".

 I agree Pilgrim

 Fear is incredibly corrosive. Love is deeply healing.

Many good comments -- great start to the week.

It seems like a lot of us taken a similar tack in answering today's questions. Me too - I chose to focus on restorative justice.

Two tough questions. Part of me wants to shout, "you do the crime, you do the time." The other part of me responds saying, "And who exactly will that help?"

Restorative justice is not something I know a lot about but it's a concept that I like - at least in theory. What I do know is this - it brings together the perpetrator and the victim. The person who has committed the crime gets to hear how it has affected the life of the victim(s). The perpetrator then must spend time working to fix the problems they have caused - for example repairing or replacing something that has been broken. It's my understanding that there can be great healing for both the victim and the perpetrator that comes from this. It is something that I would be interested in hearing more about.

Maybe the answer to the second question can also come through restorative justice. Maybe it comes from looking at all aspects of a person's life before we lock them up in jail and throw away the key. How can we help them to become better people - to leave the criminal life behind? What led them into a life of crime? Does he abuse others because he was abused as a child and knows no other way? Does she do drugs because they help her to escape the harsh realities of life? Does he steal because he cannot afford to buy the things he needs - like food and shelter? Is she violent because she has a mental illness? How can we help them get what they truly need: food, shelter, counselling, medication, etc.? How do we help them to turn their lives around?

Two tough questions, no real answers - only more questions.

  Good morning. Here is the reading with suggested discussion questions for today.

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Monday | Day 5 | A Famine of Futures

"I will provide for you there...so that you and your household and all that you have, will not come to poverty." Genesis 45:11

Once proud in his coat of many colours, Joseph is humbled by his captivity and famine in Egypt. Through a dream, he is connected with the yearning of creation during this natural disaster. This experience transforms him from a proud child into one who wept in sorrow at his loved one's plight. Today, all creation calls out to us for our compassion. Can we weep for the devastation of so many creatures in today's grave environmental crisis? Can we act for change?

Reflection Questions: When did a natural disaster touch your soul? Recall your own feelings. How has healing come to that place? To your soul?

Rising with the Morning Star (UCPH, 2010).

 www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/beforeafter.htm

I've been reflecting on these comparison pictures: the homes, the workplaces, the amenities and communities... the people: the mothers and fathers, the children, the grandchildren and grandparents, the old the young, rich, poor, "good" and "bad", the poets and the dreamers, the technicians and the businesspeople, the scholars and the laborers... so many hopes, achievements, creations, ideas, successes, failures... the survivors, the mourners, the heroic teams trying to control the nuclear power station's rage... not just the people and their dreams but the trees and gardens, parks and pets and wildlife.

The whole world changed for Japan. The whole world changed for all of us. And it's a pattern. The earth's plates keep shifting, the floods rise and ebb, the quakes and floods and winds, the cataclysms... they  bring our proudest creations down, our empires, our achievements... sooner, later, it all goes,

What endures? God endures. Why this devastation? The Japanese girl who was going to marry me but with whom I've long lost touch.... she was swept from my world -- and I from hers -- 40 years ago. We've been long dead to each other but I can't help wondering... how did this event affect her? Was she already dead? How about her children and friends and family? Were they all somehow unscathed? Not likely... but I don't know, but the earthquake did nothing to "us".

Do we blame god? Do we blame each other and make judgements? Do we give generously to ease the pain of this earthquake or that? Of these floods of those floods? Of this catastrophe or that? Do we rush to help these hurting people or those hurting people? 

There is still plenty of beauty in the world, plenty of joy... scars heal. Grief eases, pain subsides.Love is always there fo us. Pain is always there to tend, joy is always there to share; loss is everywhere, so is bounty.

If there is meaning in an event like this it can only be that we are ONE people on an ever-shifting planet... it the truest sense, it changes nothing. All those houses would have fallen, all those who died would one day have died. It shouldn't take a coincidence of horror like this for us to see suffering where it bites, to love one another, to reach out. The losses in Japan are our losses too... what if we see the that way. Will our compassion blossom?

I don't think the writer of today's reflection on natural disasters could have imagined how significant the timing of it would be. "When did a natural disaster touch your soul?" Continually this past year, as disasters take their toll from Haiti to Pakistan to New Zealand to Japan. My feelings are of compassion and grave concern from our earth and its people.

I'm always one to rejoice when I read good news stories in the media. I know there are far more out there than ever get reported. But as I think about these disasters, I think there is really not much good news. Yes, there are inspiring stories of individuals and communities working together, of citizens and aid workers going to heroic lengths to help those affected. But to answer one of today's questions, I don't see healing coming to those places. Not for a long time.

And maybe that takes us back to last week's discussions about how you deal with things that cannot be healed. How do you live in the waiting?

I'm finding a lot of questions in this Lenten discussion really tough. Not ones I can easily respond to. I find that difficult. I'm not good in the waiting.

A Sunday School child once complained to me "this is so boring - the same stories over and over again'.   Yet, decades later I can read the same stories I was sharing with my class, the same stories I read as a child, and see something new, something I never thought of before.

Here is Joseph - the spoiled child, favoured by his mother, and also by his father, set up almost from birth for his brothers' jealousy and hatred.  Ten brothers, all older, some perhaps already men when he was still a toddler, watching as his father heaped gifts upon him, and indicated to all that this child (not his first-born who had incurred his anger) would be his heir.   And Joseph flaunting his position, and bragging about his dreams that surely indicated that his brothers would bow down to him.  

But then in a damp prison cell (I doubt if it was cold - not in Egypt), fed on bread and water, hungry, in despair, he sees the wheat fields bowing down, not to him, but to the powers of the universe.  For the rains have not come.  The wheat is drying up, the stocks no longer strong and green but drooping, ready to die.   Famine rears its ugly head.  The rains don't come - the crops fail - the animals die - and then the people face starvation, while the sun and moon and stars look down.  

And Jospeh sees his privileged position for what it was.  A beloved son within a big family - related by blood and circumstance - sharing the same father, their mothers closely related.  He is a part of the whole, not separate and above.  And rather than looking down from a position of privilege he is able to welcome his brothers and share with them.

And I sit in my livingroom in a relatively stable part of the world and watch images of Japan on my big-screen TV.  The older side of the world.   My son, in Korea, has phoned to let me know that he is safe.  Likewise my neighbour has heard from her son in Hong Kong.   It's a small world, isn't it.  Our children travel and live half way around the world from us.  

But we are connected.  I watch an image of cars (perhaps in a parking lot) being tossed by the tsunami, and the camera from high in a plane sweeps on down the nearby road out to farm country.  A lonely farm house, and the road.  A car is moving along that road - the water coming behind it.  But the car stops behind a whole line up of cars.  The camera sweeps on and shows me what the people in that car cannot see.  The road ahead is blocked by water.  And I realize they are trapped - water coming from both directions.   The scene shifts - I never see that particular picture again.  But part of me is there in that car.  Who is in it?  A snigle person, or perhaps a family?   And what happened to them?   I can only imagine.   I can't relate to 10,000.  But I can to a family in a car, racing from the tidal wave, only to have their way blocked.  I can relate to the woman rescued from a floating mattress after clinging to a tree, and telling that her daughter was swept away.  And to the man, rescued floating on his rooftop in the open ocean - his wife was trapped inside the house.  

So much suffering.   If it had hit Korea if might have been my son.  If it hit the west coast, it could be my friends.  And if fire or flood or other disaster hits this area it might be my daughter and grandchildren.   But we are all interrelated - all part of a greater whole.   So I pray for my brothers and sisters in Japan.

What strikes me the most with the current disasters in Haiti and Japan is the false sense of how we prepare ourselves for such events. On one hand we have the country of Haiti that seemed totally unprepared and then Japan who has taken great care to be prepared because they have acknowledged the inevitable. Both countries were devasted and are now struggling to recover.

It forces me to wonder, how prepared are we and what does "prepared" mean? When the initial shock of destruction is over and the world loses interest where will that leave those affected? The buildings, boats, houses suddenly become unimportant as we watch people frantically putting priorities into place by saving lives and providing for each other.

Throughout all of this, hope and renewal, are the common denominator that unite the world. The countries that have vast stored resources reach out to assist and it is only then that we realize we have had too much all along. When pressed to act, we give and I am amazed that it takes such a spectacular event to jar our senses, while children dying in Africa has become an acceptable norm for us.

It seems to me that globally we've always had the ability to help more, but instead we have become so immune to the cries of others that we only see the obvious.

Today I will reflect on the cries of those we can hear and listen for those voices that have only become a wimper to us. I'll pray that we'll remember the whole world is our family.

 While we are shocked to the quick --- as we MUST be -- by a dramatic catastrophic event like an earthquake, have we lost sight of the 25,000 people who die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes... and  it is children who die most often.

This is a catastrophe we really could prevent, were we collectively concerned. 

There is plenty of food in the world for everyone. The problem is that hungry people are trapped in severe poverty. They lack the money to buy enough food to nourish themselves. Constantly malnourished, they become weaker and often fall sick.

This makes them less able to work, which then makes them even poorer and hungrier: a downward spiral that often continues until death for them and their families.

There are effective programs to break this spiral: For adults, there are “food for work” programs that pay adults are paid with food to build schools, dig wells, make roads... nourishing them and building infrastructure to end the poverty. For children, there are “food for education” programs where the children are provided with food when they attend school. Their education will help them to escape from hunger and global poverty.

And, most importantly, there are change we can make in our economic systems that could eradicate desperate poverty...

How do we learn to see more clearly the part we all play in each other's lives? How do we bring love into those relationships?

( Sources: United Nations World Food Program (WFP), Oxfam, UNICEF.

The other thing that we seem to get wrong is the media. We hear about one disaster until another knocks it off the radar. What is happening in Haiti, New Zealand and the Gulf region from Katrina, for that matter, now that a new disaster has taken over the airwaves?And who are all these experts that are dredged up to fill their news time?

Do  we really get the picture of what people ar going through and how we can help?

Crazy: if you go looking, you can find more than enough information to act upon with some responsibility. You just have to go looking. (you might like to check ot the links at the end of my post above.)

"News" media are businesses, ratings-based, competing for audiences to impress and woo money from advertisers. We usually get the media we seek.

Blaming "the media" can very easily become a cop-out... like blaming "the devil"  or "corruption (of others)" or "politicians" for evils that are comfortably settled into the way we live... and, for as long as it's the "devil", the "news media" or "them" that we blame, we can go on clinging to the ways we live.

Greetings!

I too was struck by the timing of today's reading and the question about natural disaster touching one's soul.

Of course, souls, hearts, thoughts, prayers, and compassionate tears go out for all the people of Japan, and all those living in other countries who have a family or friend tie to it.

It touches my being with feelings of sadness, compassion, and grief for those who have lost loved ones in death or loved ones who are just plain lost at this time.  I was passed on a prayer request as few hours ago to pray for a niece (child) who is lost - the child's biological aunt is married to a fellow from our area.  Somehow this brought it closer - more personalized.

Such concern arises for the nation of Japan, as well as further reaching consequences with the issues with the nuclear power plants that are damaged or experiencing difficulty.

I am so far removed from the people so closely affected that other than as a member of the human race I am not expecting healing to come to my soul in this tragedy - in the sense that while my soul aches for Japan, I am not personally affected.  I do not even live in an area where earthquakes or tsunamis are probably evenly remotely possibly, so I am not experiencing the fear that others, such as those on Canada/US west coast, might be experiencing because of the geography of where they live.

Another natural disaster that was closer to home and touched my soul at the magnitude of it was the forest fire (burning over 55,000 + hectares) that raged through not too far from our area.  Although some remote cabins, a road bridge, and possibly a few other structures were destroyed, no human life was lost.  I am not even aware of any injuries, although there could have been some to the many fire fighters who worked so hard to bring control to the situation.  What touched my soul was the loss of natural resources and the loss of life to probably a variety of wildlife and natural flora.  And the effect that this natural disaster will have on this part of the world for some time to come.  While this is not anywhere near close to the extent of the horror of the people of Japan, it is something that I thought of when asked to reflect on these questions.

Hope, peace, joy, love . . .

It is suprising and sad how disasters like the one in Japan touch other places.  I was listening to a report on Libya yesterday and heard that one of the reasons the reporters were being pulled out of Benghazi was to cover the events in Japan.  Listening to the report reminded me of the scene in Hotel Rwanda in which the reporter friend of the manager is reluctantly leaving Rwanda with the other non-blacks.  While the focus of today's reading is on natural disasters, it is hard not to think of the tragedy unfolding in Libya and my disgust at the inability or unwillingness of Western Nations to assist people struggling for freedom while contributing to the problems they are facing over decades.  I am feeling terribly anxious for those Libyans and embarrased about being Canadian.

Yes, Mike some of us can and some of us do but there are still the thousands who only get what the media feeds them. Again some of us act and there are thousands,imo, who use the media and its stories of disasters as the next reality show,

 Okay this one will be a bit weird but I think it will be interesting …

When examining the reading for today (A Famine of Futures pg 18) my immediate reaction was that this reading was about hubris.  The dreams were “imperial dreams”. Joseph’s dreams caused him to be arrogant and self-absorbed (and in his heart he had therefore turned his back on his family and his community). 

To begin with, I am setting out a quote on the subject of hubris and dreams from an article that, oddly enough, I found some little while after deciding that this reading is about hubris.

Nemesis was the Greek goddess of retribution. She exacted divine punishment on arrogant mortals who believed they could defy the gods, turn themselves into objects of worship and build ruthless systems of power to control the world around them. The price of such hubris was almost always death.

Nemesis, related to the Greek word némein, means “to give what is due.” Our nemesis fast approaches. We will get what we are due. The staggering myopia of our corrupt political and economic elite, which plunder the nation’s wealth for financial speculation and endless war, the mass retreat of citizens into virtual hallucinations, the collapsing edifices around us, which include the ecosystem that sustains life, are ignored for a giddy self-worship. We stare into electronic screens just as Narcissus, besotted with his own reflection, stared into a pool of water until he wasted away and died.

We believe that because we have the capacity to wage war we have the right to wage war. We believe that money, rather than manufactured products and goods, is real. We believe in the myth of inevitable human moral and material progress. We believe that no matter how much damage we do to the Earth or our society, science and technology will save us. And as temperatures on the planet steadily rise, as droughts devastate cropland, as the bleaching of coral reefs threatens to wipe out 25 percent of all marine species, as countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh succumb to severe flooding, as we poison our food, air and water, as we refuse to confront our addiction to fossil fuels and coal, as we dismantle our manufacturing base and plunge tens of millions … into a permanent and desperate underclass, we flick on a screen and are entranced…

We confuse the electronic image, a reflection back to us of ourselves, with the divine. We gawk at “reality” television, which of course is contrived reality, reveling in being the viewer and the viewed. True reality is obliterated from our consciousness. It is the electronic image that informs and defines us. It is the image that gives us our identity. It is the image that tells us what is attainable in the vast cult of the self, what we should desire, what we should seek to become and who we are. It is the image that tricks us into thinking we have become powerful—as the popularity of video games built around the themes of violence and war illustrates—while we have become enslaved and impoverished by the corporate state. The … image leads us back to the worship of ourselves. It is idolatry… We retreat into a dark and irrational fear born out of a cavernous ignorance of the real. We enter an age of … barbarism.

To those entranced by images, the world is a vast stage on which they are called to enact their dreams. It is a world of constant action … We may be locked in dead-end jobs, have no meaningful relationships and be confused about our identities, but we can blast our way to power holding a little control panel while looking for hours at a screen. We can ridicule the poor, the ignorant and the weak all day long on trash-talk shows and reality television shows…

… The ability to perceive the pain and suffering of another, to feel, as King Lear says, what wretches feel, is a more powerful social corrective than the shelves of turgid religious and philosophical treatises on human will. Those who change the world for the better, who offer us hope, have the capacity to make us step outside of ourselves and feel empathy.

The arrogance of Joseph's self-centred “imperial dreams” was brought home to him by his experiences in Egypt and the subsequent drought and famine.  Freed from the sway of his illusions ... of the images he had seen ... he was free to empathize.

Perhaps, then the earthquake and tsunami in Japan can teach us a number of things (as Joseph’s imprisonment and sojourn in Egypt did for him).  Firstly, the spectre of the tsunami is a grim reminder of the folly and extent of our hubris.  I, like waterfall, have to wonder at the talk of “being prepared” for such an event.  Its power and scale beggars comprehension.  I have never seen anything like it.  I, frankly, was mesmerized by pictures of this wall of death moving fast and unseen toward tiny little people and the lines of their cars running along the roads when all the while their unwitting drivers were unaware of its onslaught.  The very idea of “being prepared” for something of this magnitude is in itself a sign of our hubris.  Secondly, it is a demonstration of exactly where we stand when the forces of the earth are awakened and our insignificance before these forces.  Thirdly, this event stands as a warning.  Here the seas rose only for a brief time but if global warming takes effect and the seas rise permanently, what greater havoc will ensue?  Fourthly, it demonstrates to us that contrary to the hubristic assumption or assertion in the reading that the “sun, moon, and stars turn to us now in this time of grave crisis … powerless to save this planet … (and) bow down before us”, the earth and the cosmos will never bow down (and neither will God) but rather we will be destroyed.  We have seen how  quickly and thoroughly it may be accomplished.

How has healing come to that place?  It has not arrived yet, however, I notice that there is no chaos.  There is order.  People have been generally done what they have been asked to do and gone where they have been asked to go.  For instance, residents have been asked to go to community centres, basically to facilitate to be counted for the purpose of taking an inventory of the living so that some idea of the dead may be arrived at through the process of elimination.  I can’t imagine that process occurring so smoothly here in North America.  Japan is a communitarian culture and it is their community that will heal them.  Right now their community is the only resource that many Japanese have.

My soul?  … Well I guess it is still questing but I think it is questing generously and in the right places; that is in my community and family with love and empathy.

 Great post, Qwerty...

What timely questions these are! I have found them to be the easiest, by far, to answer so far. I am able to post my full journal entry - virtually unedited - for the first time today.

Having lived my whole life in British Columbia, every time I hear of earthquakes, tsunamis and forest fires it hits really close to home. I have seen the damage done by forest fires and felt the earthquake. Living so close to the ocean, I know how powerful it can be.

Every time I hear of a major earthquake elsewhere, I am reminded of easily it could - and someday will - happen in my town. The schools here have earthquake drills with the same regularity as fire drills because we all need to know how to protect ourselves - just in case. We are frequently reminded to have earthquake kits prepared. If an earthquake happens elsewhere in the Pacific, every Islanders that a tsunami could hit our shores. Last week, after Japan had it's major earthquake, almost our entire island was put under a tsunami warning. We were fortunate this time - the waves were very small. In British Columbia we are surrounded by trees - and the summers, especially in the interior, can be very dry. I will never forget the Okanagan Mountain Fires back in 2003. Had they started a week later, I would have been there, at Naramata Centre. My course was cancelled - and while I was disappointed, I understood completely and was glad to hear that firefighters would be staying in my room instead of me.

How does healing come? It comes when we help each other in whatever ways we can. It comes when we say thank you to those who have helped us. It comes from learning lessons from the tragedy that can be used the next time such an event occurs. For me, healing comes when I give a donation and say a prayer for the victims. It comes when I talk to my friends and family and it comes when I ensure that I am as prepared as I can be should a similar event occur here.

When has a natural disaster touched my soul? My current journey has been a very unsettled trip for me as I saw signs of the flooding and typhoon in Queensland, the loose change collection buckets at McDonalds for the Christchurch victims, dealt with increased crocodile warnings and flooding hiking paths in Queensland and Northern Territory from the heavy rains and now come across prayer altars set up in shops in order to pray for those in Japan.

I'm South East Asia right now, watching the events in Japan touch others. My butler is from the Ukraine. At first she was touched by the loss of life but now is reliving Chernobyl. She knows the destruction that a nuclear disaster can wrought.

In Bali yesterday, our guide at the orchid nursery stopped me and wanted to talk about the tsunami. Why she picked me to open up to, I don't know, but we spent 10 minutes talking it over; her sharing what she saw in Aceh province when it was hit, telling me her brother's wife is Japanese but so far she has heard from her immediate family, that Indonesia was hit by a tsunami this time in eastern provinces but that no deaths, only damage to fishing boats, and finally, me informing her of the nuclear reactors and the concerns there for further destruction but assuring her that she is safe from the radiation.

I forgot that while I have access to NHK World (the Japanese equivalent of BBC World) and its constant feeding of straight facts, no talking heads commenting inanely, a farm worker in Bali isn't going to have access to such information.

I think of how, when one tsunami survivor being interviewed was asked what they needed, she replied, “food, water, of course but also information.” They are starved for information as they respond to repeated tsunami warnings as well as rolling blackouts when the electrical grid is working and increased no-go zones as the situation at the reactors worsen, all while trying to stay warm and find food and water.

The blessing of today's communication networks makes it possible for me, on a ship in the Java Sea, to be more aware of what is happening in Sendai, than the people actually there. But that is also a reminder of how vulnerable our dependence on instant communications is. At any moment, the system can fail, leaving us dependent on our own wits.

The disaster itself is not really touching my soul. I'm not affected, Japan is not on my itinerary and, while at sea, I'm completely safe from tsunami. It is the reaction of those touched that is touching my soul. I feel the unsettledness of those who are affected.

 I am having a hard time right now with the events in Japan.  When I was in University I became very involved in the anti-nuclear movement to the point where I became obsessed with the fear of a nuclear explosion.  Whenever a plane flew over I feared that it was an atomic bomb, I worried that the nuclear powered subs that the US ran up and down our coasts were going to have an accident which would lead to a disaster or an earthquake would happen on the coast while one of them was in port leading to damage to their small reactor causing contamination of our waters.  This became an all consuming fear of mine.  I believed, and still believe that we could destroy our world in this way.  The way I got through this horrible period of my life was to resign myself to the thought that if that is what God wants then I was ok with that.  There was a great comfort in thinking of a bigger picture - of a new fresh world - without humans - though I was very sad to think of the other critters that would also die.  

When I see what is going on in Japan I worry that this is the beginning of the end.  My Dad's caregiver said that she saw Revelations in what was happening in Japan.  I don't know about that but certainly the story "On the Beach" comes to mind.

We are all so closely linked - what one of us does at one part of the world affects another part.  A small country like Japan in an earthquake prone area with 52 nuclear power plants is likely to have a major disaster sooner or later.  To think otherwise is sheer folly.  I guess the government was gambling with the risk and lost.

So where's God's grace in this?  What I took out of the reading was that sometimes it is the way that we look at the situation as to whether or not it is negative.  What happened in Japan was powerful and has changed the landscape.  It showed the power of nature.  Nature is God and sometimes in her creative process She can be very destructive like the potter is when he beats the clay prior to making it into a bowl.  But even though the process of creativity can be painful the results can be beautiful if we are respectful of creation and don't do things like build nuclear power plants, for even earthquakes can lead to benefits like new islands etc.  If we are not respectful though, I fear that God will allow us to destroy ourselves. 

 I also wanted to say - Great post qwerty

  Good morning. Thank you for all your thoughtful comments. They are really a pleasure to read. Below is the synopsis for today's Rising with the Morning Star reading, along with suggested discussion questions.

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Tuesday | Day 6 | Miriam, Beloved Rebel

"Let her be shut out of the camp for seven days, and after that she may be brought in again." Numbers 12:14

Miriam, who was the sister of Moses and Aaron, was banished from the Hebrew camp for objecting to Moses' choice of a wife. But today's reading suggests there was more to the story. Miriam was a prophet who "danced to the stars" by the Red Sea, leading the Hebrews in unbridled celebration after the victory over the Pharaoh. Her story echoes with the song of a strong leader who had a significant connection to nature and contagious joy. A child-like approach can sometimes reveal more wisdom about God than years of study, making us think twice about the age-old question, "Who speaks for God?".

Reflection Questions: Where has God been revealed to you in the last 24 hours? Where do you really find joy? Is it not good and right that you savour it?

Rising with the Morning Star (UCPH, 2010).

While I was a candidate for ministry (O so long ago now!) I was challenged by my Education & Students Committee with the exact question raised this morning - how have you seen God todat? (Actually, I think they worded it "how have you seen Christ today" - which is, from my theological perspective, the same thing! 20 years ago I struggled a bit with that question. It had been a routine day. I woke up, jumped on the subway, went to Emmanuel College, listened to some professors drone on - I mean, listened to some brilliant theologians offer inspiring teaching - got back on the subway, went home and went to an interview. Christ was present and visible in this mundane sort of life. Surely - if God were there - we would see God in the dramatic things of life. I mumbled some perfunctory answer to the question and went home, satisfied that at least I hadn't been kicked out of the process. Seeing God could wait.

Today, when I think of seeing God I'm more drawn than ever to the seemingly mundane things of life. I reflect often on Elijah searching for God and seeing all sorts of seemingly miraculous and certaily dramatic signs - and then coming to the realization that God wasn't in the earhquake and wasn't in the roaring fire. Finally, Elijah discovered God - in a gentle whisper that could have been so easily drowned out by everything else going on around him.

We still seem to assume that God will become visible only in the big things. Right now, though, given the state of the world, I'm relieved that Elijah didn't find God in an earthquake. Earthquakes might be signs of the power of the nature God has called into being, but seeing God in the actual event of either the earthquake  in Japan or the earhquake in Haiti (as if God had caused them) would be problematic for me. I don't doubt that God is present in those situations, but present probably as a gentle whisper assuring those who are suffering that they're aren't alone. 

Easy for me to say. I've never suffered like that. Sounds a bit patronizing, I admit. But in my own times of hardship (which admittedly don't compare to the suffering in Japan or Haiti) I have felt God's presence - not in the drama of whatever the event was, but in that inner sense of peace and love and calm that Elijah described as a gentle whisper. So, how have I seen God in the last 24 hours? Probably everywhere and in everything - and mostly in the places and people where I'd least expect to see GOd, which is a reminder for me to keep my eyes open today!

Oh - and about joy? Joy is a precious thing. Indeed, God expects us to savour those moments of real joy that come to us, even while our joy is tempered by the realization that we're no more deserving of joy than those who find joy lacking because of their present circumstances.

I can just see Miriam dancing on a beach and some around her thankful that she has such unrestricted joy that she would dare to express herself with such abandon.

It makes me consider all the social restrictiions we place upon ourselves that force us to conform to societies norms and when we step outside of what those around us consider "normal" we risk looking quite foolish.

How do we risk shaking someones hand and lingering with the touch longer than the customary 5 seconds, or embrace someone longer than 15 seconds without opening a door to uneasiness? We have learned to hold back and withdraw from rules that we have learned since childhood that have chipped away at our connections to each other. We are very polite.

Sometimes I think we are overly polite with God, too. Our churches teach us how to be "civil" with God.  We are stoic at funerals with our loved ones, despite our deep dispair that begs us to cry out.  Our prayer s are planned and written for us and our spontanaity is deadened by the scripted service. It is considered right to talk to God with well planned words and learned consideration. We temper  the abandonment of speaking from our very soul and filter our feelings until we barely recognize ourselves let alone God. Even our joy is downplayed sometimes so we won't appear crazy. We subconciously distance ourselves from other societies that wail and shout out loud with mild amusement and regard them as curiousities that uphold barbaric ancient customs .

Where is our wild abandonment in our quest for God? Our unbridled connection that allows the unfiltered connection with our creator and creation. Our inner child that dances with God in rebellious unison with our universe. Our prayers that come from an unrehearsed script.

When I dare to abandon the fences that the world has built around me and take the chance to expose the parts of me that are so carefully monitored becoming almost childlike, I can dance wildly and I think God dances with me.

Often my morning prayer includes a request to help me be aware of God throughout my day. Because I'm very good at going about my daily business and paying no attention to God. But every time I stop and let myself be open to noticing God, I see God in lots of places.

In the last 24 hours I saw God in the caring actions of people around me. In the colleague who brought in home-baked goodies for all to enjoy. (She does this regularly--a true gift.) In the loving care of my husband, who told me he'd look after the supper and I should go and put my pyjamas on because I've got a lousy cold. In the driver who slowed and let me in on the highway when I needed to merge. I also saw God in the brave little daffodils that are poking their noses through the soil in my front garden despite the chill.

Thanks to Spirit Wind for your reminder of the joy of children and a call to be like them. Their joy is so all-consuming, so unrestricted, isn't it? I know that I experience joy when, like children, I can truly experience a moment of beauty with all my senses. Often times, this is outside, often in my garden and whenever I'm near the ocean. And often it's with family, when I've stepped outside the bustle of life to spend time in nature with them.

"Let her be shut out of the camp for seven days, and after that she may be brought in again." 

One sentence - I find that frustrating.  Does that one sentence conjure up images for me of the story of Miriam?  And if it doesn't for me, who consider myself quite familiar with many of the stories of the Bible, doe it dor someone just starting ut on their faith jouney?   Or do we have to search further for the story on which today's reflection is based?

So I got out my trusty series by Miriam Therese Winter on the Women of the Scriptures and found the story of Miriam in 'Woman Wisdom' the first book of the series.  I didcovered that Miriam is mentioned in Five different books of the Hebrew scriptures.  She first appears in Exodus, an unnamed little girl in the story of Moses in the Bulrushes - a little girl who watches over her baby brother, then shows the courage to approach and speak to the Egyptian princess, and the wisdom to recommend her mother as the person best suited to be a milk-nurse to the baby. 

As an adult she appears again, this time with a name and a title : she is identified as a prophet.  She assists her brother in leading the people through the Sea of Reeds (sometimes referred to as the Red Sea), and then leads the women in a song and dance of celebration.  Both these stories are in Exodus.  Water is a major element in these stories.

Today's reading is taken from the story in Numbers where Miriam and Aaron challange their brother Moses in a leadership decision.  Both challange.  She is punished, and banashed from the camp for seven days.  For some women this would mean death - a lone woman could not be expected to survive without the cooperation and protection of the community, especially during a journey.  But the people refuse to move camp during her exile - and her tweek of rest and solitude becomes a time of healing, until she returns to the camp. 

She is mentioned again in Deuteronomy when her death and burial are reported - and we not that there is no water in that place.  Clearly Miriam is associated with water. 

References in 1 Coronocles and in Micah simply list her, along with Moses and Aaron in the geneologies.  But this in itself is significant.  Very few females are mentioned in geneologies - generally just the male descendants when A begat B and B begat C.  

Miriam was clearly an important woman despite the few details we get in the canon of scripture.  Fortunately there seems to be a parallel collective memory of Miriam and her association with song and dance and life giving water.

The question for today is where do we find joy in our lives.  Other than the joy of waking up to a bright new day, today is still early.  But joy came to me unexpectedly yesterday afternoon.  I came home after an outing and found something unexpected in my mailbox.

Over a month ago I had attended a funeral of a long time church member and after the reception I went out to the kitchen to help with the cleaning up.  I have a shawl that my son brought me from China a four or five years ago.  I love it, and often wear it in our big drafty sanctuary.  But it was warm in the kitchen so I laid it aside.  And when it came time to leave, it was gone. 

Now our church is located in a downtown area, and we welcome people to come in to  our building.   But no one in the kitchen could remember seeing anyone but those we kenw well passing through.  Had it been moved to a more suitable place?  We searched.  Had somebody put it away with the table cloths?  We went through the draws.  Had somebody taken it home with the dishcloths to be washed?   or had it grown legs and walked away?

The janitor and the church secretary were notified.  A notice was put in the church bulletin for Sunday.  Weeks went by.  I kept looking around the kitchen, the parlor and the gym.  Hope spring eternal.   I never stopped hoping.

Then it showed up in my mailbox.  Had it grown legs and found its way home?  A phone call later explained.  The grieving daughter had been helping to herd the family up, gather their winter clothes, and the baby's things.  As she took a short cut through the kitchen between the gym and the parlor she spotted her grey shawl and took it with her.  Only when she went to hang it up at home did she realize that her shawl was already hanging there.   In the busy and trying time after the funeral, the shawl was put aside - to be returned - but forgotten.   The embarassed widow called someone from the UCW yesterday - my beloved shawl is home again.  And I rejoice - not just in its return but in the honesty of the family to  see that it was returned to its rightful owner. 

In a suffering world, there are moments of joy in little things.  

My DIL's grandmother died this week after a year of great torment. I saw God in the vigil that the family kept at the hospital in her last week. They remained there to make her comfortable and help her in the great transition from life to death. God was with the grandmother and the family, I have no doubt.

We had a choir practice last night in our small rural church in preparation for a musical evening the congregation is hosting this coming Saturday.  The choir included people from several denominations and nearby communities, and there was a spirit of shared joy in each other's company and contributions.

Also, yesterday was the warmest and most pleasant day we have in over a month with the promise that our exceptionally long and cold winter may be approaching an end, and spring surely can't be more than a month or so away now!

 Yesterday I adjudicated for a high school speech competition; this morning for primary schoolo heritage fair.

So where was god?

In some of these young people -- not all. but a significant number -- I saw revelations of deep curiosity, compassion and confidence: three sacred qualities to put alongside the prosaic pragmatism "three 'r'rs of yore". Three qualities that, widely enough expressed, could change the planet.

It was enough to open my eyes to godly vitality among the teachers and in the community, as well as in the lives of these children whose delight in the world -- rather than the drudgery of greed and acquisition we see too hyped around us -- was leading them forward... some wonderful replenishing values underlay the best of their work and those values will undoubtedly blossom in their adult lives... for me, it was a glimpse into god's garden.

 Where is God Today?

Yesterday chipmunks played in our yard

The robins arrived today

They are out there now

Just behind me

Through the big glass door

Out on the sunny deck

Where all the snow has melted

You can hear the cardinals

Singing too

In the trees

My wife was talking on the phone

To a banker about someone’s mortgage

So I wouldn’t have to do it

But now she is standing beside my chair

Picking up the voicemails

There together at my desk

As she listens and writes

I am touching the back of her thigh

It warms my hand

Like sun, love and this spring day

I say “They are asking

'Where is God today?' ”

She looks down at me

Her eyes sparkle

Like her laugh.

Qwerty - each day you offer us a pearl of wisdom.  Thank you.

Evening at a party where a lot of members of my church were also present (it was a levee hosted by our music minister at the time), I danced.

I was wearing a long, fully skirt, and someone had put on Spanish music and turned it up loud, and I had run out of people to talk to, so I danced alone in the living room, letting the beat move me and my skirt swirl around me.

That made it back to church the next Sunday, mentioned in children's worship I believe, and there were a couple of times when our minister asked if I would dance in celebration-orientated services. As in not be part of the play up front, but get up and dance "spontaneously" to the music at some point, possibly in the aisle.  I always said that I would think about it, and that I would if the spirit moved me, but I don't remember if I ever did. Maybe. Do you remember, SomeGal?

I always felt as though I wanted to, and even sometimes that I ought to, but I am a somewhat introverted person, and the idea of being the only one dancing, apparently unscripted, and breaking the form of the play, bringing audience participation down on the congregation's head whether they wanted it or not, well, it was too much attention for me. I had the reputation of the somewhat bookish, generally helpful, and almost-omnipresent-at-church-events nerd. I didn't want to shift that for That Woman Who Dances in the Aisles.

I'm not sure if I regret that, either, though perhaps I regret that I don't regret it, that the situation was such that I could unrepentantly refrain from dancing.

I am reminded of the beginning of the First Duino Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated here by Stephen Mitchell).

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them pressed me
suddenly against his heart: I would be consumed
in that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains
to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying.
 

God in little things is managable. The full face of God, or an angel, well, it's not something I want to run into until my time here is up. Thank you very much.

I loved your post, waterfall!

I've arrived at a time of life when I revel in being "a free spirit". My inner child dances with God whenever the opportunity arises.

My only sadness is that I didn't "allow" myself this God given joy years ago.

I don't believe it's an accident that the term "free spirit" is used - our spirit is meant to be free. Free from the many unnecessary constraints that fear imprisons our relationships with others.

Joy is in connection - but how can we experience connection if fear prevents us from being our authentic selves?

Where has God been revealed to me in the last 24 hours?

In the mail I received a card from my little granddaughter - thanking me for the toy animal I'd sent her for her birthday.

In "spidery" writing it said, "Thank you for giving me Snuggleahopsy. I love her."

I felt so much joy at knowing I'd given my granddaughter something that she treasures enough to give her own special name to.

In short, I felt  love - which is another word for God.

I feel joy whenever I experience connection - connection with people, connection with nature, connection with music, connection with literature, connection with.............. the list is endless, but it all amounts to the same thing, connection with God.

How can I not savour it? Joy is God's gift to us.

Lighthouseghost - I don't recall you dancing, unscripted, at church - but you might well have done it at some point when I was out with the children. My guess would be that you would remember it if you had. I do remember very well of the story of you dancing at the levee - I wish that I had stayed longer at that party and witnessed it for myself (and maybe even joined in). By the way, people were asking after you at the Two Toonie Tuesday Supper tonight.

I would say that the last 24 hours have been joy filled. They have also been filled with a sense of community. The day was spent with children, the evening with friends. The morning was filled with laughter as I played with the children at a park. There was a sense of wonder when we saw a family of deer. The afternoon was spent at an arena - watching the children interact with one another as they skated. The evening was spent eating supper at church - dining with people that I wouldn't normally spend much time with and learning about their lives. God was there in the laughter and in the learning. God was there when child after child asked if they could push the child with special needs in the wheelchair (that I work specifically with) around the ice. God was there in the beauty of nature made known through that family of deer.

Where do I find joy? I find it in the company of the ones I love and in the laughter of a child. I hear it when I hear a story of hope and feel it when I learn a new skill and then share it with someone else. Joy is found in nature and I am reminded of the first lines of the hymn, Joy Comes With the Dawn:

"Joy comes with the dawn, joy comes with the morning sun,

Joy comes with the morning sun,

Joy springs from the tomb and shatters the night with her calm,

Joy comes from the dawn."

Joy should, under most circumstances, be savoured.

God is so often revealed to me in children and adults reactions to them.

There is a toddler on board much to the consternation of many passengers who take this cruise line specifically because it caters only to adults. But each time this little darling enters a room, the crew light up.

They have left their babies at home. Albert will be meeting for the first time his two month old baby later this week. He'll have a total of 2 hours for the visit. Our server last night spent 2 hours with his 5 month old when we were in Bali. He hasn't been home for 5 months.

Slowly this toddler is winning over the hearts of the grumpy passengers as well. We had dinner with her and her parents last night. Dinner here is an occasion and this occasion lasted 2.5 hours. She was busy and the area around her high chair was not pristine after dinner, but she was quiet and not a distraction at all. As we left the area, the diners at two other tables burst into applause for her and her good behaviour.

God at work, bringing joy to lonely hearts, and softening the hardened hearts of those who are too quick to judge.

  Good morning. Thanks to everybody for their contributions to this discussion. Below is a new synopsis and suggested questions for today.

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Wednesday | Day 7 | Of Drought and Divinity

"[M]y God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?" 1 Kings 17:20

Insecure about his own reputation as a prophet, Elijah plays the "trump card," provoking God to resurrect a widow's son. This took place just before the prophet's dramatic showdown with the priests of Baal to determine whose God was greatest. Today's reflection asks, "Are we still trying to prove our God is superior?" Instead, perhaps we can open ourselves to the sacred stories and revelations of other traditions? Are they really that different from those contained in the Bible? For some, letting go of the supremacy we give stories of our own tradition may not be easy. But it is often in these places of struggle that new life can shine through.

Reflection Questions: Is there something your spiritual understanding that needs to be re-examined? When have you experienced a deep pain healed?

Rising with the Morning Star (UCPH, 2010)


 Of Drought and Divinity

The phrase that jumps out at me in the readings is, “Are we still trying to prove our God is superior?”  The reason it jumps out at me is that for me it comes at things in exactly the opposite way that I come to them.  I have never thought of “my God” and “their God” and “this other God”. 

I have always assumed that all the different names applied to one God.  I have always considered that even those religions which involve  more than one divine being such as Hinduism really use each divine being or lesser God as an expression of a particular facet or personality trait of the Supreme God.  It is then a matter of different terminology attempting to describe the same thing; the terminology of the visions of Mohammad; the terminology of the Buddha; of Zoroastrianism; of Hinduism; and maybe too the terminology of Black Elk.  Black Elk, at least, unlike Jesus, can be proved to have actually existed as he only died in 1950.   However, it does not matter to me whether or not Jesus actually existed as an historical person.

 I have always said that even if the Jesus story is not historically true that it ought to be. That is, if it is not historically true it is nevertheless spiritually true; that it rings true in all its parts and accurately captures our essence (including our essential hopes and fears, strengths and weaknesses; that it poses questions and provides useful answers about us, and our world and our role in it.  It is a little far fetched in places; the loaves and fishes; the miracles; the temptation by the devil in the desert, for instance.  Take the temptation thing.  The devil?  Well that is a little hard to swallow, sure, but if that detail is a little iffy the really important thing in the story, namely, the nature of temptation and the manner in which the seeds of corruption may be planted (or resisted), is completely accurate and realistic (Take it from me, I’m a lawyer, I’ve seen it close up).

But I like the Jesus story because I have heard it so often.  It is part of our culture.  We are immersed in it.  It speaks in the terminology I like even if I find parts of the story a little hard to swallow.  Notwithstanding superficial credibility gaps, on a deeper level I still understand it and appreciate the lessons it has to teach.  It resonates for me.  I am sure that the Muslim religion, or Hinduism, or Buddhism carries the same weight for others.  As the reading says, ‘each story is hallowed for the spiritual revealing it brings.  To a certain extent (actually to a great extent) this is true of all narratives.  Folk tales, for instance, or life stories such as those of Black Elk.  This also explains the power of certain novels.  The rhythms and patterns and cultural linkages and memories embodied in narrative are best suited for conveying spiritual ideas and emotions without the need of explanation.

From the time that I was a kid my problem was not “believing too rigidly or too tenaciously” but, rather, finding a way to believe notwithstanding clearly fanciful details.  Luckily, it has come about that it is not important to me that things be literally true.  I’m a big fan of metaphor.  I don’t need for Jesus to have walked on water.  When I first heard the story of Jesus walking on water I knew I would have to figure out what exactly that might mean because whatever it meant it certainly didn’t mean that Jesus actually walked on water.  I don’t know about Black Elk and the stories of the First Nations peoples but it is hard to imagine that they could be more fanciful than some of the stories we come across in the Bible.  That some people (adults even) are willing to accept some of these things at face value has always for me indicated a kind of desperation. 

I think that it is important to make an effort to reconcile the anomalies of Biblical and other narratives with the state of the world and the universe as we know it.  In order for this to happen we must skim the superficial details and look for the deeper truths.  I’m doing that constantly.  One such question that I often work on is, “What is G-d in the universe of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and the Theory of Relativity and where the very existence of time is being questioned?  That perhaps is the easiest of those kinds of questions.  The issues addressed by Jesus as to how to live meaningfully in our world are yet more interesting.

 Is there something in my spiritual understanding that needs to be re-examined? When have I experienced a deep pain healed??

This is a curly question for someone who has yet to arrive at spiritual understanding.

We are each of us a changing creature in the midst of a changing world; the people around us change, our children become adults, the very earth is always shifting; our contexts of knowledge and ideas change, the seasons come and go; our emotions change moment to moment, and our emotional range grows and becomes more nuanced; things that seem the most enduring constantly prove to us that they are not, and we and our animal kin are all borne along by evolution as well as by circumstance.

I have no spiritual “understanding”, just a mystery to tend.

I have been finding Jesus’ references to plants revealing when I hear them as references to spirituality in its many, maturing forms; even the story of the fig tree Jesus struck dead takes on the richness of a teaching when I reflect on it as a spiritual lesson. I know that Jesus’ references to plants, especially vines, are usually understood in terms of human organisations, but there is no vineyard without an individual vine, Jesus' teachings call each of us to fruition in our own blown-by-the-seasons way. We all know spiritual drought, we all know spiritual harvest and sometimes the drought does destroy a person’s spirituality. Yet our spirits long to be fruitful. And pruning can make a spirit more fruitful.

I have had occasion to ask myself “why me, why this?” and found myself best healed by a time of senescence, a missed season or two, when I could close in around my parched spirituality and try simply to keep it alive. People of various faiths have helped me to do that.  (Like Qwerty, I exeperience one god, no matter how many names that experience is given.) Then the rains come and my spirituality gathers new strength and begins to grow and excite me again. But, even times of spiritual flourishing call for nurture; nothing is ever perfect as we are called to be perfect. Our spirituality calls for constant attention, even though it can survive some extreme challenges.

We lived for a time in a wonderful wild place in New Zealand, without indoor plumbing or electricity; it was a golden time that still nourishes me. The place was Mount Tiger (properly Maungatika in Maori: "Mount auspicious').

There was an ancient puriri tree -- a wiry, curly grained, near-black hardwood, very slow growing -- that told an enriching, remarkable story.

The big old trunk lay fallen. It had been a magnificent, stately tree long ago. Fallen, it became a vigorous wreck of a tree that staggered a full 20 metres down a steep bank and our donkeys sheltered under it. And it had given rise to new life: former branches had somehow taken root and grown.

The stuff of the original trunk coiled and twisted so closely on itself that it formed the maw of a dark and gnarly tunnel, guarded by a portcullis of spiders’ webs.

Further down the buckled old trunk, another tunnel and no webs was carpeted with dry leaf mould. Perhaps it was occupied by some larger creature.

Several of the original limbs, up to half a metre across had been severed by saws, but a long time before I encountered this tree. Time’s erosions and a layer of moss blurred the evidence.

One of the un-sawn and surviving limbs, supporting a massive new canopy, had a girth of nearly four metres where it reared up from the old fallen trunk (I know because my daughter and I measured it one day.) Further up, it widened where other new growth arose.

In the crooks of its branches lived at least four different sorts of epiphyte, not counting lichens and moses, but including a native orchid and a pretty hanging fern called raukarauri.

Elsewhere, hanging dead branches probed the ground like aerial roots while in other places, leafy green shoots, just a few centimetres long and new that season, sprang up from the old wood.

In the garrulous chaos of its survival, the puriri in the donkey paddock seemed ready to tell any passer-by long tales about the hard times and the high times, the creatures that came and went to the rhythms of their mortal dramas and, perhaps, about fairies and goblins, sprites and elves) all you needed was an imagination and the will to keep up with the tree’s tumbling shapes and surprises.

There was a lot of “bush” on that hillside. And if you looked hard enough, you could scarcely see any of it for the trees.