To read the Saturday, June 1 Columbia Tribune article on The Square Root of God click here.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
The Square Root of God in the News
Posted: June 1, 2013 in UncategorizedTags: The Square Root of God in Columbia Tribune
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The Garment Industry and Tragedy Part II
Posted: May 30, 2013 in UncategorizedTags: Bangladesh garment industry, western corporations and 3rd world garment tragedy
A recent featured report by the Global Journalist shed more light on the international garment industry in Bangladesh and elsewhere and the role of multinational corporations in fostering unsafe and inhumane conditions. It is spot on. Find out why Wal Mart and other gigantic American concerns will not sign on to unified reforms. To tune in or read the transcript go directly to their web site.
Memorial Day and Language
Posted: May 27, 2013 in UncategorizedTags: Freedom, Just War, Memorial Day
On Memorial Day we remember the deaths and sacrifices of those who served in harm’s way regardless of the motive or relative virtue of the particular war. Just recently I observed the reaction of a vet who served in an unpopular war with questionable purposes. He still suffers from agent orange. And he has enough distance now to be able to separate the lack of virtue in that war from the grief he carries for fallen comrades.
The thing that made him flinch, that caused him to ever so slightly shake his head, was a word bandied about in a cavalier way: freedom.
What my friend knows but our society does not clearly enough is that the word freedom has been used as a blank check. When applied to every American military operation it legitimates every action, every war without question. “Protecting our freedom.” The truth, however, is that not all military operations defend our country from direct threat or even prevent future harm. Some wars are elective. Some are based on false assumptions and erroneous information. Some are waged because some, not all, believe they are important. Some are waged for mixed economic motives.
To say that such wars are protecting our freedom is the greatest stretch. In those cases one could only use that word, freedom, to refer to the freedom to have anything we want. In a situation like that it is very difficult to say that our service people died for the sake of freedom. They died because they were following orders but not necessarily because freedom was at stake.
Every death is a noble one when given to a noble cause. When the cause is revealed as lacking virtue then the death becomes more exclusively tragic.
The sacrifices of those who intended to do the best for a country they hoped would make good decisions are priceless and worthy of our thanks regardless. But as my vet friend reminded me the word freedom remains perhaps the most overused and misused one in the English language. Some died more directly for the sake of that word and some less so. And the superlative way we can honor those who serve is to make sure that we only call on their service for the right, virtuous and noble cause, for nothing less than that.
Calamity, Survival, Endurance, Hope
Posted: May 21, 2013 in UncategorizedTags: Moore Oklahoma, Tornado
Shortly after a tornado cut a swath right through the heart of Moore, Oklahoma in 1999 I was driving south on I-35, heading to another location. As I passed Moore on the highway I looked off to my left and saw the deadly path. Strangely enough the twister did a jig around a high place where a Baptist church sat, leaving it untouched. It was not so discriminating this time.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the tough and tender folk of Moore who have endured more . There has already been an outpouring of help that comes in a form now familiar to us – the first responders, search and rescue, temporary shelter and provision, law enforcement and security. Next will come the recovery of the dead, FEMA and Red Cross, the insurance claims people, the utility companies. And finally there will be the long, slow trudge toward cleanup and rebuilding. It will require every dimension of local, state and federal government, helping agencies and private citizens. Religious organizations such as our own will mount their efforts. Work teams will go later to help after their presence will not be more a liability than a help.
God bless them and keep them, and may the God who does not dispatch storms as part of some cosmic plan or purpose be with them in ways both seen and unseen.
After the jazz service last night and my exploration into improvisation in the spirit … one of our members passed on this poem by Rumi. It is a classic:
God picks up the reed flute world and blows.
Each note is a need coming through one of us, a passion, a longing pain.
Remember the lips where the wind-breath originated, and let your note be clear.
Don’t try to end it.
Be your note.
I’ll show you how it’s enough:
Go up on the roof at night in this city of the soul.
Let everyone climb on their roofs and sing their notes!
Sing loud!
Tonight we brought the three year song of our alternative Sunday evening service, CORE, to an close. Our service of remembrance and hope included reflections on beginnings and endings, the way the spirit blows and the unfinished path none of us know. We told stories of spirit moments we shared and people who passed through and pitched their tents with us for a season.
And after the three years of creation God said … it is good.
An alternative option will incarnate differently this fall – as one of our series of Sabbath services on Saturday nights. The Alternative option will land on the second Saturday of each month at 5:00 p.m. in the Loft of Broadway Christian Church. It will join the Saturday night ranks of our Bluegrass service (first Saturday at Rocheport) and Jazz service (third Saturday at Rocheport).
Let everyone climb on their roofs and sing their notes!
Sing loud!
All that Jazz (and improvisation)
Posted: May 18, 2013 in UncategorizedTags: spirituality and improvisation
At our Jazz service tonight, with the help of the Lily Tann Trio, I’m going to be talking about the art of improvisation – with some illustrations from my instrumental friends! I’ll be exploring how tradition and creativity, form and freedom, the given of our lives and our improvisation upon it is the way of the sacred spirit breathing through our own.
Sure, on the way of life, we’re just making up a lot of it as we go. But that’s the glory and the adventure!
A Veggie Omelette – Quantum Style
Posted: May 13, 2013 in UncategorizedTags: Quantum Physics and God
So I was catching breakfast at the Broadway Diner today when I ran across a great article on the Big Questions section of the Templeton site. The question it addresses is: How might Quantum physics contribute to our quest for God? The answer is, “not directly.” In other words, Quantum thought does not provide proofs for the existence of God. What it does, however, is to open up a conversation that was shut by radical materialists who claimed that nothing is real except that which is matter based, material, measurable, observable. Quantum thought upends that philosophical assumption and makes room for the unseen forces and powers that really animate the universe.
To read the whole article by Stephen Barr click here.
Of course on Mothers Day much is made of that in church. People show up who haven’t been forever, ostensibly to please mothers by attending. We speak of the glories of motherhood, tributes well-deserved. There are the quiet ones who have lost mothers, were not so blessed to be the mothers they wish they had, and those who suffered at the hands of mothers. It’s a mixed bag, Mothers Day, but mostly nice.
Today my eye was on the sparrow, a young woman with deep disabilities and delays. She lives independently near by the church. She walks to worship every week and sits in the front row. When she leaves worship she always shares a prayer concern for someone else. I’m proud of her.
One of the stark facts of her existence is that it is questionable whether she will, herself, ever be a biological mother. She is much like a child herself. It is a challenge just to care for her own needs. I doubt that she will ever be standing in front of the congregation to dedicate her young, make covenant to raise them in the faith.
But she always brings a baby doll in tow to worship. This is not only baby doll a young child might carry like a blankie, a security object. Yes, it could be that, but for her, I think, it is much more. When it came time to dedicate infants today she proudly held her baby up. During the song after the dedication she rocked and loved her baby who has a name. She takes care of it. It is, for all practical purposes, her baby.
Whatever you might make of this, and you could make of it much, what I always think about is the love she carries inside her, a love that may never have an outlet more than this, for a baby doll that is her baby. But the love that pours out of her heart is no less than the love of any other. It is perhaps the hard-wired love of one who, except for some genetic mutation, would be figuring out how to get her child to soccer practice.
For sure the outlet of her love is different. But what I see is the heart of a real mother. It lifts itself before a gracious God in worship every Sabbath and for me points me toward the essence of pure love. And someday, if I am so blessed, I may attain it.
Latin: “It does not follow.” An observation in logic that there is a disconnect between the premise of an argument and its conclusion. For instance:
Photo taken by Tim Carson in Columbia, Missouri, May 9, 2013
The premise is that somehow God would want snipers to prevail and kill as many of one tribe’s enemies as possible. This assumption is made against the backdrop that God created members of both tribes, the tribe doing the shooting and the tribe being shot.
Certain other information clears up non sequiturs, however. In this case, the fine print in the lower right hand corner is a web site address belonging to LaRue Tactical, a manufacturer of high powered sniper rifles. They have created a prayerful bumper sticker that seeks God’s blessing for their product, in this case, sniper rifles. God bless the snipers who buy and use our product, the sniper rifles. God bless the supply and demand, the success of our enterprise. That conclusion completely follows its premise, namely, that we want the product we design blessed by God in order to increase our prosperity. It’s terrible theology that creates a monstrous God. But the logic buried in the fine print is internally consistent.
To place the petition in some relief, I translated it into Arabic to see what “God bless our snipers” looks like in the sacred language of Muslims:
الله صلى الله عليه وسلم نظرنا القناصة
That may feel different. Especially if we saw it on the windshield of a car in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen or Boston.
Yes, God bless our snipers. Always on the right side of history. Always eliminating the right people. In the name of God. Bless them.
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