Four character Christmas Story - 3rd - Lil -

Friends,This copy right story Christmas Story I wrote of Four Characters should be read sequentially in order and comes as four posting on my blog. Stay alert and have a blessed Christmas. Ted

Character Three - LIL

I don’t know how my kids feel about bein’ homeless. I guess they’re too young to know they are. Mainly, they seem okay as long as I’m with ‘em. But I’m ashamed to have ‘em out here like this. I suppose I’m not much of a mother.

Sometimes I take Jody and Sammy and Zach beggin’ with me because we need money for food and people give better if kids are there. But at the same time, they look at me like I was some kind of monster. Maybe I am but I love my kids with all my heart and I’m deathly afraid of losin’ ‘em.

Jody’s only three. She’s smart as a whip. Sammy’s 18 months and doesn’t cry much except when he’s real hungry. Baby Zach is 9 months and he’s beautiful. He cried a lot at first ‘cause I had trouble nursing ‘im but he’s okay now.

The thing is that each of my kids has a different father and I’m ashamed of that. No denying I’ve done some dumb things in my life but who hasn’t? People in the welfare office kept threatin’ to take my kids away and put ‘em in foster homes. I know those people mean well but I tell ‘em no one can love my kids like I do. Taking ‘em away from me would hurt my kids, hurt ‘em bad. They’d shrivel up inside, I know they would.

I tell people there are more important things than livin’ in a nice house and havin’ plenty of food and stuff. What’s more important is havin’ a mother’s love, havin’ someone those little one’s know would die for ‘em if it came to that. My kids are young but they know I’d do that.

When they stopped my welfare checks I told those welfare people that there’s lots of homeless kids livin’ in nice houses and eatin’ good because they don’t feel as loved or safe as my kids do. They laughed at me and threatened me again when I said that. That scares me so I try to keep my kids hidden out of the way where no one will find ‘em and take ‘em away from me. I don’t think that’s wrong to do. I don’t think bein’ desperate poor is no sin. I use ta’ be a nurse’s aid until things got tough. I lost that job and now who wants to hire someone like me anyway?

It is terrible hard though. People say get a job. I tell ‘em I’d like to. I try to. But what’ll I do with the kids? They say somebody'll take care of ‘em ‘til I get on my feet. Somebody? Yeah, sure! Besides, I tell ‘em I am on my feet. All the time. Movin’ around, lookin’ for food and a dry place to sleep.

What I need is somewhere to get off my feet, a warm bed for me and the kids without some fool crawling in there with me, you know, making promises for the favor and then disappearin’ afterward. And most jobs I can get don’t pay enough for me to get together a security deposit for even a dump of an apartment like I got tossed out of after I lost my last job a bunch of months ago and couldn’t find no other one.

So I tell those people like I tell anybody, not to judge me for the dumb things I’ve done but for the love I got for my kids. I’m takin’ care of the best way I can and I’ll keep doin’ that. And they're doin' okay. I just could use a break, a little help.

But I admit I’m awful ashamed to be out here like this, homeless and all. And because of not bein’ able to find a good payin’ job on accounta’ havin’ dropped out just before high school like I did and not bein’ educated enough. But I’m not stupid. I just need some education and trainin. But people don’t seem interested in givin’ that to me ‘cause they already decided I’m stupid.

The thing is, it’s hard havin’ little children countin’ on you, dependin’ on you, trustin’ that you’ll take care of ‘em. Especially when you’re not sure at all you can do it right. I wonder if maybe most mothers and fathers feel that way. This season, when I think about Jesus’ being born of poor parents like he was, I bet Mary and Joseph felt the same as me. I bet they did. Bet a lotta people do, workin’ or not.

A while back, I found some beads somebody musta dropped outside a WAWA. I know they’re called rosary beads ‘cause sometimes when I sneak the kids into catholic churches to try to get warm for awhile, I see people runnin’ their fingers over beads like these. I asked one lady about ‘em and she just said, “They’re my rosary beads. What are you doing in this church if you don’t know that.” She walked off before I could tell her what I was doing there.

Anyway, at night after the kids are asleep, I do like I saw those people in church doin’. I kneel down and run my fingers over the beads and I say prayers askin’ for God’s help. I ask for Jesus to help, too. And Mary’s help, because maybe, a mother like her will take pity. I don’t suppose I’m doing the rosary beads right, but I hope God will forgive me and help me, ‘cause I sure need it. I can’t do this alone, taking care of my kids and all.

Sometimes in this season I start thinkin’ of the shepherds watchin’ over their flocks that night Jesus was born. I mean when I’m watchin’ in the dark over my kids to be sure nothin’ happens to ‘em and prayin’ like that, or when I’m watchin’ what’s going on in the streets all night, especially those last couple hours before dawn Maybe it’s pretty vain of me, comparin’ myself like that to people in the Christmas story, but I don’t mean it that way.

What I mean is, I’m just one, but there are a lot of shepherd types out here in the night, not just homeless. Like nurses going to work in hospitals, cab drivers and bus drivers takin’ people home, ambulance drivers and firemen respondin’ to calamities, police drivin’ around lookin’ for stuff going down, cooks and waitresses in all night restaurants, guys dropping off newspapers at the stands which, by the way, we sometimes flitch a couple to put under our sweaters or stuff in our shoes to help some against the cold. Anyway, there’s lots of shepherd types around.

So when I’m prayin’ and fingerin’ my beads at times like that, I keep a sharp ear out to see if I’ll hear an angel saying stuff like “Glory to God and peace on earth” or “don’t be afraid, a savior is born to you.” Sometimes I think maybe I do hear stuff, but since nobody else seems to, I’m not sure. Still, prayin’ and listenin’ like that does make me feel more peaceful and hopeful and that’s not bad.

But one night, when I was prayin’ like that, and watchin’ I did hear something. It was Hank telling Maude about his daughter who dropped out of school and ran away and he’s been lookin’ for all these years since she showed up unexpected at the Bed and Breakfast he had but he didn’t recognize her and turned her and her friend away.

Since I dropped out of school myself, and never knew my Dad, and my Mom died of drinkin’ too much when I was 12 or so, I felt a mysterious kind of warmness in me about Hank’s story. It felt like an angel message, sort of. I felt close to Hank, missin’ his daughter so much and none of us never knew. Me or Maude or Daryl or nobody knew. So it just came to me that we should go find that Bed and Breakfast and hang out there ‘cause Hank’s daughter, Maggie, might come back lookin’ for him there. So that’s what I blurted out right on the spot, still kneeling like I was. And Hank and the others thought it was a good idea.

So that’s what we did. We walked across town to that Bed and Breakfast and it was like we were shepherds, watchin’ over each other, includin’ my kids. All of us goin’ together like that, and bein’ here and waitin’ and watchin’ seems sort of like a special gift. To me it does any way. A gift like the shepherds got by goin’ to see the baby Jesus.

I mean, me and Maude and Hank and Wisey … that’s what we started callin’ Dayrl … us four had been more or less together for quite a while. Then somethin’ happens, somethin’ kind of mysterious, and now we’re together different, like what seems for the first time. I bet the shepherds felt like that when they went to Bethlehem that night. More than that, I bet they were feelin’ they were really bein’ cared for themselves by another Shepherd. The One in the stable. I bet they did, ‘cause that’s what I feel like right now.

Four Character Christmas Story - 2nd -Hank

Friends,

This copy right story Christmas Story I wrote of Four Characters should be read sequentially in order and comes as four posting on my blog. Stay alert and have a blessed Christmas. Ted

Second Character - Hank

I don’t recall anyone ever calling me beautiful before. At least not for a long time, if ever. For that matter, I don’t give them much chance even if they wanted to because I keep pretty much to myself. More so since I’ve been homeless. Well, I have started hanging around with a few other homeless people, mainly for what little protection we give each other, but even so, I don’t get close to them. Even being together for protection is a chancy trade-off since when people get desperate they aren’t above stealing whatever’s handy.

Well, actually, people don’t even have to be desperate to steal. I found that out years ago when I was in the Bed and Breakfast business and customers would rip off towels, ash trays, even lamps and pictures sometimes.

Anyway, one damp, cold morning just before Christmas, Maude told me about waking up the night before and seeing my face in the light of the cigarette I was smoking. She said my face looked beautiful and she’d never noticed before. I just smiled. When I did, she said that’s how I’d looked in the night, sort of “smilely and dreamy” is how she put it. Maude didn’t ask me what I was dreaming of, and I didn’t tell her.

But later, the next night, I did tell her. I felt I owed it to her. I told her I was dreaming of my daughter. She said, “I didn’t know you had no daughter, Hank. Where is she? Why don’t you go live with her?” What could I do then but tell her? I think I wanted to tell someone anyway. So the story came out. At that moment, I didn’t see Lil’ and Daryl off in the shadows, but it turned out they heard it, too.

Years ago, I was an executive in brokerage firm in New York. Lots of pressure, lots of hours, lots of money. My wife and I fought a lot. I got fed up and decided to change things. I left the firm and started a Bed and Breakfast in another city.

My wife wasn’t ecstatic but she was willing to give the B&B, and us, a chance. She stayed in New York with Maggie, our daughter, so Maggie could finish the year in her high school while I went to historic Philly to get the B&B up and running.

Maggie started doing badly in high school and dropped out. I was angry and scared and demanded Maggie shape up and go back to school. I offered to pay for a good private school. She refused and started staying out later and later at night. She dyed her hair, wore grungy clothes, got a tattoo on her arm. I don’t know all the crazy things she was doing, and really didn’t want to. I blamed her mother, she blamed me. Maggie? I don’t know what she thought. I was busy with the B&B.

Then suddenly Maggie disappeared. The police said she’d probably run away. They said thousands of kids do and they either turn up again, or they don’t. A year went by. No word from Maggie. My heart was broken. My wife started divorce proceedings. I agreed to it.

Another spring, summer, fall blurred by. Then it was close to Christmas, a busy season for the B&B.. One night, someone knocked on the door. Standing on the step is a young man in those jeans without knees, a sweater, thin summer jacket, cap in hand. He asks if we have a vacancy. I tell him I’m sorry, we don’t, even though I know there is one room that’s been reserved for a 6 o’clock arrival and it’s now 9.

“Anything,” he asks. “Maybe in the basement, you might have a little space. My friend has a bad fever.”

I look past the man. Standing down on the sidewalk is a woman with her head bent forward, her scarf casting a shadow over her face,. She was holding a too large, ragged coat together with her gloveless hands and wearing summer sandals on her bare feet. Obviously, these two had no money for a room. I told them to try a nearby shelter for street people and told them how to get there.

The man nodded and started down the steps. As he did, the woman glanced up at him, then turned and walked away with the man. I closed the door and went back to the kitchen to clean up the supper dishes and get breakfast things laid out.

Then it hit me. The face of that woman I’d glimpsed, it looked like Maggie. Or like Maggie might have looked all these months after she’d run away.

I ran back, out the door and down the street in the direction they’d gone. They were nowhere in sight. I ran back, locked the door and hurried to the shelter I’d told them about. They weren’t there. The man at the door told me no one of that description had come there that night. I thought I’d missed my chance. Or maybe it wasn’t Maggie at all. I didn’t sleep much thinking about it.

The next morning, I went out to the shed in back to get wood for the fireplace. A log was standing on end in the middle of the floor and on it was a tiny sea shell. I knew then it had been Maggie. She loved sea shells. She and her friend, if that’s what he was, had stayed the night in the shed and left.

Why hadn’t I thought to look in the shed? Why hadn’t she let me know she was there? The connection with the Christmas story and there being no room in the inn was almost too obvious. It was a terrible irony. I couldn’t leave it at that. I had to find Maggie.

I gave the B&B to my wife in the divorce settlement. She sold it and I heard it’s doing well. I scraped together everything I had and went looking for Maggie. All over the country. It didn’t take long to run out of money.

So I started living in the streets. I became homeless. I didn’t care about that and I decided if I was ever to find Maggie it would probably be among the homeless anyway.

That was five years ago. I haven’t found her yet. Maybe she doesn’t want to be found. But I think she does. Why else would she leave the sea shell behind in the woodshed? Every night I dream about Maggie. She is the beautiful one, not me. I pray that one day I’ll find her. Like a prodigal father.

After I told my story to Maude and Lil and Daryl that night, Lil’s voice came out of the shadows: “Why don’t we go and hang out around the Bed and Breakfast where Maggie came that time? I’ll bet she’ll come there again, you know, looking for you.”

“I didn’t think of that,” I said.

“Where is the B&B?” Lil asked.

“It happens to be in the other side of this city,” I said

“Tomorrow we’ll all go there,” Lil said.

“Yeah,” other two agreed.

I didn’t know what to say. “We’ll all go there.” Without a second thought, that’s what they decided. I had a few cigarettes and offered them around. Lil didn’t take one, but Maude and Daryl did. We call Daryl “Wisey” now. Anyway, we sat there smoking as the twilight deepened, Maude, Lil, Wisey, and I.

Then I felt tears trickling down my face. Maude said, “Hey, Hank, don’t let me sayin’ you’re beautiful go to your head. No room for it there.” We all laughed.

But it hadn’t gone to my head. It had gone to my heart which did have room. Because it had been empty since the night I told that man with Maggie that the B&B was full. Probably even long before that in whatever made me turn them away. Now, here were these people, these homeless friends, caring about me. Imagine them going back to the inn with me to try to find my daughter. My heart isn’t so empty now. Now we wait at night outside the shed behind the B&B. Waiting for ... Maggie. Or maybe Christmas ... or Jesus?

Four Character Christmas Story - 1st- Maude

Friends,

This copy right story Christmas Story I wrote of Four Characters should be read sequentially in order and comes as four posting on my blog. Stay alert and have a blessed Christmas. Ted

First Character - Maude

We got places where we can get outta the wind and where cops leave us alone, mostly. Sometimes as many as five or six of us, more or less, gather around. More or less because we’re pretty proud and independent, believe it or not. Once in a while, if there’s a steam grate, me and Lil’ and her kids, we’ll kinda take turns gettin’ close to it to warm up a little, if one of the bullies ain’t there hoggin’ it all to himself. I’ll be sleepin’ nearby and Lil’ will sort of yell in a whisper, “Hey Maude.” That’s me. “Maude, it’s your turn.” I do the same for her. And sometimes one or two of the others. Works out okay, mostly.

But no matter how little stuff you got, you gotta remember to keep it close to you so it don’t just disappear which has been known to happen. More’n once actually. Some days, though, if you got real lucky rummaging the trash, you might share a piece of a stale sandwich or half-eaten candy bar with somebody. Like Hank. Or more likely, with Lil and her kids. Makes it seem less like a body’s homeless when sharin’ happens.

Late at night is when it gets to you the most, being homeless. It gets real dark and quiet then, even in the city. That’s when I notice the stars, if it ain’t cloudy or rainin’. Tell you the truth, I love the stars.

But to be honest, when I wasn’t homeless I was indoors mostly so I didn’t notice ‘em so much. I find ‘em kinda hopeful, really. There’s all that darkness, you know, all that space that goes on for who knows how long. Makes you dizzy just thinkin’ about it.

Matter of fact, it makes you feel sort of lost and lonely, more lost even than you feel just bein’ homeless in this here city, on this here world. I mean, I think lots of people feel that way even when they ain’t homeless. I don’t know.

But anyway, there are those stars winkin’ away at ya, those little pinpricks of light pokin’ through, and all that darkness can’t stop ‘em, can’t snuff ‘em out. Even when it rains, you know they’re up there shinnin’ above the clouds. Like I said, I find that kinda hopeful. Like maybe I ain’t really as homeless as I feel mostly.

I guess I feel hopeful that way most of all around Christmas, even if that’s when it’s gettin’ real cold out on the streets. I suppose it’s because of the Christmas stories and all I learned a long time ago.. About the wisemen and the star. And that part about a light shinin’ in the darkness, except I can’t remember exactly how that goes. I mean, whether it’s about stars shinin’ or Jesus bein’ born that’s the light part.

Anyway, the thing is, one night I’d put a trash bag over my head and kinda scrunched down to sleep ‘cause a cold mist was drizzlin’ on us. Well, I was sort of dozin’ off pretty good, when somethin’ woke me up. Or maybe I wasn’t really all the way awake ‘cause real close like I seen this little sorta gold-orange light lingerin’ just a little way off in the dark. I squinted at it, figurin’ it was the drizzle‘ kept me from makin’ it out too good.

Then I realized it wasn’t drizzlin’ at the moment. I thought maybe the little light was a UFO hoverin’ over. Then, since it wasn’t moving much, I figured it might be a special kinda star come to me, like in the Jesus story.

I started smilin’ and feelin’ excited like it was a miracle. It was just there, glowin’ in the dark. Sometimes it got brighter, like it was alive, and then it would get a little dimmer. I figured it was some kind of signal. Maybe a signal like the wise men got in the Christmas story, like I should get up and follow it.

So I sort of stretched up outta the trash bag a little so I could see better. And I realized the light in the dark wasn’t a star. It was a cigarette burnin’. It was burnin’ just bright enough so I could see it hangin’ off Hank’s lip and behind it I just could make out Hank’s face. Hank must a found a cigarette someplace and was leanin’ over there against the building, smokin’ it by himself in the middle of the night. And to tell the truth, in that little light, his face looked sort of beautiful, you might say. Yeah, beautiful.

I sat there thinkin’ about that and it came to me that maybe Hank’s face, sort of dimly lit up like that and lookin’ beautiful, was the signal. I couldn’t of seen Hank’s face in the dark. You can’t see in the dark. But with just a little bit of light, like a burnin’ cigarette, I could see Hank’s face. Like for the first time, better’n I ever saw it before.

It come to me that maybe it ain’t the light itself that matters so much as what you can see by it. Even a little light like Hank’s cigarette I mistook for a star at first. In a way, maybe that burnin’ cigarette really was kinda like a star, pokin’ through the darkness like that.

Then I got to thinkin’ that maybe the darkness it was pokin’ through was in me, sorta. Because I hadn’t never really seen Hank before like that. I mean that he was kinda beautiful, if you look deeper than the dirt and stubble on his face.

So I kept watchin’ him finish his cigarette with a dreamy look on his face. Maybe he was just enjoyin’ that cigarette but I guess I thought is was something more than that. I wondered what he was dreamin’ of. Same thing as me, I suppose. Same as most folks. Something like home, maybe. Where there’s love and understandin’ and sharin’ and belongin’. Belongin’ and not bein’ lost no more.

After Hank squashed out his cigarette, I sat there thinkin’. Maybe prayin’ is more what it was. And it come to me, after while, that I think it really was Jesus the bible was talking about being the light the darkness couldn’t put out. Maybe that’s what the star them wisemen followed was about. It showed ‘em the baby Jesus. Like that little cigarette light showed me Hank. I decided that the next day I’d gonna ask Hank what he was dreamin’ about.

I decided to ask ‘im because of Jesus. Sittin’ there I came to think Jesus is the light that people can see each other by. The light that makes us look beautiful somehow. I sat there thinkin’ or prayin’ and I decided that from then on, I was gonna share everything I get rummaging, no matter if it ain't much, I was still gonna share it with Hank, and Lil and her kids. ‘Cause I could really see ‘em now. That’s kind of a gift, ain’t it? A Christmas gift to me. Glory be.

All In This Together

PRAYER

O Holy One, though you inhabit eternity, you still infuse our time; though your thoughts are not our thoughts, you still stir our minds; and though your ways are not our ways, you still walk with us. We pray now for you to so sharpen our awareness that we may (live) trusting your presence; to so excite our minds that we may dare to use them in your service; and to so open our ways to your bidding that we may find nourishment for our life with you and our neighbor ... Assure us, as well, that your limitless love for us scrubs away our need for pretense and frees us to ask from our hearts to yours, seek through our minds for yours, knock with our longing on the portals of your kingdom in the company of our brother ... Jesus ... Excerpt from Loaves, Fishes and Leftovers Sharing Faith's Deep questions

Friends,

Jan and I shared Thanksgiving with family at State College from which I returned with a cold that's turned out to be a doozy. Colds are not at all selective (could have caught mine from numerous sources) and remind us, however obliquely, that we really are all in this together, "this" referring to life, quandaries, challenges, blessings, world and so on. Such reminders are not the first thing, or even the hundredth thing we think of when we get a cold. The problem is, not many even more nagging, obvious reminders seem to get through to us that we really are in this together. The closest we've come to that awareness is the threat of nuclear war in which only two combatants could ring down the curtain on us all.

Which is a somewhat roundabout way of bringing me back to my cold plus my murky musings about it and on to the debate about health care in our country. If my cold gets worse, my options include a visit to the doctor, prescriptions for medications and even time in the hospital if necessary. Since it's customary to label what I have as a common cold, then why doesn't anyone who gets one, and could suffer its complications, have the same options to take care of it as I do? Is that really such a trivial or ridiculous question to ask of such serious minded people as supposedly represent us in congress? If it is, and they don't get the point of it, then,\ what about diabetes, heart problems, measles, TB, breast cancer, ulcers, asthma, migraines, colon cancer ... go on fill in a hundred blanks yourself.

Maybe you could speciously argue that most on my list aren't contagious diseases. But the fallout from them is contagious. Those diseases do afflict our real, live brothers and sisters in the human family. And unfortunately indifference to them seems to be very contagious and short sighted. In fact, if you don't have medical insurance, or are denied it for a "pre-existing condition" or have it cancelled when you get a serious medical problem, and have to go to an emergency room for treatment, we all pay for it even if we don't realize it. Our government subsidizes those costs. It subsidizes Medicare and Medicaid and the CHIP program (Child Health Insurance Program) for poor kids, thank God. One way or another, like it or not, we are all in this together. That's how life is, how it works, what it's about. So the basic issue isn't whether we're all in it together, but how we choose to be.

That's really the issue at stake in the debate on health care going on in Washington. The debate has at least two sticking points. One is our congresspersons fight over whether a public insurance option is needed or good; OR would undermine the private medical insurance companies which help many of us who can afford the premiums on way or another, gain access to excellent medical care -- many BUT NOT ALL OF US.

Why? Because medical insurance is a business and business operates on maximizing profits, profits from which the insurance business contributes millions to campaign funds for many of those same elected officials who are debating the issue. To increase profits, insurance companies leave out people who can't afford their coverage. That's over 40 MILLION of the brothers and sisters with whom we're all in this together. And that doesn't include billions of others without health care around the world. But forget that for now. The irony, the hypocrisy of this debate is that it goes on among members of congress who have the most extensive health care insurance in the nation and - AND - it's paid for by our government. Why, then, shouldn't comparable health insurance be available to everyone? Why should congress ally with insurance companies to deny health insurance access to millions and not provide some form optional insurance program for everyone. Can't you guess the answer? Of course.

And everyone means everyone, poor, middle class, wealthy. And women. That's the second sticking point about the bill. My friend, Arvin Luchs, Senior Pastor of First United Methodist Church of Portland, Oregon, recently referred to a study that discloses that there are many roadblocks to health care for all women, especially poor women. Thought the health care reform bill goes a significant way toward correcting that inequity.

But there's also a significant omission, especially when it comes to poor women. Congress is debating whether any government money should be used for abortions. Of course, there are two compelling sides to the issue of abortion and, to be clear, no one is Pro-Abortion just Pro-Choice. The truth is that moral issues, moral choices, are seldom if ever between absolute, immutable moral positions. Why should anyone, why should women, why should poor women, be prohibited from or have to overcome burdensome financial obstacles, in the process of making such an agonizing decision about their own bodies and lives? Why should a religious institution pressure its members to forbid women from having that choice when it apparently didn't instruct its own clergy not to use their bodies to abuse children?

Of course, health care reform, which everyone agrees is necessary, is a complex and difficult issue. But the fact as reported in research quoted by my friend Arvin Luchs, is that among the 23 richest nations in the world, the United States ranks last in the percentage of citizens who can access health care. The report goes on to say, "While the other 22 provide health care through a variety of systems ... they all agree that a moral duty of a state is to provide for the health of its citizens." Surely our country has that moral duty and that's I'm advocating for here, not the exact kind of health care bill that's passed. With or without a public option, surely there's a moral imperative to cover all citizens with affordable, or subsidized, health care bill.

Jesus was a healer concerned about peoples' health, their bodies as well as their spirits because each profoundly affects the other. In some way, his parable of the Good Samaritan applies to the challenge of our situation because it highlights the truth that we are all in this together. Surely, you know the parable. A man lies beaten by the side of the road, his life threatened by his condition. Two men come by, look at him, and decide to go past and leave him lying there. Two men, both of whom are religious people, a priest and Levite, one who assists in the temple. Both well-off; neither willing to risk a thing, or pay even a little, to help the beaten man. But then a Samaritan comes along, stops, feels empathy and compassion, goes to the beaten man, bandages his wounds, puts him on his donkey and takes him to an inn -- like a hospital -- stays with him and pays the innkeeper and tells him to take care of the man and the Samaritan adds that he'll come back and pay whatever the bill is. Remember, the Samaritan was a foreigner, someone looked down on in Israel.

And here we are. So who is the beaten man for us? Who are the two who pass by and don't want to be bothered, or have their privileges tampered with? Who is the Samaritan? Or better, who are the Samaritans? Who will step up and tell their congresspersons to take care of the beaten, and we'll help pay the bill because love and justice are about our all being in this together. Good Samaritans need to get off

their ... donkeys and get organized.

Think about it while I go back to my sniffling, wheezing and sneezing. Ted

The Who and What of Thanksgiving

Prayer

Thank you, Lord,

for singers of songs, for teachers of songs who help me sing along the way ...

and for listeners.

Thank you, Lord,

for those who attempt beauty rather than curse ugliness,

for those who take stands rather than take polls,

for those who risk being right rather than pandering to be liked,

for those who do something rather than talking about everything.

Lord, grant me grace, then, and a portion of your spirit

that I may so live as to give others cause to be thankful for me,

thankful because I have not forgotten

how to hope, how to laugh, how to say, "I'm sorry,'

how to forgive, how to bind up wounds, how to dream,

how to cry, how to pray, how to love when it is hard,

and how to dare when it is dangerous.

Undamn me, Lord,

that praise may flow more easily from me than wants,

thanks more readily than complaints.

Praise be to you, Lord, for life;

praise be to you for another chance to live.

Excerpt from Guerrillas of Grace

Friends,

When I was young, my family had a ritual we followed on Thanksgiving, one with some variation you may have followed in yours. In turn, each of us around the table named something we were thankful for until we ran out of them. In those Great Depression days

in South Dakota, it didn't take long to complete the ritual. As things got better over the years, the ritual took longer and longer. Sometimes we still do that on Thanksgiving, and occasionally at other times. It's a good reminder that most of us have much to be thankful for so I applaud you if you do it, and encourage you to give it a try if you don't.

And yet, here's the caveat: the ritual is not as simple as it seems if you take it seriously. Everyone, or nearly everyone, can come up with a list of things to be thankful for when they give it a shot. But the real issue is not just what we are thankful for, but who we are thankful to. Surely we are thankful to a lot of people, probably several groups, at least a few institutions. We might even include God in the list along with all of those we're thankful to. But that's where the caution flag gets waved. Is God just one of many and not really very different?

Consider how Martin Luther put it: "What you give your loyalty to and get your sense of worth from is properly your god." If we add "thankful" to "loyalty" and "worth" we begin to feel the pinch. By Luther's definition, which is a provocative and fairly accurate one, we all have a pantheon of gods -- self-interest, career, possessions, status, science, reason, health, family, clubs, culture, country, causes, church, popularity, political party ... and on and on. Most are very good things to be thankful for. But gods?

So, what gods are yours? And mine? We all have them even if we scoff at those who worshipped idols like a Golden Calf the Hebrews put together on their Exodus from slavery in Egypt or the images of gods in ancient Greece and Rome where emperors elevated themselves to that status. We're more enlightened than those ancients and certainly more subtle, Our gods are less obvious. But aren't they just as misleading and self-serving? Just what or who do you give your loyalty to, your deepest loyalty, and from what or who do you get your sense of worth, your truest sense of worth. Who are you thankful to? Is it one of the things or persons you are thankful for? Don't we have many gods because not one of them is really enough - true, lasting, deep, broad, good, satisfying enough?

Now do you sense the caveat, feel the pinch? Or maybe not? In any case, it's not such an easy, simple ritual, is it, this thanks giving. It tests our hearts, souls, minds, strength which are the very things old Moses came down from Sinai to tell us God asked us to love God with, and that centuries later Jesus confirmed about God in his teaching and with his life. Okay, if you don't see it that way, what way do you see it? What is your god, or gods? Once you start down the thanksgiving trail, you meet yourself and find out more and more about not only what you're thankful for but who you're thankful to. It's a trip worth taking, especially in this season set aside for it but observed by many who don't know how essentially challenging it is and how deep it really goes.

To help a bit, here from Barbara Brown Taylor, is a small compass for the trip. "... science cannot explain how human consciousness works or where it comes from. It is as much a mystery as the moment before the universe began ... I spoke earlier of how much time is required for an eyeball to look back (through a microscope) at a light-sensitive cell (from which it evolved). How much more time does it take for quantum particles to mature to the point where they may compose hymns of praise? Whether your answer is seven days or fifteen billion years, it remains a miracle that we are here at all, able to praise our maker. God may well prefer the sound of spring peepers, but I have to believe there was joy in heaven when the first human being looked at the sky and said, 'Thank you for this.'" (1)

And then there's the Psalmist: "Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty firmament. Praise him for his mighty deeds: praise him according to his surpassing greatness... Let everything that breathes praise the Lord." (2)

Think about it and have a real thanksgiving. Ted

(1) From The Luminous Web: Essays on Science and Religion."

(2) Psalm 150 NRSV

2nd What You See is What You'll Get-- Greed Vs Need

PRAYER

"Great God of Truth, we grieve for the wounds of your beautiful earth, wounds inflicted by our own carelessness, ignorance, and greed. Merciful God, open our ears to the groaning of creation: glaciers melting into a rising sea, polar bears swimming to exhaustion in search of ice, wetlands drying to parched cracks, songbirds seeking ancient sanctuaries in vain, coral reefs bleaching in polluted waters, whales beaching themselves in despair.

Awaken us, Good Lord, to our responsibility for this earth over which you made us stewards. Give us your spirit of compassion for all you have made ... Help us to know deeply the truth of our interconnection with all creatures (and) perceive how the limited store of earth's elements cycle round from age to age, that we may keep committed to keep them clean and pure ... Teach us to so value our vocation as caretakers of creation that the earth and every thread of her living fabric may, as you have promised, come to share in the very freedom of the children of God."

Prayers for The New Social Wakening, edited by Christian Iosso and Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty.

Excerpted from a prayer by Marjorie J. Thompson.

Friends,

Winston Churchill is reported to have said, "Americans always do the right thing, but not until they have exhausted every possible alternative." I'm not sure Churchill is right about always but it does seem we're often prone do the right thing as a last resort. Why is that? No doubt there are many reasons. I propose that a primary one is that we don't feel the pinch of the consequences of our procrastination, self-preoccupation and bumbling until some kind of disaster happens -- such as the present economic crisis. It's a crisis caused in large measure by the seduction of not "right" alternatives to which we all too readily succumbed. Basically it was the seduction of greed and the misguided proposition that greed is good. The crisis was/is a painful way to learn that greed isn't good at all, but rather is corrupting and destructive.

Yet maybe that lesson still isn't painful enough for a majority of us to learn it. Consider that most of the talk about economic recovery centers on getting back as quickly as possible, with only minor adjustment here and there, to the way it was before the crisis. And who isn't looking forward to that -- to more shopping, more jobs making things and consuming them, making the wheels of commerce spin faster, having things which supposedly define our status and promote our self-esteem? Too many of us have participated a rerun of the story of Adam and Eve in Eden, namely willingly letting ourselves be seduced into trading one piece of fruit for the whole garden, as if that would make us like gods.

Of course, that is understandable. It was a way of exhausting alternatives. And it had some benefit, such as beginning an industries of making clothes and farming and other supporting businesses. But was it the right thing? Is it the right thing now? What do we really need to live well enough as human beings in a human family? Need is about what's sufficient and greed is about what's excessive. And that isn't just a subjective or personal choice, as many would argue it is. Nor is just about the freedom we insist we have to exhaust every possible alternative until we might finally get around to doing the right thing. The core of this issue is what it means to be human -- fully, responsibly, joyfully human which is really the truest and deepest need any of us have.

What I'm getting at is the urgency of global warming as a challenge we can't keep postponing until we're sure we've exhausted every possible alternative. We've already done that. We don't have much time to keep avoiding doing the right thing about global warming. We are close to global warming being an irreversible crisis. That's what every qualified scientist is trying to tell us. Our common need, for the sake of our own humanity and the human family present and future, is to do something about it now. That is the only right thing. How to do that, that's discussable, but not whether or when. It is time to get urgently underway discussing how and taking action.

In his new book, Our Choice, former Vice President Al Gore tells us that truth in clear, well-researched terms. The good news is that Gore adds that we have the technology, the tools to begin now to turn things around. And that as we do, we'll have the growing capacity to create a "green" economy that will put people to work in new industries: making and installing cheaper, more efficient solar panels; constructing a new continental grill to replace the present antiquated one to carry electric energy from wind, tidal and thermal sources to every corner of the country; building more energy efficient intra-/inter-city public transportation; developing and manufacturing electric cars which are already in trials. It can be done, and fast enough to reverse global warming before it's too late to do the right thing.

What keeps us from doing it? All of us do! What's lacking is the collective will. We still fall

for the sirens of greed rather than the summons of need: the need deeper than consuming and possessing; the need to respond to what our hearts know makes life enduringly meaningful and right. Being aware of our deepest need is a religious or spiritual issue because faith isn't something we have so much as it something we are and strive to be. It's a vision, an awareness of, even just an inchoate longing for, something or Someone who has us and summons us to be stewards of, and partners in, the ongoing creation. In essential ways that is the prominent theme of the gospel story of Jesus and his appeal to us.

In his book, Gore writes that his favorite quote is from philosopher Theodor Adorno: "The conversion of all questions of truth into questions of power ... has attacked the very heart of the distinction between true and false." That pretty well sums up our ongoing struggle as human beings, as people with mustard seed size faith, and as stewards of our common home on earth. It will take hard work to mobilize public opinion -- meaning the will -- to resist the reducing questions of truth into questions of power, to resist those who exercise power greedily in the effort to prevent change, to promote greed in an effort to defend their entrenched positions to appeal to our own addictions and sell any and every alternative in the marketplace to avoid doing the right thing.

To resist means paying attention, joining organizations like Earth Justice or the Sierra Club or Common Cause or any of the many other groups working to reverse global warming and change

what is causing it. It means writing to our congress people telling them this isn't a partisan issue so stop the mud slinging and procrastination. It means promoting the business enterprises that shift to a green economy approach. It means being persistent, imaginative and courageous. For example, what if for starters we encouraged churches in this country to start installing solar panels on their buildings which are usually large and energy inefficient? What if we began doing that for our homes? What if we did all the little but crucial things we can to save electricity and use less fossil fuel and recycle everything possible? It can be done but not without us. Without me and you and you and you ....

In Cormac McCarthy's novel, No Country for Old Men (got a copy yet?) the old sheriff (think Tommy Lee Jones who played the part in the movie) asks one of his deputies, "What is it that Torbert says? About truth and justice?" The deputy replies, "We dedicate ourselves anew daily. Something like that." And the sheriff says as he goes out the door, "I think I'm goin' to commence dedicatin' myself twice daily, It may come to three fore it's over. I'll see you in the morning."

Feels a little like the tug of the gospel, doesn't it? You up for it?

Think about it. Ted

P.S. Damn, I do get carried away and long, don't I? Sorry, I'll keep trying to shorten up. In turn, maybe you can start dedicatin' anew at least once or twice daily.

1st What You See Is What You Will Get

Dear Friends,

After much reflection about it, I've decided to continue posting my blog, at least for a while. A knowledgeable friend advises me to make them shorter and in a more regular sequence. I'll try to do that, in part by writing briefer installments of my reflections on a theme. Here's my first effort.

Prayer
Praise be to you, gracious God, for this day, this earth, this life,
for the weave of miracles blessing us and for your quiet power sustaining us.

We praise you for times of laughter and tears. risk and reconciliation,
reflection and healing, and for the stubborn presence of your spirit
making it all sacred.

Praise be to you, awesome God, for the holy mysteries
of our struggling and wondering ... and all that moves us to awe.
to love, to pray, so serve, since it is your Spirit that moves us so
and is creating us still .... Amen.

Adapted from My Heart in My Mouth: Prayers for Our Lives.

In a recent column in The New York Times a British author, A.N. Wilson wrote about the startling invitation of Pope Benedict XVI to welcome disgruntled Anglicans laity and priests (even married ones) into the Roman Catholic Church.

Wilson gladly concluded that this move would make it impossible for the Church of England to survive and end the idea of there being an Established Church of England. Wilson concludes,

The paradox is that a move by a conservative pope to ease the tender consciences of conservative-minded Anglicans will actually be a move toward the complete secularization of Britain, and the acceptance of its new mulitcultural identity.

Far more critical than Wilson's circuitous thought process or the motives and complexities of the organized churches, is the question Wilson unintentionally raises about how to see the world, see the earth itself. Are we to see the earth in secular terms as primarily an economic resource to be used a our discretion?; or are we to see it in at least somewhat religious terms as essentially sacred gift to be respected as an inviolable trust?

Variations of this question run through most of the pressing issues facing us -- economic development, poverty, energy policy, living standards, taxation, consumer driven markets, international competition, weapons development and use, even armed conflicts.

And most critically, how we see the world, the earth is THE question regarding global warming or, if you prefer the less graphic term, climate change. The answer to the question has enormous consequences which might be summed up by a slightly different wording of the familiar phrase, "What you see is what you get", namely "What we see is what we WILL get."

For instance, concern for the economic impact of efforts to reduce carbon emissions, a major factor in global warming, generates great resistance to taking any serious action on the issue. If that's how we continue to see the world, what we'll get is a world become a cinder. And by "we" it may not be us of this generation, or just the poor, or the under-developed countries, or China and India, but the United States, our kids and grandkids. future generations, everyone from whom we will have stolen the gift of the earth.

So rather than putting protecting our economy the first priority shouldn't we put protecting our planet first, and begin changing our economic interests and practices accordingly, perhaps even altering our standard of living somewhat?

And that confronts us with what we see as the meaning of life, what its core value is, what its essential purpose is, and to whom we owe what and why. Those are basic human questions and, I think, religious questions -- not so much for religious institutions who seem to lose their fundamental purpose in pursuit of their own economic ends, but for the religious spirit, that is, the spiritual longing that keeps interrupting and summoning us in sneaky ways and curious times and reminding us. What you see, and how, will be what you get.

More later. For now, think about it.
Ted