Poking around on the web looking for some material on Good Friday I came across this nice site called explorefaith.org. I encourage you to check it out. You can find a link to it on our website under worshiping > news.  I’ll warn you: It’s not for the dogmatically doctrinaire. This site is about encouraging people to consider the reality that God is already present and already talking with them. They aren’t making determinations on what to believe, just to consider the reality that God is at work. And if you see God at work, then you may want to consider exploring that with a group of people who are also seeing God at work.

To help us in “waking up” to the actions of God, the site has a good devotional guide designed to be used during Lent. But of course, any window of time will do. Check it out at: http://www.explorefaith.com/lent04/index.html

The Editorial piece in the New York Times today began, ”There are moments – increasingly rare in risk-abhorrent modern campaigns – when politicians are called upon to bare their fundamental beliefs. In the best of these moments, the speaker does
not just salve the current political wound, but also illuminates larger, troubling issues that the nation is wrestling with.”

Obama’s speech on race delivered at Constitutional Hall in Philadelphia Tuesday was such a moment. He named what we have felt, have whispered, and have silently allowed to be the paradigms of our lives. He named the frustration I have felt as students compete for limited spots and he named the anger my black sisters have felt when white moms have assumed their son has received admission because of a quota instead of ability.

The burning pundit question is “whether Obama’s speech reached the voters he needed to reach.” I want to believe that whom he reached was secondary. That what was primary was the fact that he had an unsought, unwanted opportunity to make visible what is often invisible and he took it.

And in taking that moment, that opportunity, I believe Obama showed us a little bit more about what hope and change looks like. It looks like taking a risk, standing on conviction, and engaging a hard issue honestly and forthrightly.

Oh beautiful boy!  I’ve just finished David Sheff’s book by that name: Beautiful Boy, from the song by John Lennon.

What a heart-wrenching story of gut aching love only a parent can know. That love that will “believe all things” – even when set against the horror of addiction. David Sheff recounts his son’s addiction to crystal meth. He is also recounting his addiction to his son’s addiction as he allowed his life to be completely controlled by the state of his son. His worry, preoccupation, rationalization ultimately enabled his son and began to create a destructive environment around himself and his family. 

David Sheff only began to get over his addiction when he began to take responsibility for the only thing he could in fact control: himself.

Of course that makes it sound easier than it is…

I continue to get comments and emails about a sermon from a few weeks ago: The Power of Change. I was looking at that poignant passage in 1 Samuel 16, where the prophet, distraught and discouraged over the outrageous actions of King Saul sought to escape from the fray by returning to his family home in Ramah. 

Samuel has already given Saul the message that Yahweh has rejected him as king over Israel, but at this point no body else knows. Just the three of them. But Samuel just keeps holding on to the past. He doesn’t want to let the dream go – the dream of what might have been is still the most vivid thing he has.

“How long will you grieve over Saul?” Yahweh asks. What a cut-to-the-chase question! How long will you continue to pine away from this window at your suburban house in Ramah? How long will you continue to fail to see the obvious? I have rejected him from being king over Israel.  

 The “wake up and smell the coffee” injection by Yahweh. Get up and look reality squarely in the face.

Then without a pause, “Now get up, fill your horn with oil. I am sending you to Jesse in Bethlehem…I have found a king.”

It’s gotten me thinking about what I miss when I simply keep holding on to something from a past that clearly has no future. Samuel could have missed what God was doing, missed this new king God was preparing for “such a time as this.” He could have missed it by staring out the window, sad and discouraged. What are we missing I wonder?

Hillary Clinton made what I believe was an outrageous remark a week or so ago. It was a remark inappropriate in any person who calls herself a truth teller and a follower of Christ. And the mainstream press has been silent on calling out the fear mongering and the suspicious innuendo it generated.

In an interview on “60 Minutes” Ms. Clinton was shown a video clip featuring an Ohio voter who noted he had “heard” that Senator Obama didn’t know the national anthem, “wouldn’t use the Holy Bible” and was a Muslim. Clinton was asked if SHE believed Sen. Obama was a Muslim. She responded, with “No. Why would I?  There is nothing to base that on. As far as I know.”

 As far as I know?

I’m not alone in asking would that have been her coy response if she had been asked that question about, say, Sen. McCain? Or George Bush? Sen. Obama has written about his faith, has articulated his conversion to Christianity, has made public his tax returns indicating his financial stewardship to his church, Trinity United Church of Christ. His book “The Audacity of Hope” comes from the title of a sermon his pastor preached. And yet, Hillary Clinton slyly continues to fan a rumor that she knows is a blatant lie?

Am I over-reacting? I tested it out on my young teenager kids at dinner the other night. I brought up the subject of a neighbor then quietly made the comment, “Well, he’s not a drug user, as far as I know.”

They pounced immediately on the slur. “What made you say that?” my son immediately demanded. “Oh no particular reason,” I responded. But the damage of course was done. The seed of suspicion was planted and my point was made. 

Lest you think we left it there, I told the kids it was a complete fabrication and we spent the rest of the meal discussing what it means to be a truth teller.

Walk as children of the light, Jesus admonishes us. Good idea.

“And now presenting another public figure that failed to live up to the high standards he set for others…..ELLLIOTTT SPITZER!” 

Nothing funny in it at all of course. It’s tawdry, pathetic and, unfortunately, familiar. The Governor of New York riding into office on the white stallion of ethics and morality succumbs to his own secrets. Nabbed as a frequent client of a high-paid prostitution ring. Apparently the governor was a “difficult” client who enjoyed practices the girls didn’t find safe. Gov. Spitzer was caught in the most routine of ways…an I.R.S. agent who noticed amounts of money being moved from his banking accounts to shell corporations (i.e. corporations who don’t actually have any real estate). Roughly $80,000 was paid over the years. 

Elliot Spitzer isn’t alone.  We all have the things we do in the dark, the words we speak in the night and the closet door that stays closed.  It’s the secrets that will kill us.

Come into the light! Jesus urges. 

“Come my Love / Shine on my life as on a meadow / Highlight the blades to be washed in the light of the sun  /  On a bright summer morning.” wrote Thomas Merton.

The Light is our only hope. Not our posturing, our good intentions, our morality crusade. Just the light.

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for!” Barack Obama thundered last night as Super Tuesday came to a close.

I love that line. 

It comes from one of the last chapters in Jim Wallis’ book “God’s Politics.” We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

It echoes Annie Dillard from “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” as she considers the arc of human history.  There’s never been a more heroic time, Dillard says. There was never a time when people always knew what to do and how to do it. There was never a time when people were sure of the path and confident of the outcomes. 

“There’s never been anybody here but us chickens.” That’s it. Just us. And we are the ones that are asked: to step up, to stand in the gap. We are the ones we’ve been waiting on: to do something for the 47 million without health insurance; to act on behalf of the 3 billion living on less than $2/day. We are the ones called to be reconcilers, healers, and prophets.

Just us. A bunch of chickens. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

Still thinking about mistakes (see a few entries below) And the Giants / Packers game of Sunday night. In the Sports section today there was a nice piece about Lawrence Tynes who kicked the winning field goal in the N. F. L championship game.  Earlier in the season Tynes had missed so many field goals and extra points that the Giants coach Tom Coughlin had started looking for other kickers.  Earlier in the game Sunday Tynes had missed two fourth-quarter field goals as well.

The article said, “Kickers are ultimately judged by their failures. And how they respond to them. ‘Because everyone misses,’ Giants punter Jeff Feagles said. ‘Then what?’”

On Sunday night Tynes went into a game with wind chills around -20, having missed twice before, and nailed a 47-yard field goal.

“Forget what lies behind. Reach forward to what lies ahead.”

In a sermon a few weeks ago I used a quote from Ernest Hemingway’s short story, “The Capital of the World.” People are still asking me for it. It speaks to a deep longing we have to hear we are wanted. Embraced. Accepted. How many times do we ever hear that in this life? Not often enough, as Hemingway knew.

Here is the quote:

“Madrid is full of boys named Paco which is the diminutive of the name Francisco, and there is a Madrid joke about a father who came to Madrid and inserted an advertisement in the personal columns of El Liberal which said: PACO MEET ME AT HOTEL MONTANA NOON ALL IS FORGIVEN PAPA and how a squadron of Guardia Civil had to be called out to disperse the eight hundred young men who answered the advertisement.” 

How enjoyable it is to watch some of the election coverage. When the Iowa and New Hampshire contests were going on, I watched while the pundits praised the record numbers of new voters now engaging in the process. Democracy has already won. Whether Obama can keep the momentum or not, he has already given a gift by energizing people into the process.

I am thrilled to see my son turned on and energized about the election. I’m thrilled to hear about college students in our church returning home from Christmas breaks early to campaign for their candidates.  And I’m thrilled that people are sporting signs saying, Hope for Change.