Shepherds and Angels: Odd Couple?

 

Reading the nativity story in Luke's gospel again this year, it occurs to me that first century people understood what a shepherd meant symbolically in a way that we have lost today. Keeping flocks was a lowly profession, relegated to hired hands, or children who would inherit no property, or nomadic herdsmen too poor to afford good land to raise crops. It was roughly equivalent to working the midnight shift at a convenience store along a country road. You’re so bored you begin to hope somebody will rob the place. Or, in shepherding imagery, you start wishing for a wolf or two in the darkness.

Mind you, it is hard work. And relentless. When I was serving in Germany as a US Army Chaplain, I drove endless miles to visit troops in isolated bases, often down narrow country roads through forest and field. One afternoon while passing a Bavarian meadow I saw a German shepherd (no pun intended). I was ahead of schedule and there was no traffic, so I parked my car on the side of the road and stopped to chat. I speak enough simple German to make it clear that my name was shepherd--Schäfer in Deutsch. He chuckled and we chatted briefly. As his flock was munching on green grass, the schäfer asked how many sheep there were. I guessed three hundred, and he laughed and told me "Acht-hundert!" (eight hundred). He liked his work, but he never got a day off. The sheep always needed care, and he was the only one tending them.

 

(Not the actual European shepherd I saw, but a good likeness.)

When Luke chose these ordinary, hard-working people as the ones to whom the angels announced the birth of Jesus, he was making a powerful statement. Not to kings or to the wealthy, who lived in warm mansions with servants waiting on them. To a class below peasants, flock-keepers—down-and-out men without land, or children without inheritance, or men too old to work the fields, and hired hands trying to earn enough to eat in a world without social security or a safety net for the poor—working their herds along the hard scrabble hills in the cold of a desert night.

To these the angel announced: “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

You can almost imagine one of the young shepherds saying, “Dude, are you sure your GPS is working right? Shouldn’t you be down there hovering over Herod’s palace, or in the Temple?”

If I may continue the fantasy, the angel might have replied, “No, man. That’s in Matthew’s version. Now, will you shut up? Can I please get this done? It’s cold up here!”

Luke was writing for the masses, but he was also writing to a Roman world. The message of the angels is “great joy for all the people” and is a radical statement. The Romans understood that the gods favored whomever they chose. Could it be that the One God of Israel was branching out, favoring all men and women, Jew and gentile, slave and free? It was a cry of equality in a world where millions of people were held in bondage. Two thousand years later, we are still trying to make the vision of equality an everyday reality.

Which brings us to the key question.

What does the story of the shepherds at Bethlehem say to us today? I like to think of the angels’ announcement as light in the darkness. Hope for a troubled world. And lord knows we always need that. It’s a sad day when elementary school children are gunned down and politicians say the solution is more guns. When protecting the wealthy is more important than avoiding a new financial crisis that could lead to an even greater recession than the one we are now climbing out of. When North Korea—that haven of moderate behavior and ration thought—unveils a long range missile capable of striking the USA. When people worldwide cannot get basic health care or enough to eat or put an end to war. It’s tempting to look around at this weary world and wonder whether it might not be better if the Mayan calendar HAD predicted the end.

But not so.

 And now have to get up from this slump and take up our task. Watch over the sheep. Keep the wolves at bay. And listen for the brush of angel wings. Behold,I bring you good news of great joy for all the people. The Christ has come. God with us. God within us. All things are made new. The lowly and the mighty are equal. Peace is possible; love is possible. We actually can learn to beat our swords into plowshares. This is not a cold and heartless cosmos. This is a Universe bound together by Divine Love, regardless of appearances to the contrary. This night, let us claim the message the angels sang to our shepherding ancestors:

 

Come to Bethlehem and see

Him whose birth the angels sing;

Come adore on bended knee

Christ the Lord the newborn King.
 

Jesus the Wayshower has come. And the world is a different place when we remember the way. Christ dwells within everyone. Listen, the angels are singing for YOU.

 

 

 

 

Twelve Powers of Bethlehem Candle Lighting Service

I have always felt the Twelve Powers Candlelight service found in the Wings of Spirit hymnal is a good idea, but making it about Jesus and the disciples doesn't work for a Christmas Eve service. That discipled-based ceremony might work well at Pentecost, which celebrates the birth of the Church. What we need is a version which actually speaks to the Christman holiday. So, here's my adaptation of the basic 12-P format, keyed to the figures of the Nativity scene.

DrTom

_________________________________

 

Twelve Powers of Bethlehem Candle Lighting Service[1]

 1.  Baby Jesus - Life  (red candle)

 Acolyte:  The red candle represents Life, which we light for the baby Jesus. 

 Narrator:  His birth is the reason we light candles every holiday season, for Jesus was like a candle in a dark world. Whenever we think of Christmas, all thoughts flow toward his birth. Light from light, Jesus demonstrates the universal Divine Presence, and through him we see the image of God in everyone. Every cradle is a manger, and every child is the Christ, the Buddha, the Lord, the One Presence and One Power expressed in one solitary life.

 2.  Mary – Faith  (dark blue candle)

 Acolyte:  This candle represents Faith, which we light for Mary, the mother of Jesus.

 

Narrator:  According to the Gospel of Luke, when confronted by the Divine commission to give birth to and nurture the Christ-child, this ordinary young woman responded with extraordinary words of trusting faith:

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.[2]

3.  Joseph – Understanding (gold candle)

 Acolyte:  This candle represents the golden light of Understanding, which we light for Joseph, the father of Jesus and husband to Mary.

 Narrator:  With an understanding heart, Joseph accepted his role in the amazing circumstances we celebrate this season. The gospels report that, after the angel choirs had adjourned to heaven and the Wise Men returned to their far-off lands, it was Joseph who remained as father and guardian of a child whose life would change the world. In quiet ways, by acts of unsung courage, he demonstrated a keen understanding of the dangers and joys of life, and always acted from the highest principles for the greatest good.

 4.  Bethlehem – Power (purple candle)

 Acolyte:  This candle represents Power, which we light for the little town of Bethlehem.

 Narrator:  Purple is the ancient color or kings and emperors. Prophets had foretold that the Promised One would come from Bethlehem, the place where the powerful King David had been born. Yet the power which Bethlehem represents is far greater than the might of armies. Bethlehem means “house of bread” in Hebrew, and one day the child born that night would challenge all people to feed the hungry, and clothe the needy, and comfort the afflicted. By the words of power which he brought, Jesus taught humankind to affirm the Power and Presence of God in all circumstances. The power of that affirmation will heal the sick, lift the poor out of poverty, and transform the world into a commonwealth of peace.

 5.  Shepherds – Love  (pink candle)

 Acolyte:  This candle represents Love, which we light for the shepherds.

 Narrator:  These were simple folk, not kings in their palaces. Yet, the Gospel of Luke says the birth of the Christ Child was announced to them as “good news of great joy for all the people.”[3] They responded with eagerness, and when they knelt before the manger their hearts were filled with divine Love. “The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.” This is the way of love. Open and receptive, simple and straightforward, full of joy and praise.

 6. Prophets and Herald Angels – Zeal  (orange candle)

Acolyte:  This candle represents Zeal, which we light for Prophets and Herald Angels.

Narrator:  The Prophet Isaiah had written: “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace…The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.”[4] Luke reports that angelic voices rang out that dark night, announcing the holy birth. “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!’”[5] Jesus would tell the people that God favors everyone. Isaiah the Prophet and the Herald Angels conspired to give us a vision of heaven and earth united by the power of Zeal.

 

7.  The Manger – Order  (dark green)

Acolyte:  This dark green candle represents Divine Order, which we light in memory of the Manger.

Narrator:  Jesus has been called “King of Kings” and “Lord of Lords.” Yet, when it was time for him to be born, his desperate parents converted an animal food trough into a makeshift cradle. As Luke writes, she “wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”[6] This simple action shows God working through all circumstances. Looking at the manger in the Christmas crèche offers a visual symbol of the balance and harmony flowing through the Universe. Even when circumstances appear desperate, we can access that flow of good through exercising our trust in Divine Order.

8. Wise Men - Wisdom  (yellow candle)

 Acolyte:  This candle yellow represents the flame of Wisdom, which we light for the Wise Men.

Narrator:  Many people saw the star, but the Gospel of Matthew says only the Wise Men from the East chose to act on their vision. The power of Wisdom is the guiding light that gives us the right decision when we trust the Christ within. With this candle we remember the good judgment shown by wise men and wise women throughout the ages who have found the way to their inner Christ.

9.  The Star of Bethlehem – Imagination  (light blue candle)

Acolyte:  This light blue candle represents Imagination, which we light in memory of the Star which led the Magi to Bethlehem.

 Narrator:  The Gospel of Matthew says Wise Men followed that star until it came to rest over Bethlehem, where they found the Christ. But this legend is not only meant for long-ago people of an ancient world.  The star represents the ability to create new ideas and set them in motion. Ralph Waldo Emerson told people to “hitch your wagon to a star.” This is the power to see through appearances to the inner, eternal Truth of every circumstance. With the eyes of Imagination, the Magi found their Christ by following a star, and we can use our power of Imagination to join their quest until we discover the Christ within everyone.

10. Gold – Strength  (light green candle)

 Acolyte:  This candle represents Strength, which we light in memory of the gift of gold.

Narrator:  The first gift the Magi gave the baby Jesus was gold, which represents the kingly nature of Jesus, his prosperity consciousness and his ability to perform all necessary tasks. It is appropriate that the color of monetary currency today is often light green, like this candle. Whatever is true about Jesus is true about everyone. Spiritual Strength is the true gold of existence, the energy of God flowing through us. Gold also symbolizes the gifts of God, which strengthen us during times of difficulty and give us the ability to share our time, talent and treasure with others.

11. Frankincense – Will  (silver gray candle)

 Acolyte:  This silver candle represents Will, which we light in memory of the gift of frankincense.

Narrator:  Because frankincense was an incense of the temple, it represents the divine nature of Jesus, which is the Christ that dwells within everyone. The power of Will has been called “the executive faculty of the mind.”[7] To allow more and more of the Christ to express through us takes an act of Will, the willingness to name and claim our divine heritage. “The Will is the center in mind and body around which revolve all the activities that constitute consciousness. It is the avenue through which the I AM expresses its potentiality.”[8]

12. Myrrh - Renunciation or Elimination  (russet candle)

 Acolyte:  This russet brown candle represents Renunciation, which we light in memory of the gift of myrrh. 

Narrator:  This candle points to the human nature of Jesus. In biblical times, myrrh was a perfume used to prepare bodies for burial. It represents the power to let go and let God, to recognize we are in good hands when we trust God. Jesus, who was born in a manger, would die on a cross. Yet his teachings have changed billions of lives for the better. If he was able to let go and let God, so can we. As we celebrate the birth of the Christ child this night, we release any thoughts of lack or limitation and turn our lives over to God’s guidance, knowing in every circumstance God is within us, we are in God, and all is well.

 Pastoral Prayer

Passing the Light / “Silent Night”

 

Ushers light candles from the Christ Candle, then spread the light to the congregation. Should be done in low light for maxiumum effect. Congregation sings "Silent Night" during the candlelighting.

_____________________________________________

 

Suggested directions: Each Acolyte comes forward and says: “This candle represents _____, which we light for _________.” (Or something equivalent.)

 Then the Narrator(s) read the brief passage about the significance of that candle. Alternatively, participants could read both Acolyte and Narrator passages, which will require rehearsal and usually take more service time. 

Music underscoring the ceremony should be soft, dignified and evocative of the holiday.

 

Completing the Ritual: Passing the Light / Silent Night: After the twelve candles are lit, the ceremony concludes with “passing the light” until all hand-held candles in the congregation are lighted. The congregation sings “Silent Night” during the community candle lighting.[9]

---

[1] Based on the nativity found in Matthew and Luke, plus Charles Fillmore’s Twelve Powers.

[2] Luke 1:41-49  (All biblical references NRSV)

[3] Luke 2:10

[4] Isaiah 9:6-7

[5] Luke 2:13

[6] Luke 2:7

[7] Charles Fillmore, The Revealing Word, 209.

[8] Ibid., 209-210.

[9] Any religious group may present this service freely if properly attributed to the author. [c] Thomas W. Shepherd, 2011.

The Sun Also Riseth

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the Theo-Blog are the author's alone, not reflective of any organization, institution, religious deomoniation or political party. Furthermore, I reserve the right to change my mind and deny I ever said whatever it is I am saying now. For the freedom to make such a blatant declaratation of militant ambiguity, I would like to express my appreciation to Gov. Mitt Romney, whose campaign has shown that facts don't matter and nobody cares if you flip-flop until your slippers fly off.

 

 

Is the American star rising or setting? 

 

The Presidential Election of 2012 is a dance atop a razor blade. Thin slices of population in a few battleground states will chart the direction for our nation of 300 million+ souls. What strikes me as a partisan observer is how profoundly our culture has moved from politics--which is the art of compromise--to zealotry, which makes compromise a mortal sin.

 

We have important issues to decide as a nation. Too many people are lacking fundamental human rights, like universal medical care, equal justice under law, marriage equality, equal pay for equal work, a graduated income tax which requires everyone to pay their fair share, quality public schools and affordable higher education, safe roads and bridges, urban transit, living wages, equitable retirement choices, and enough firemen and police to protect our families, clean environment, global and regional peace initiatives, and freedom from hunger and fear.

 

The very complexity of such issues requires give-and-take among all players. Yet, the tax-pledge minions of Grover Norquist and the inflexibility of the Religious Right have made compromise impossible for the Republicans. When a candidate like Governor Romney runs a right-left, zigzag course after securing the GOP nomination, he gives the impression of a man sprinting through a mine field. His party faithful demand inflexibility on the Right; the nation is basically Centerist. No wonder he has made a calculated decision to dash centerward in the closing weeks of the campaign. Obfuscate, switch directions, deny you ever said what you clearly campaigned upon until last week. Or yesterday. Or this morning, if necessary. Pundits have cried wolf so many times during this endless election season that nobody believes them any more. Facts don't matter. Tell me your new position, and all is forgiven...

 

The USA cannot grow as a nation set in concrete. We must have the flexibility to shift, to argue, to locate fertile common ground. But there is a difference between flexibility and spinelessness; there is a difference between, "Tell me what you want to achieve..." and "Tell me what you want to hear..." There is only one presidential candidate who has shown consistency and flexibility, only one who has understood when to compromise and when to draw a line in the sand.

 

 

During the US Constitutional Convention, May-September 1787, George Washington's chair (above) featured a sun on the horizion carved on the headrest. James Madison reported that Benjamin Franklin looked at the chair after the work of the new Constitution was nearly copmplete and remarked, "I have often looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now I... know that it is a rising...sun."

 

What made the US Constitution possible? Flexibility, compromise, and consistency. One nation came from diversity. Now, we have an opportunity to vote on whether the American star is rising into an era of equality and justice or setting behind clouds of economic and political inequality. For me, the sun also riseth...

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

Opening Words of New Book

Opening Passage

I shared the closing of my new book, The Many Faces of Prayer: How  the Human Family Meets Its Spiritual Needs. Now here is the opening. (If you want more, it'll be out next Spring.) 

From the Preface:

The work before you flows from a lifelong interest in cross-cultural spirituality and ritual. As I think back over the decades, it seems like everything was so simple early in life. Home, school and church. Everyone singing the same music. Hosanna, Jesus loves me, long division and Lebanon bologna. Simple.  Then, sometime around my eleventh birthday, I began to hear the different drummers.

          As a Baby Boomer growing up in an ethnically homogenous (i.e., lower class white) Protestant neighborhood in Reading, Pennsylvania, I was fortunate to attend Thirteenth and Union Elementary School, which reached beyond the brick row houses into more prosperous neighborhoods, where degrees from college were expected of the next generation. Not exactly diverse by today’s standards—we had one African American pupil— nevertheless the school had a significant minority of Jewish and Catholic students. We were also blessed with vibrant faculties who exposed us to the new, post-colonial, post WWII world. Albert Schweitzer and Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. We never spoke of religions in the emerging new countries, but teachers shared an enthusiasm for a wide range of cultures, East and West. And the Jewish and Catholic students sitting around me in class represented alien worlds to a Pennsylvania Dutch kid.

          Sometimes a Jewish friend would invite me to the family Shabbat meal, where I donned a skullcap and listened to readings from the sacred text, previously known to me only as the “Old” Testament. It began to occur to me that people I cared deeply about—my friends and classmates--included those who saw the world quite differently than the  way it had been presented  at Zion’s Reformed Church. The struggle to make sense of life has always had a spiritual dimension for me, yet here were young people who didn’t believe in Jesus, and others who said they were Christians but prayed in the presence of full-sized idols. Where in the Bible did Jesus’ mom get promoted to some kind of goddess? My friends, not just walking to a different drummer, but worshipping a different deity? Wasn’t that the very definition of sin?

          I loved and respected my elders at Zion’s—which was a kindly place full of Townhouse Crackers and Bible stories, and nothing approaching judgmentalism. We never spoke of hell at Zion’s Reformed Church, because that was for bad people and we didn’t know anybody like that. Oh, sure. Hell was still on the books—like a law against emptying your bedpan from a second-story window—but it just didn’t apply. And these kids were my friends who believed differently. And there was also my crabby agnostic Uncle Gibb, who sneered that Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had not found God when he orbited the earth in 1961.

          I suppose that’s when I discovered I had become a universalist, even before moving away from childhood to travel the world. Travel doesn’t just broaden, it deepens.  I encountered ever more diversity--Baha’is, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, an endless array of spiritual traditions which, by comparison, made Jews and Catholics seem like co-religionists to a woefully ignorant Protestant like me.

          The common theme I began to discover in spirituality and prayer was the need to make sense out of life and live it successfully. Different groups understood differently what “live it successfully” meant, but the impetus for a balanced, meaningful life flows horizontally through all the cultures of humanity and reflects in the religions we create to meet those needs. The central theme of this book is that humans do not share the same answers, we share the same questions, which we have answered differently.

          As a theologian and teacher of graduate students, I tend to look at the questions through an analytic, cross-cultural lens, but after four decades in ministry the residual pastor within me still loves and appreciates the practical aspects of human spirituality. My goal in writing The Many Faces of Prayer was to present a multi-cultural look at prayer, meditation and ritual which addresses both the intellectual and devotional sides of the topic. Obviously, with a world of religious traditions to draw upon, this study cannot pretend to be exhaustive. Behind each door leading to a major faith group is another room full of doors, each with corridors full of sub-groups, denominations, and geo-cultural practices. 

Closing Words of New Book -- The Many Faces of Prayer

SNEAK PEAK...

The following is the closing passage of my new book, The Many faces of Prayer:  How the Human Family Meets Its Spiritual Needs. 

Just completed the first draft. I'm told the Unity Books  target publication date is Spring 2013.

To Boldly Go…

Looking back over the concepts presented in this study, I am struck by how much more we could have explored, from simple ideas like prayer partners to more complex configurations like Unity’s annual World Day of Prayer. We never touched on efficacy studies, some of which support the power of prayer to affect outcomes in healing, others which show no positive correlation whatsoever. This brings up the greater issue of science and religion, and an honest discussion of the subject must concur with Carl Sagan, who famously said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

The role of grace and the providence of God could be stand-alone volumes, and whether the goal of prayer is to comfort or to cure is a longstanding controversy in religious thought. The crowds did not come to Jesus to hear philosophy; they brought  their sick and blind and physically handicapped to his traveling spiritual healing clinic, to the point of disassembling the roof on one occasion to lower an invalid through the ceiling.

What can prayer do? Are we praying into the thunderstorm to ward off its effect, or to bolster our courage? Buddhists do not attempt to shape results; they shape their responses to whatever results. Christians, Muslims, Jews and people of many other traditions want hands-on divinity that can spring open the prison doors, heal the sick, and bring relief in the tangible world. Answers to the questions raised by the challenges of life are neither simple nor dispensable, and if they seem otherwise it is probably because you have not looked into the depths of human suffering.

In the Genesis legends, God hovers over the face of the waters, does His Creation thing, and pronounces it good. Surely a Creator so powerful must have known future Adams will eat the fruit, and future Cains will kill their brothers. Yet the beneficial progression of life—the long, deep, natural history of the Cosmos, which began billions of years before humans brought forth their multiple families of gods and goddesses, which eventually would include the desolate Yahweh of Sinai—continues an evolutionary process which produced the dance of roses and honeybees, prey and predator, lover and betrayer, child and rejected parent, sinners and spiritual teachers. Life’s lessons, studied well, teach us how to find peace of mind when the systems we embrace crash around us. Better still, reflection upon the great teachers of humanity can clarify ways to fix the damage before catastrophic collapse occurs, by offering alternative paths to reconciliation and a more peaceful world.

What will humans do for spiritual nourishment when they set foot on other worlds? Doubtless our descendants, as they look up at new constellations and perhaps multiple moons hanging in the night sky, will feel a sense of awe, not unlike our ancient ancestors as they looked skyward. As long as humanity retains that impulse to raise its vision to higher possibilities, the inward spiritual journey will continue no matter where we go.

"It's Not about Obama, It's about Yo Momma"

[Note: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author alone. --TWS]

Rev. Al Sharpton just released a brief political ad which cuts to the heart of the issues in the  pesidential election. With his typical flourish, the Rev. Al did a quick summary of the policies he says Romeny-Ryan would enact and concluded with an  expression that speaks to the heart of the differences between the two campaigns.

“This is not about Obama. It’s about your mama,” Sharpton said to laughter and applause. “Social Security is about our mamas. And if Obama is a way to protect our mamas then I’m not ashamed to stand with Obama.”

http://thegrio.com/2011/07/28/sharpton-debt-fight-about-your-mama-not-obama/

According to the "Wise Geek" website, Sharpton's language is nothing short of fighting words:

"What started out as playground insults in primarily urban and inner city neighborhoods has evolved into an entire humor category known as yo mama jokes. Yo mama jokes are targeted at a challenger's mother because family insults are widely considered to be the most offensive in urban culture....The term 'Yo mama' itself is short for 'your mama,' and is considered to be an example of urban slang known as Ebonics or Black English. Although the deliberate use of black slang may seem racist, many humor collections refer specifically to Yo mama jokes as a recognized category. Part of the humor behind yo mama jokes is the delivery of the punchline in an urban or Ebonic dialect."

(http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-yo-mama-jokes.htm)

Sharpton's point is that the policies of Romney-Ryan will force seniors to pay more for health care, end  Medicare as we know it, convert Social Security to a private savings plan, and give massive tax cuts for the wealthy while abandoning or drastically reducing programs designed to help the elderly, children, women, and the poor. If government is the Big Bad Wolf there can be no alternative but to starve the beast until in desperation it falls down the chimney.

The punchline sounds crude, but only to people who don't have elderly parents on Social Security and Medicare. In 1992 when I learned I was going to meet candidate Bill Clinton face-to-face, I asked my mother what she would like me to say to him on her behalf.  She said, "Tell him to protect Social Security." Mom was a factory worker all her life who raised six children. Many nights she would be up until midnight doing laundry and household chores, only to rise in the dark before dawn and head to the factory again. She earned that monthly Social Security check by forty-plus years packing candy for Ludens-Hershey. If you have ever eaten 5th Avenue miniatures from a plastic bag, you've probably held my mother's handiwork.

When I was a teenager, I read Ayn Rand and flirted with her philosophy of Objectivism. Let everyone make it or break it without governmental involvement. Every day when I walked down the block past row houses on my way home from school, I would pass a large  window where an elderly lady named Daisy sat in her rocking chair. She lived on Social Security. One day as I stroled by, I asked myself, "What would she do without that little check every month?" Abstract theory became living reality right before my eyes. Governments should do things for its citizens which they cannot do alone. Like build bridges, repair roads, hire police and teachers and firefighters, and send stipends to poor old ladies who have no other means of support.

Rev. Al may have invoked languistic idioms that a middle-class white guy like me has no right to employ, but he was spot on. Regardless of your political affiliation, this election isn't about Obama--who is struggling to help the nation climb out of an enormous economic sinkhole he inherited. It's about Daisy. It's about the auto-deposited checks which keep our elderly from abject poverty. "...it's about 'yo momma."

Confident Living in the Long Autumn of Life, Part 1

- 1 - 

First Thoughts / Last Thoughts

 ‘Tis but a day we sojourn here below, And all the gain we get is grief and woe, Then, leaving our life's riddles all unsolved, And burdened with regrets, we have to go.

 The Rubaiyat by Omak Khayyam (c. 1120 C.E.).

Darkness Approaches 

How does an aging Boomer find a lifestyle which is meaningful and enjoyable in the final phase of life? Both Omar Khayyam and the unknown preacher of Ecclesiastes complained about the futility of a life that ends too soon and accomplishes too little. The preacher called life vanity of vanities. “All things are wearisome; more than one can express.” Why did anyone go to the trouble of hand-copying and preserving such ancient downers? Perhaps cathartic negativity appeals to the human mind, because our species has endured wars and rumors of wars throughout history. As generations go, we Boomers are a fairly cynical crowd. We’re the people who snickered as Queen chanted, “Another one bites the dust!” Yet, we never felt the lyrics applied to us personally, never suspected the dust-biting was coming our way.

 Oh, certainly, everybody knew we were mortal. We laughed and proclaimed that nothing was certain but death and taxes. Then the Reagan revolution told us that taxes were optional, and science began to find ways to prolong life…so who knows? Some of us jogged. Some weight-watched and took multi-vitamins. Lots of us gained weight and fought alcoholism and smoking addictions, not to mention lingering drug relapses here and there. AIDS terrified everyone for a decade or so, then better medicines removed the inexorable death sentence from HIV-related illness, and we relaxed into fantasies about immortality once more, even while people continued to die.

 But as the drama of our generation moved from scene to scene, we began to realize the final curtain was coming. Act One took some people who should still be here. Not expendable redshirts in a Star Trek movie, main characters who fell by the wayside. Some of them were born a few years before the official start-up dates for the Boomer Generation, but their music and words powerfully influenced us—people like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Elvis Presley, Rickey Nelson, Karen Carpenter, John Lennon, John Denver, and Jim Henson. The casualty list continued to grow in Act Two, sometimes claiming figures of great vitality, like Aussie Crocodile Hunter Steve Erwin, pop icon Michael Jackson, and my youngest half-brother, Darryl John Carter.

 We know when the final curtain will fall. Statisticians estimate we’ll all be gone by the 2060s. Somewhere in the misty distance, a member of our parent’s generation, Peggy Lee, is crooning, “Is that all there is…?”

 My own existential awareness of looming death occurred in one of the most youth-centered locales imaginable. I was teaching eighth grade at Spirit Creek Middle School in Hephzibah, Georgia, a few miles southwest of the azalea-splashed city of Augusta, which is best known for the Masters’ golf tournament. Students had gone to Unified Arts and Physical Education, leaving our hallway empty and giving us teacher-time to prepare lessons or play catch-up on the ten million other tasks required in public schools. I remember thinking about the strange silence of that wing of the building. Suddenly, I flashed on the idea that, just as UA/PE happens every day with clockwork regularity, so will I follow my ancestors into the approaching shadows of death.

 It was an organic realization, not an abstract concept. It wasn’t about death as a subject to be considered; it was about death as an unavoidable event which I must one day experience. Not, “All people are mortal and will one day die,” but rather, I am mortal; I am going to die. The big dirt nap approaches. Everything will go black, and that will be it. Lights out. Sayonara. Another one bites the dust. Gone. Blackness.

 It scared the bejesus out of me. I rushed into the hallway, desperate to see someone alive, wishing my irascible middle schoolers would return from UA/PE, so that some of their immortality would rub off. Of course, it did. Activity spun me away from the brink, and the only panic attack of my life passed into legend. Telling you about it helps, too. Community is a healing experience.

 These thoughts are not designed to bum you out, just to make it clear that we are all in this together. Life’s end approaches, but it isn’t here yet. The only question facing us is how shall we live while approaching the still-distant but unavoidable dark wall of death? A good life always leaves many things undone, yet living a full life before your exit is entirely optional.

 If you were asked to identify a common, central theme required for a good life in the religions and philosophies of humanity, you might respond, “Love.” And you’d be right. However, love is a generic term which every faith defines differently. The Dalai Lama’s Buddhism understands love as compassion for all sentient beings and, paradoxically, detachment from desire itself. Judaism is also a religion of love, expressed through covenantal relationships, mercy and justice; God’s steadfast love outpictures as patience in the face of human shortcomings. Christian love is about forgiveness and selflessness; there is a self-sacrificial tone to the love of God in Jesus Christ. Muslims surrender themselves in passionate devotion to the Divine; by definition, Islam means submission to the Will of God. And the oldest continuously practiced religious tradition on the planet, Hinduism, offers spiritual concepts about love which cover almost every aspect of human devotion, to include contemplative, sacrificial, familial, romantic and erotic love.

It’s obvious that love, although universally admired, is far from uniformly understood. So, without attempting to diminish the power of love over the human mind and heart, perhaps there is another benefit which the established religions of humanity have offered their adherents, something central to the process of effective living in every age and culture, something a bit more coherent and simple than the vast, complex category of attitudes and emotions loosely labeled love.

 To be truly universal, like love, this quality should flow from any sensible philosophy, not just religious thought. TV talk show hosts and university professors should express this trait; wise seniors and bright youngsters should exude it with abandon. It should be an identifiable quality in successful people from all careers, arts and sciences. Athletes should have it, and school teachers, bus drivers, and soccer-and-football moms and dads. In fact, like love, it should be indispensable for a happy, balanced life.

 Of the many possible candidates for this universal trait of effective living, expressed in all the religions of humanity and echoed so brilliantly by the Dali Lama, I submit the name of a dark horse: confidence. The elements which comprise confidence include trust, assurance, and certainty. There is a sense of self-sufficiency in confidence, a deep belief that any crisis or circumstance can be met and successfully handled. The key, which Buddhists totally get, is this: A confident yet compassionate response to life is more important than the cards we’re dealt. In the words of a Country Western song by Kenny Rogers:

 Every gambler knows that the secret to survivin'
Is knowin' what to throw away and knowing what to keep
'Cause every hand's a winner and every hand's a loser
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep. [1]

 An avalanche of ideas follows, beginning with mundane thoughts and expanding outward. As this volume’s subtitle indicates, I have organized the material into a series of paths to Confident Living in the Long Autumn of Life, drawn from resources found among the great religious traditions, schools of philosophy, poets and thinkers of the human race. Some essays are stuffed with practical suggestions. Others are thought-pieces. Hopefully, all are hopeful. I will be sharing a few of them in this Theo-blog.

We’ll begin then with a short list of thoughts about living with confidence and joy until you enter the final darkness which leads to…well, who knows, for sure? Maybe eternal dreamless sleep, maybe some new existence. While the topic of this book isn’t death but living confidently until we get there, any discussion of the last phase of life must at least consider whether the door leading to what happens “next” is leaking light. All the publications from popular atheist writers notwithstanding, Raymond L. Moody’s 1975 runaway bestseller about near death experiences, Life After Life, raised enough questions to keep the door at least slightly ajar.

 But relax. Although am a clergyperson and we will be discussing ideas which have flagrantly spiritual implications, this book tries hard not to peddle any brand-name religious doctrine. We’re approaching the mountain range of life remaining before us as fellow explorers, not as itinerant missionaries. Anything said in the course of these explorations that doesn’t work for you, feel free to toss it aside.

St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: “Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good.” [2]  Buddha said it this way: “However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?” [3]
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[1]  Kenny Rogers, “The Gambler,”  http://www.elyrics.net/read/k/kenny-rogers-lyrics/the-gambler-lyrics.html  (accessed 08-30-11).

[2] I Thessalonians 5:20-21, NRSV.

[3]  Buiddha, cited atvBuddhist Tourism website:  http://www.buddhist-tourism.com/buddhism/buddha-quotes.html