Clearning Your Head

Eight Steps to Re-Start Your Life

One of my oldest memories comes from when I was about three years old. A few stone steps in the back yard of the place we lived led down to a cavernous basement with rat traps and an ancient heating system. The entrance to this danger zone was made of heavy, old timber that creaked on its hinges like the doorway to a dungeon. That morning the door was closed and locked, so when I started down the short flight of stairs and lost my toddler footing, my face crashed into weathered wood. My nose took the brunt of the impact; I have a slightly deformed nostril to this day.

 It was a painful memory, but tasting blood in a dazed state of mind didn't define who I became in life. Getting up and finding help did. That is the missing step in those who cannot break free.

Regardless how many positive affirmations we declare, humans crash into all sorts of barriers during their tenure on this planet. Denials and affirmations help. If I keep myself centered on positive thoughts, doubtless I'll fall down fewer basement steps and kiss fewer hardwood doors. But gravity and circumstance can collide to make me pay the debt of nature. The trick is to get up and find help when bloody noses appear.

While musing this bit of painful personal history, I jotted a few notes to myself about how to re-start my life when the inevitable crash-and-bash occurs. Nothing terribly brilliant, nothing startlingly original. Just a little Practical Christianity to file away for a crummy day.

Eight Steps

1. Show up. 

2. Work steadily.

3. Trust your gifts.

4. Stay clear, clean, and calm.

5. Talk it out.

6. Give love to get love.

7. Believe in yourself.

8. Help people, starting with yourself.

You can provide the commentary. These thoughts require no advanced degrees to interpret.  Remember, you are never alone. You are worthy, important, fixable, God-powered, irreplaceable. Get up, get moving, and find help.

Another Mass Shooting in Gun-Crazy America

Photo online from USA Today.  

NBC News now reports thirteen dead, including the gunman, in shooting at Washington, D.C. Navy Yard; still more wounded.  (4:20 pm CT, 09-16-13)

By the time you read this the fog of battle, as soldiers call it, will likely have cleared and you will know more about who did this and what motivated the violence. That information perhaps will lead to new ways to prevent events like this going forward. But probably not.

Something has to change, or we will continue killing people with guns. The United States shares the infamy of being seventh on the list of top gun homicide nations on Earth, behind only Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Zimbabwe, and Costa Rica. Our closet ally and historic mother country, Great Britain, has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the world; the UK ranks 35th in firearm deaths. Even wild-living, hard-drinking Australia is way behind us at 31st on the killboard. There are two ways to deal with the problem.

One solution is to arm everybody. No, really. For a specific example, Kennesaw, Georgia, achieved worldwide notoriety in 1982  by passing a law--still on the books--requiring gun ownership by all heads of household. The town council of Nelson, GA., passed a similar ordinance this year (2013). The laws make exception for people with mental problems or religious objections to gun ownership. To be fair, the Kennesaw law paralleled a slight decrease in burglary in that city. However, by 2011  three times as many burglaries occurred as there had been 1999. Kennesaw remains a statistically low crime area, so one could legitimately ask: If the same law were in effect in higher crime areas, such as metro Atlanta, which direction would the rate of gun violence go--up or down?

The other alternative is to arm no one. I used to be a pro-gun advocate, believing in the right of the people to keep and bear any arms they felt they needed. Not any more. Events in my beloved homeland have pushed me to the dark side of the road, where I found too many bodies in the ditch. But, like last week's Theo-Blog on violence among nations, the underlying problem goes back to the Good Samaritan parable again. This time, it isn't just about clearing the road to Jericho of robbers. We have to take weapons out of the hands of the next crop of robbers, religio-political fanatics, and straight-up murdering criminals who take to the hills for their shot at new victims. We must take the guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens, because weapons of war and semi-automatic handguns are unsafe at any speed.

I think the time has come to amened the US Constitution to restrict the production, sales, and ownership of lethal weapons. There is nothing particularly sacred about the Second Amendment, especially since it is continually invoked to permit weapons of mass murder.  The Second Amendment was written for a world in which single-shot, smooth bore muskets required thirty seconds to a minute to reload. I can hear the Founding Fathers shout, "No, no, no!" at the re-interpretation of their vision to include super-clip magazines, able to fire a hundred rounds without a break. Jesus continually told the strict constructionists of his day that God put people above ordinances: "The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath." (Mark 2:27)

Given the American cultural climate, it is unlikely either of these scenarios will prevail. Prayer may be the only option. With the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech fresh in our collective memory, perhaps the dream of a gun-free world will inspire new generations of protesters to overturn the Second Amendment madness and set us free from this sea of guns in which we live, move and have our being. That won't happen soon. My new motto in this quest is, "We shall over come, but first we'll have to undergo."

Let there be peace on Earth. Lose the gun fantasies, America. You aren't making anyone safe; you're killing our children.

Policing the Road to Jericho

 

 Everybody--well, almost everybody--wants to be a Good Samaritan.

 

    That's a good sign in a troubled world.

 

 

But somebody still needs to go back to the road and deal with the muggers.  

Nobody is rushing forward to claim that job.

 

The world is a dangerous place. At the level of imago Dei, we are all children of the same One Presence/One Power, expressions of the Christ within. But do I have to point out to anybody the existential fact that some people use their divine energies to do ungodly damage to others? The application of force to prevent (or end) acts of atrocity remains a distasteful option for people who recognize the value and dignity of every human life. Military action has not always been popular, especially after protracted conflicts.

 

I am reading a three volume biography which spans the late 19th through mid-20th centuries, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill by William Manchester and Paul Reid. Although the circumstances were vastly different, the tendency of war-weary Europe to avoid further armed hostilities kept the democracies from confronting the threat of fascism. Unchallenged, the menace grew strong on the blood of the weak and finally turned to larger prey. Churchill's England had been mauled and nearly decimated by World War I. During the rise of fascism the anti-war sentiment in the United Kingdom was so powerful that in 1931 the Oxford student union, at the most British of all schools, voted on the proposition "that this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country," It carried by 275 votes to 153.

 

Jingoism is a perennial danger for great powers. No nation is immune to the wiles of chauvinistic patriotism. In its quest for righteous payback, the United States attacked Iraq after an attack on our shores, which a Hitler-esque Saddam Hussein did not arrange or sponsor. Removing Saddam was a good deed, but arguably it should have been accomplished by the Iraqi people rather than foreign intervention. It has taken us a decade to recognize the difference between police actions and military invasions. Our response to 911 should have been a police action, to find and bring to justice the people responsible for this act of unquestioned terror. You don't need to send a Roman legion into the hills to attack every camel caravan loping along the road to Jericho. Find the bad guys, bring them to justice.

 

But what if the bad guys are in power and turning their military might against the innocent within their borders? All governments have the internationally recognized right to fight insurrectionists, but to what extent? Heavy artillery, air strikes, napalm, chemical and biological warfare, nuclear detonations? The world community has drawn certain red lines--yes, red lines--and declared certain kinds of weaponry are too terrible to tolerate. Presently, it includes chemical,  biological and nuclear attacks. I would argue other classes of weapons should be added--napalm, anti-personnel mines, and a variety of small arms munitions designed to mutilate. Ideally, the list would continue to expand until all we have left are boxing gloves and paint guns, but all this is just a tension-relieving fantasy.

 

CBN weaponry is the issue before the world community today, and unless someone holds the holders of WMD arsenals accountable, we shall see them deployed repeatedly, sooner or later against friends, allies, or ourselves. The military questions separate only slightly from political considerations. Can we do anything worthwhile in a strike against a nation which has deployed WMD inside its borders? There is a caption floating around the Internet at this moment which says: "Let me see if I understand--you want to kill Syrians, because Syrians are killing Syrians?" It is a distasteful joke, but contains a profound insight: When has violence, applied against violence, made any contribution to peace? The answer is not a slam-dunk. Gandhi-quotes notwithstanding, there have been wars worth fighting. Think about the fate of European Jews, gays, and others deemed unworthy to exist in the Third Reich had military power not toppled the Nazi holocaust. Still, the tension between the "just" war and wars of expedience or exploitation must continue to be a subject for public debate if we are to move this bloody, beautiful world forward to a Roddenberry-esque future of unity and peace.

 

So, if President Obama is reading this--which I seriously doubt--let me offer my prayers and hopes that you will find a way to move America toward a peaceful world where children are not gassed by their leaders, in Germany or Syria, without causing more destruction than you seek to prevent. This week is Unity's World Day of Prayer (September 12). The peace of the world will be high on the list for many of us as we turn to God with faith, hope, and love.

 

 

 



BIBLICAL EXEGESIS: PSALM 23

 Psalm Twenty-Three is incontestably the best known composition in the Psalter; J. Clinton McCann, Jr., calls it “the most familiar passage in the whole Bible.” McCann suggests its very familiarity challenges modern interpreters to find ways to hear its message in afresh.[1]

      Writing in the Interpreter’s One-Volume Commentary on the Bible, Lawrence E. Toombs classifies the 23^rd Psalm as a Song of Confidence. Toombs says these are hymns in which the psalmist offers “faint rays of confidence” amid the anguish and dangers of everyday existence.[2]  Toombs is describing the funcation of the psalm as not so much a celebration of confidence but a way to affirm the old Unity adage "My good will come to me..." despite apperareances to the contrary. He proposes a three-part structure for this most pastoral of psalms. Although the shepherd metaphor may continue throughout the psalm—kings of the ancient world were frequently called shepherds of their people—Toombs reports that some commentators see an interweaving of three images—shepherd (vss.1-3a), guide (3b-4) and host (4-6).[3] These three disparate motifs are difficult to sustain in six verses while maintaining one common theme.  However, Bernhard W. Anderson finds an interesting common ground for the images of shepherd and host. Anderson says the key is Bedouin hospitality. The desert peoples are keepers of flocks, therefore good shepherds. Yet the role of good host, with its responsibility to regard the traveler as honored guest, is also a deep requirement in the Bedouin code.

He is the protector of the sheep as they wander in search of grazing land. Yet he is also the protector of the traveler who finds hospitality inn his tent from the dangers and enemies of the desert.[4]

Nevertheless, Toombs insists it is the shepherd imagery which dominates the hymn. James Luther Mays echoes Toombs but goes further:

In the ancient Near East the role and title of shepherd were used for leaders as a designation of their relation to the people in their charge. As a title, “shepherd” came to have specific royal connotation. Gods and kings were called the shepherd of their people. Both are described and portrayed with mace (rod) and shepherd’s crook (staff) as siglia of office.[5]

Vs. 1: The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.

      Patrick D. Miller finds a link to metaphors of this psalm and two beautiful passages in the prophets, Ezekiel 34:11 (“I myself will search for my sheep”)  and Isaiah 40:11 (“He will feed his flock like a shepherd”). Miller is uncertain whether the psalm is alluding to the national deliverance myth of escape from bondage in Egypt or more concretely referring to the return of the exiles from Babylon.[6] He finds a hint of the Exodus experience in the psalm’s use of the verb hasar, “to want” or “to lack,” which is used in Psalm 23 without an object. The only other occurrence of this rare form of the word is in Nehemiah 9:21, where the author affirmed God’s providential care for Israel in their forty-year wilderness trek “where they did not lack.”[7]

2-3a:  He makes me lie down in green pastures;
           he leads me beside still waters;
           he restores my soul.

      Mitchell Dahood says the verb forms in these verses are future tense. He finds “tranquil waters” to be descriptive of the Elysian Fields of the afterlife, where abundant water was present in contrast to the generally dry landscape of the ancient Near East. Dahood also believes vs. 3a should be translated, “He will lead me into luxuriant pastures…” which he hears as more confirmation of paradise as the psalmist’s destination. The lack of an actual theology of the afterlife in prophetic Israel does not deter Dahood from this interpretation. He finds a parallel between the hapax legomenon “green meadows” in vs. 2 and “luxuriant pastures” in 3a.[8] Dahood also offers a fresh translation of 2b; instead of something like the traditional “restores my soul” Dahood wants it to read “to refresh my being”.[9]

      Unity commentator Charles Fillmore expanded upon vs. 1-3 in his interpretation of the 23^rd Psalm:

You ‘shall not want’ the wisdom, the courage to do, or the substance to do with when you have once fully realized the scope of the vast truth that Almightiness is leading you into ‘green pastures ... beside still waters.’[10]

3b-4: He leads me in right paths
                    for his name’s sake.
          Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
          I fear no evil; for you are with me;
                    your rod and your staff — they comfort me.
     

     McCann calls this section the theological center of the psalm and interprets the psalmist’s message as one of trust in God’s all-sufficient care. Like most of the commentators, McCann says the “shadow of death” simply meant deep darkness. We of the twenty-first century probably have no clue how powerful images of light and dark must have been to people who grew up on the opposite side of Edison’s miracle. McCann does suggest, however, that darkness and shadows can indicate death, as in Job 10:22 where it actually describes the realm of the dead. The Hebrew words for “my shepherd” and “evil” have similar sounds, another example of richness lost in translation. [11] (See above for commentary on “rod” and “staff”.)

5-6: You prepare a table before me
           in the presence of my enemies;
        you anoint my head with oil;
            my cup overflows.
          Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
           all the days of my life,
           and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
           my whole life long.

       Mays finds in these verses elements of feasting which may have been part of rituals of thanksgiving. The table is prepared even in times of hardship, reminiscent of the wilderness experience and mana from God’s hand. “The psalm’s confession is based on the salvation history of the people and expresses the individual’s participation in God’s ongoing salvific activity.”[12]

      Dahood sheds some light on the enigmatic phrase “in the presence of my enemies” by referring to Egyptian history.

A petty ruler of the fourteenth century B.C. addressed the following request to the Pharaoh: “May he give gifts to his servants while our

enemies look on.”[13]                                                                                             

      The words “goodness and mercy” Dahood renders “goodness and kindness” and suggests this may be an adaptation of the ritual presence of two accompanying servants who attend a god or dignitary.[14] Toombs says the phrase is usually rendered “steadfast love” in other parts of the Hebrew Scripture. He further suggests that verse 6 might have originally been a Levitical confession which expressed a priest’s joy at permanent residence at and service to the Jerusalem Temple, where he will serve “for the length of days,” i.e., all the days of his life.[15] McCann agrees, finding it an apt way to conclude this most beloved of psalms: “Thus the personal assurance articulated by the psalmist is finally experienced in the community of God’s people.”[16]

        This timeless psalm will continue to inspire people in ways the ancient author never imagined.

---

[1] J. Clinton McCann, Jr., “The Book of Psalms: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflection” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IV (Nashville, TN:  Abingdon, 1996), 767a.

[2] Lawrence E. Toombs, “The Psalms” in The Interpreter’s One-Volume Commentary on the Bible (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1971), 257b.

[3] IBID., 269a.

[4] Bernhard W. Anderson, Out of the Depths (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), 180.

[5] James Luther Mays, Psalms (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1994), 117.

[6] Patrick D. Miller, Interpreting the Psalms (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 113.

[7] IBID., 113-114.

[8] Mitchell  Dahood, S.J., Psalms I, The Anchor Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1981), 146.

[9] IBID., 145.

[10] Charles Fillmore, Prosperity (Unity Village, MO: Unity Books, 1936), 124.

[11] McCann, 768a.

[12] Mays, 118.

[13] Dahood, 147-148.

[14] IBID.  

[15] Toombs, 269b.

[16] McCann, 769b.

Graduating Class of 2013 - Rehearsal at Unity Village Activities Center - June 6, 2013

Invocation given by Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd at 2013 Graducation/Ordination

Let us Pray.  Almighty God, One Presence/One Power, as we gather at this sacred moment in time, we invoke your Holy and Ancient Names, brought through history by our ancestors of so many faiths.

We give measureless thanks to the Spirit-within and beyond All Things, to the God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus; to the unspeakably holy, All-Merciful God of the Prophet Muhammad; to the Universal God of the Baha’i Faith; and the many iterations of the divine celebrated throughout Asia and ancient America; and in the tribal societies of Africa, circumpolar regions, island cultures and villages everywhere.

We are a species that prays. Tonight we lift up to the Universe a great gift—a handful of men and women who have chosen to go forth from the holy place and speak the word of the Lord as they have heard it.

We bless them as they take upon themselves this sacred obligation, to be ministers of Practical Christianity, wholly dedicated to pray for, teach and serve whomever Spirit sends unto them.

Thank you, Father-Mother God, Eternal Spirit, God-within us and God beyond the farthest star. Wherever they go, they bless others as ministers in your Holy Name.  Amen.

Rev. Thomas W. Shepherd, D.MIn.

7 PM  - June 6, 2013 

Unity Village, MO

Hold that Thought While the Universe Bends Your Way...

“The arc of the moral Universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Friday night I was indulging in one of the few sinful pleasures still available to a senior citizen like me. And it wasn't just the frozen yogurt with shredded All-Bran, but the TV show playing on my Christmas-new wide screen TV while I was enjoying the late night snack: Bill Mahr's Real Time on HBO. Mahr is unapologetically sacrilegious and politically incorrect, a passionate, libertarian comedian with a penchant for off-color humor, but he is quite often spot on in his analysis of the contemporary American scene. I don't always agree with him or approve of his linguistic repertoire, but Mahr and his panelists frequently go where the more timid CNN and mainstream media fear to tread. 

Last week one of their main topics was gun control, and the panel more or less agreed that the possibility for actual change in American values about guns and violence was very slim. Then one of Mahr's panelists--Martin Short, another comic--made a startling observation. He noted that twenty years ago, they would have been sitting around that table smoking cigarettes while they talked, but now the whole building is smoke-free. He suggested this evolutionary shift in health consciousness was cause for the advocates of rational control to take heart.

Martin Short's remark suddenly brought to mind the words of an other Martin, the Rev. Dr. Martin  Luther King, Jr.  himself a victim of gun violence after a life of tireless advocacy for peace and non-violence. In a profoundly metaphysical evaluation about the forces at work behind the scenes in life, King said: “The arc of the moral Universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” 

Sometimes,  change happens so gradually that you wake up one day and say, "Oh, yeah. I remember when we did that. Way back there in the 20th century." 

Most meaningful change takes time. Seasons drift incrementally onward. Today a little cooler... next month winter.... then warming, new life, and summer again. Human consciousness is impatient. If I have a cold that lasts more than a few days, I start wondering if I will ever stop coughing. If I cannot master a new task quickly, I catch myself muttering, "I'll never get this right!"  But I do  get better; I do master the task. (My Smart Phone will not make me feel stupid forever, just for awhile.) 

The key to the equation is to find a common denominator--faith in the arc of learning, the potential for slow but ineluctable change. We started in the seas; we shall sail the stars. But not today. Cool winds must play across our landscape before the warming breath of Spring. Patience. Swords will melt into ploughshares.  Nation shall not take up arms against nation. The moral arc bends toward justice, and we ride its rainbow with confidence and faith.