Our first day in a shelter

Continuing with the theme of learning, the first thing we learned today was that we can relax into Honduran time without any trouble.  We did not leave as scheduled even though Fredy and Nury were both here and ready to go.

Let me tell you about our two invaluable assistants.  Fredy is our driver.  He makes most of his living in this season of mission trips, driving groups like ours.  He knows all the main roads and all the back ones, too.  Fredy has his ear to the ground and makes sure we do not travel through neighborhoods that are too dangerous.  He is married and has three beautiful little girls ages 11, 7 and 2.  In the past, he has worked on cruise ships.  He spent five years washing dishes, was only allowed to be home for two months a year and earned $400/month!  Something to consider next time one of us takes a cruise.

Nury is an entrepreneur, politician and tour guide.  She is a native of Honduras (as is Fredy) but her parents sent her to boarding school in the States for high school.  I believe both her sister and brother are legal residents of the US and she and her parents also have residency in both places.  Nury does most of the translating for us and helps Gordon decide what we need to do different from the original schedule.  She owns a string of gift shops and is involved in the local arts council.

Which brings me to our second learning of the day.  You can plan all you want but the kids will determine what really happens.  We arrived at La Lima shelter about 10:00 this morning.  Our plan called for a group of activities in the morning and a second group in the afternoon.  Well, half the kids go to school in the morning and the other half go in the afternoon.  So we needed to the morning crafts with both groups and fill in with games where we could.  Betty O'Neill got started on the wall mural right away.  Her husband, Mike, and Nury helped her at first and then Beth Dowty got into the painting this afternoon.  The outside painting that needed to be done had to wait until there were brushes and rollers available - another trip to the store and, yes, it was only the men who went (I guess we didn't learn that lesson yesterday after all).

We decided that we would do balloon animals with the kids after the crafts were done.  So Rebecca, Caitlin, Adam, Susie and Beth all learned how to use the balloon pumps and that tying the balloon is the hardest part of making balloon animals, something I learned years ago.  I have to say we made some very creative animals; however, the big winner of the day was swords!  We made sword after sword - they had a tendency to pop - and Chris Harpster was the biggest kid there.  At one point, he was right in the middle and they were all wailing on him with their own swords.  I think we might have to start calling Chris "the dread Pirate Roberts."

After lunch, we had a new batch of kids and started all over again.  Except the balloons had gone into the lunch time so we didn't repeat them.  We brought a kiddy pool to make bubble solution in.  The deal is to get a kid to stand in the middle, use the hoop as the balloon wand and make the bubble around the child.  Well, it didn't work out that way; however, the kids had a wonderful time trying to see how high they could get the bubble wall to go and, in the afternoon when Gordon brought more soap, they got about four feet high.  This was a really big hit.

We had games planned and jettisoned many of them - too hot outside mostly, although Adam had them going with the soccer ball - so Chris and Caitlin called on their camp counselling days and played a slapping/clapping games called Sevens.  I haven't learned it yet.  At the end of the afternoon when all the adults were too tired to do much more than watch Betty and Beth paint, I pulled out the memory card game Bunny and I bought at Target one day.  I started making sure all the pairs were together because I figured we would play with half the cards (36 instead of 72).  One of the little boys came over to see what I was doing and helped me match everything up.  We put half away and shook up the rest before laying them out.  By that time, three girls had joined the circle.  That first game was pretty quick and we discovered who likes to cheat and who doesn't.  So we used all 72 cards for the second game and added two more players.  We barely managed to finish the third game, with about seven players,  before the team left me behind. 

The neighborhood where this shelter is located is exactly what you picture when you think of a barrio - dirt roads, chickens and ducks wandering around, no grass to speak of and a lot of corrugated iron roofs and walls.  But there are many homes that at least started out as concrete block structures so it is a real mix of poor and desperately poor.  Plumbing is primitive at best.  But every house has gated entries.  Nury told us that it is so dangerous that children are not allowed to play outdoors except maybe at school in an enclosed yard.  The drug cartels are powerful here.

We came home to a refreshing dip in the pool, prayer time and a good dinner in the hotel restaurant.

Now about those pictures.  I confess that I brought the wrong cord to transfer pictures.  Alas, no one else brought their computer along with their camera.  So we will have to have a big slide show when we return home.

Good night, my friends.   More tomorrow.

Things I learned on our first day in Honduras

Chris Harpster and his son, Adam, picked up Caitlin Stone and me at 3:00 sharp yesterday morning and we set off for Asheville to catch our flight.  Coming up Buckner Gap in North Carolina, we blew a tire and learned that two people can change a tire in 20 minutes in the dark and that two flashlights were sufficient to see by.

We made the plane with time to spare and learned that even at 6:00, there can be air traffic - thanks to the fog.  We arrived in Atlanta and met up with the rest of the group as they came in from Knoxville and Tri-Cities.  Adam learned that it is easy to fall asleep almost anywhere.

And then we arrived in Honduras.  Upon landing, we learned that there can be delays even when there is no air traffic.  It took about fifteen minutes for our gate to be made ready.  The next lesson was that you can start out in the middle of the line waiting at Customs and end up being last.  We met up with Susie Cox, Beth Dowty's aunt, who flew in from California to join our group.  Waiting seems to be a national pastime and no one is anxious about getting anywhere in a hurry at all - unless you are in a vehicle or riding a motorcycle.  Then the need for speed urges drivers to use their horns as often as possible.

The afternoon rain storm came as promised but it lasted longer than the ones we have in Kingsport and immediately clogged the streets with water.  I suppose this is what makes Honduras a country as full of green as any poster of Ireland.  This is a beautiful country.

Our first meal in country was at Power Chicken.  Yes, that's right, the mascot looks like a pumped up chicken in an outfit reminiscent of Super Man.  The food, though, was really good.  We had chicken, beef, pork and short ribs, spanish rice, fried plantain slices (no, I didn't try these) and yucca fries (yes, I did try these and they are good but needed ketchup ;-).

In the afternoon, we learned not to send the men to the grocery store.  I am sure there was a long line at checkout but it still took them an inordinate amount of time to buy bread, peanut butter and jelly, water and snacks.  Maybe there were too many snack choices.

We returned to Hotel Villa Nuria, having dropped our luggage off before lunch, and Gordon began the process of checking us in.  This involves having someone come into each apartment with the residents to make sure there are the requisite number of dishes, silver, pots, pans and towels.  Also to see that all the lights and the air conditioner are working.

Then we spent the last of the evening unpacking ourselves and then all of the supplies we brought with us.  Sister believes we have more than any of their other trips.  You all have been very generous and we thank you.

The final learning of the day was that the internet likes to keep you waiting, too.  So I waited until this morning to get this message to all of you.  Today, we will visit La Lima shelter and I promise to take pictures.  Then we will learn whether the cord I brought will work for downloading to the computer!

So much to learn and only a week in which to do it! 

Trinity, a sermon

Trinity Sunday, the day most preachers try to explain how we believe in one God whom we describe as three persons or types.  I’ll give you the quick answer.  It’s about relationships.

There are times when we relate to God as the creator or as a kind of parent.  There are times when the Son
is how we know God best.  And then most of the time it is the Holy Spirit that we recognize moving in and through us.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about the readings!

Almost every single one of us cut our biblical teeth on Genesis 1 plus that little bit of chapter 2.  We love that story even as we admit that it is a myth, the kind of story that is mostly fiction built on a fundamental truth,
this one being that God created everything that is.  It is a comfort story and despite all attempts to paint it as anti-evolutional, it is exactly the opposite of that. This is a story of how our world evolved.  Told around campfires in the camps of nomads, passed on to children generation after generation, these stories of our early ancestors speak of how they understood God to be related to and involved with themselves  and all that surrounded them.

We cannot fault them for not including the big bang theory or an anthropological understanding of evolution,
species coming and going, fault lines and tectonic plates causing the earth to shake or ice ages pushing the land around to form mountains and valleys.  There was no way they could know any of those things.  It is only in the last several hundred years that we have begun to discover the rich knowledge beyond the Genesis understanding of God and creation.

Along with the psalmist, these early people considered the heavens, the work of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars God set in their courses.  And they asked, where do we fit into this scheme and how come we
seem to be masters of all that we see on the earth?  The psalmist has no answer for those questions.  It is sufficient to state them, to recognize that the Lord gave us mastery over creation and then to praise the name of the Lord.

With all of our science, do we  really understand why humanity has the power to nurture and to destroy
that which we had no hand in creating?  Not really.  So why should we consider the awesome-ness of earth and sky?  Why should we wonder why God made us a little lower than the angels?  Because doing so
brings us into relationship with the Lord of creation.  God made us and then invited us to be stewards of the rest of creation. 

We were not given creation to do with as we choose, however.  There are some who see humanity as co-creators with the Almighty.  I’m not sure I agree with that idea but I am awed to realize that God chooses to share the work of care and nurture of all created order with us, that God trusts us that much!

Jesus reiterates that care in the Gospel.  Jesus tells the disciples that authority in heaven and on earth
belongs to him. He does not give it to them, but because he has the authority and they are the ones who know and love him, he sends them out to make more disciples, disciples of all nations to be stewards of the Church, caring for and nurturing it.  Through his authority, they are to baptize and teach, bringing others into the family.  And he, the one who holds the power, will be with them always, caring for them as he always has
and helping them to continue growing in the work they now share with him and with those they will teach.

Relationships.  Between people and nations, between the Lord and the creation.

The apostle Paul has a stormy relationship with the Corinthians.  Even so, he loves them deeply and they love him as the one who cared enough to show them how God wanted them to live in Christ.  Paul ends this epistle by calling them brothers and sisters.  They are now closely related through the redeeming work of the Son.

Paul tells them to agree with one another and live in peace.  Obviously Paul must have been an only child. 
But even when we are not in agreement, my brothers and sisters, we do agree on the love of God that we share. 

You and I know that the God of love and peace is with us.  And when we greet one another, whether with a nod, handshake, hug or kiss, we share that love and peace with the entire communion of saints.

Relationships.  Ours with each other.  Ours with God, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.  God knows us at our beginning, God walks beside us throughout our lives, God waits to welcome us into the gates of larger life opened to us only by the grace of that very same God.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
Amen.

Abuse by Bible

Listen again to what Peter told the crowd at Pentecost:


"You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say:  Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you - this man you crucified and killed
by the hands of those outside the law.”

This is not the first time in the last two weeks that we have heard the Jews blamed for the death of Jesus. 
In fact, compared to the two Passion Narratives we read on Palm Sunday and Good Friday, it sounds relatively mild.  I would be willing to bet that none of you heard anti-Semitism in this reading or in the Passion readings, either.  I’m guessing that’s because we just don’t hear it anymore.  Perhaps, we’ve heard in sermons and hymns that we are the ones who crucified/crucify the Christ to the point that we substitute ourselves for the Jews, Chief Priests, etc.

And I am also betting that none of us here would declare ourselves anti-Jewish.  Most likely we really aren’t.
I do hope we have all thought about it, though.  Otherwise, we are very likely to say something incredibly offensive to a Jew and then be stunned by his or her response!  It is not enough to declare ourselves as free of this prejudice.  We have to work through the issue, test our feelings and question whether we are truly
not prejudiced.

You see, we cannot simply ignore these passages from the New Testament that have been used for thousands of years to oppress, abuse and kill people of the Jewish faith, our ancestors in belief.

AJ Levine, who grew up in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood and even went to church with her Catholic friends, was stunned one school day when she was seven to have a friend tell her that she had killed Jesus!  Obviously, her little friend had heard about the crucifixion of Jesus and taken it to heart.  Was she inherently anti-Semitic?  We don’t know.  But it seems likely that no one attempted to explain things to her.

Here’s a common sense approach – perhaps a little too simplistic – to hearing that Jews demanded Jesus’ death.  It was to the Jews that Jesus went.  There was not a large community of Chinese or Dutch or Americans living in Palestine at the time who decided that this itinerant teacher was causing them trouble and had to die. 

Jesus was a Jew.  Jesus came to the Jews primarily, and on the Feast of the Passover, Jerusalem was full of Jews.  Not Americans, not Canadians, not French or Norwegians or Philipinos.  Had any of those peoples been there and been faithful Jews, they would have acted in the same manner.  Maybe they would have without being Jews!

We cannot change what happened.  We cannot edit the story to make it more palatable.  But we must make sure that we do not beat up our Jewish brothers and sisters because of it.

This is, of course, just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to using Scripture to oppress, abuse and kill people.  How many centuries did we allow and participate in slavery in large part because it exists in the Bible and Paul even went so far as to return a runaway slave to his master?  Granted, he sent a nice letter along imploring the owner to remember that his slave was a brother in Christ.  So we baptized a lot of slaves and that is supposed to make it all right?

How long has it been since a woman was kept in subservience because it is the biblical way?  It’s still going on.  We use Scripture to excoriate people of other faiths – sometimes even different denominations – other countries, other genders and, yes, other orientations.  We simply have to stop using the Bible to justify what we want to believe and what we feel.  There are way too many places where God tells us it is not ours to do the judging.

We also need to be very careful about not reading into Scripture what is not there.  For instance, poor Thomas, who was one of the faithful – remember it was Thomas who said they should go to Bethany with Jesus even though they might well die with him there – has forever been labeled by one word in all of those said about or by him.

Doubt.

Because Thomas is honest enough to express his doubts, he is forever called Doubting Thomas.  Do we think he was the only disciple who had doubts?  And we have convinced ourselves that doubt is wrong,
that doubt is the opposite of faith.  So we read back into the story this misunderstanding of a perfectly good word.

My brothers and sisters, one of the reasons many of us are Episcopalians is because we are encouraged to ask questions, to work through out doubts knowing that the community is here to support us through those hard times and questions.  We baptize babies and young children into the Christian faith precisely so that, when they doubt, they will know the love of God is present anyway, especially then.

Doubting is working through the questions.  It is being honest about where we are in our journey, what is causing us to stumble.  Doubting is not turning away or giving up.  Rather it is actively engaging in the working out of faith in real time with real people and often in real pain.

Rather than scorn Thomas, let us lift him up as one who has been where we are and whose experience

of doubt turning to belief gives us the courage to grow in faith and to live in hope.

(Image from gci.org)

Home again, home again

By now - Friday afternoon - most of the nominees, all of the shepherds and Transition team members should be home.  There's some concern about snow in the Northeast but we have said our prayers for safe journeys and sent everyone on their way.

Yesterday, we left Johnson City and headed for the Cathedral in Knoxville.  There, Dean Ross had a lively discussion with the nominees about the ministries of the Cathedral.  I think we all learned a lot.  Then we headed just down the road to the Diocesan House.  Annie vonRosenberg and Laura Nichols had arranged lunch for us and the staff.  The transformation of the conference room into restaurant was stunning!  We used real china and silver, tableclothes on all six tables and stemmed water glasses.  Charlie and Annie had made cookies in the shape of the the diocesan seal, complete with a modified "drawing" of the actual seal in yellow and purple piping.  All of the staff welcomed us with big smiles and open arms. 

After lunch, the nominees had several discussions with various people and then retaped their presentations since one of the mikes malfunctioned on Tuesday night.  Those should be on the search website by now (http://etdiocese-search.com/)  and I hope you will take a look at all of them.

The rest of the afternoon was spent getting to Grace Point, seeing all of the buildings (we opted out of a hike ;-) and then driving down to St. Timothy's Signal Mountain where we had another gracioius welcome and a marvelous dinner.  Then Father Choyce celebrated Eucharist for us and we went home to the Doubletree to bed.

I can't begin to thank all of the people who made this week a real success.  I do have to start by thanking Gaines Campbell, Kathryn Mathewson and Norma Mills.  These three, the walkabout subcommittee, made all of the arrangements, listened to my fears and allayed them.  The kind people of Thankful Memorial, St. Paul's Chattanooga, Christ Church, St. Martin's, St. Peter's, St. Paul's Athens, Resurrection, St. Barnabbas, St. James Greeneville, St. John's Johnson City and St. John's Cathedral opened their churches to us with love and grace. 

And then there are the shepherds: Jocelyn Bell,  Erik Broeren, Chris Harpster, Kate Jacobs and Claire Keene who put their regular lives on hold for a week to make this pilgrimage with their nominees.  Without the good faith and willingness of the five nominees to be a part of our discernment, of course, none of this would have happened. I have to thank the spouses for also being willing to walk with us.  All too often, it is easy to concentrate on the nominees and forget that there are five other lives that have been affected.   Thanks again to the Search Committee for their incredible work.

Finally, I want us to remember the parishes where our nominees serve:  Holy Innocents, Beach Haven NJ; St. Martin's, Metairie LA; St. Stephen's, Houston TX; St. John's, Elizabeth NJ; St. Peter's, Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island FL.  Regardless of who is elected, each of these parishes has had to make adjustments on our behalf.  Thanks to all of them.

So the walkabout is over.  Now we move on to the election in two weeks.  Please continue in your prayers, refer often to the website and know that the Fourth Bishop of East Tennessee will be a good fit.

Running for the bus

Much of the last week has been spent in two of these big white vans.  Over the four days we have been together, there has been good conversation, laughter, silence, a little confusion - especially when vans go different directions to the same place.  But I believe friendships have been formed that won't be easily forgotten or set aside.  You see, when we gather in the Lord's name and to do the Lord's work, relationship happens.  It doesn't matter that these folks are all standing for the same election.  What I have heard them all say is that it matters what the Holy Spirit calls delegates and clergy to do.  And, meanwhile, they have become friends.

This was our last walkabout meeting tonight.  St. John's did a good job of keeping us warm in a building without a boiler.  They fed us well and made us welcome.  Remarkably, all of the nominees managed to have as much energy tonight as they did Monday night.  This after a day of driving in rain and/or snow and visits to two churches other than St. John's.  We had coffee this morning at St. Barnabas, Jefferson City - a Lutheran/Episcopal worshiping community.  They have done a masterful job of renovating an old house into a real house church, pews and all.  Then we travelled to St. James in Greeneville for lunch and a stirring rendition of Drop Kick Me Jesus, Through the Goalposts of Life.  What fun!

And now, once again, we are ready to turn out the lights and go to bed.  Tomorrow, we will be on the road once again and driving all the way back to Chattanooga with stops to be made between here and there.  Keep those prayers coming just a little longer!

Good night!

Neither rain nor snow nor sleet....

We have had drizzly rain on and off all day today but it wasn't enough to dampen the spirits of our walkabout crew.  After piling all of our luggage in Chris Harpster's van as well as in the back of the two big white vans, we left the Doubletree in Chattanooga and headed for Athens.  The folks at St. Paul's Athens greeted us warmly and were more than happy to show us their church, tell us the story of how they decided to turn the back of the nave into the front (and vice versa) and then send us on up Route 11 to Loudon.

Resurrection Loudon fed us three great soups - I am getting the recipe for the golden chicken for our own soup suppers - and then sent us on up the road to Knoxville, where we took the nominees to see The Church of the Ascencion, site of the new bishop's ordination in June.  After a few wrong turns - I swear two thirds of the drivers simply decided it was time to go home to Kingsport! - we all made it to our hotel and out of the vans long enough to check emails and/or take a nap.

And then we headed to Episcopal School of Knoxville where faculty, students and staff made us feel like we were part of their family.  I hadn't been to ESK in several years and was really impressed with the size of the campus but mostly with its beauty.  These are buildings that invite you to be engaged in learning.  At Evening Prayer, the middle school singers sang two songs for us and we all sang Lord, make me a Sanctuary together.  Then the presentations and question and answer portion of the evening took place with perhaps a little more chaos than the previous evening but within the time frame we had set for the whole event, always a good thing.

I continue to be impressed by our nominees.  That's about all I can honestly say, though, since I do not want to be swaying anyone else's minds and hearts.  Having heard them all twice has been a great gift, though, one I wish everyone could have.  Still, I bellieve if you all read what has been published on the website and come to one of the walkabouts, you will get a good idea of who each of the nominees is.

So tomorrow, we hope the snow will be very mild and might even decide to skip us entirely.  We will take our time getting from one place to another even if it means blowing the schedule sky high.  Better to keep everyone safe than to make all the deadlines.  That said, the snow may slow us down but it will not stay us from our appointed rounds!

You are in my prayers as I travel outside of the parish and I know that you are praying for all of us making this journey around the Diocese.