Pastor Terry Davis

2009-02-01T14:33:00.003-05:00

Final Sermon at First Presbyterian Church

It was 11 ½ years ago that I began my ministry as Pastor at First Presbyterian Church here in Hartford, 41 ½ years ago that I was first ordained to the ministry of word and sacrament. I must say that it has been a good trip, a wonderful career. In many ways this particular church has been a wonderful experience to complete my ministry because this church is unique in so many ways. First Presbyterian Church has a long history of service to this community, holding on to its identity as a Church committed not only to staying in the heart of the city, but also its commitment to really serve the city where God has placed us. It is also one of a small, but growing number of Presbyterian Churches that are truly multicultural and multi racial as well as embracing diversity of theological viewpoints, including Gay and Lesbian members, and which is both multigenerational and includes people from a variety of economic classes.

In the time that I have been here we have moved from a quiet welcoming of homosexual members and leaders to being leaders in our Presbytery and denomination on issues of inclusion and marriage equality. At the same time our racial and ethnic diversity has vastly increased in these last dozen years.

Our growth or rather our lack of growth in the past dozen years has been disappointing, but at the same time we can take pride that after a long period of decline we have still received over 80 members, almost making up from the losses by death and other causes.

We have maintained our giving and continued a long tradition of generous support for missions. We have also made major improvements in the building, running a successful capital campaign that raised over a quarter of a million dollars.

In these years I have preached over 500 sermons, at least a few of which have fallen on fertile ground and brought forth some fruit. I have performed over a dozen weddings or in one case a civil union. I have visited you and your loved ones in hospitals and nursing homes; I have visited many of you in your homes, and broken bread with you on hundreds of occasions. I have baptized your children and buried your loved ones. I am going to miss these opportunities for ministry, but the time has come for a change in my life and in our relationship. After today I will no longer be the person you look to for pastoral care. For very good reasons our Presbytery’s ethical guidelines of former pastors prohibit my offering my pastoral services for members of this congregation. The session has made provisions to provide pastoral care in the period until an interim pastor is called, and when a new interim is in place she or he will be your pastor.

The truth is that in these nearly one dozen years we have become more than pastor and members. Many of you have become friends and friendships can continue beyond the end of the pastoral relation. I hope to stay in touch with at least some of you, and when we have moved to a new home in North Carolina I hope that some of you will want to visit with us. We live adjacent to a wonderful golf course and Holden Beach and the beautiful Lockwood Folly River are only minutes away from our home.

We read a part of a long farewell speech that Moses gave to the people at the end of his ministry as well as a part of Paul’s farewell speech to the Ephesian Elders. Each is quite long and heavy with advice and each is a valuable passage, but I am reminded that sermons of great length can lead to people falling asleep as poor Eutychus did during Paul’s farewell speech in Troas when falling asleep he fell out of a third story window and killed himself. Now Paul was able to raise him up to life, but I don’t have that power. I had to go shake up a sleeper who fell asleep in the back row several weeks ago and was glad to find he was still alive.

There is a single sentence in each of the passages that I would like to lift up in these final remarks. From Moses I would join him in saying, choose life. Chose life, choose hope, choose love, choose generosity and you will have a good life. From Paul I would remind you one more time that Jesus said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Choose life, choose generosity and you will receive blessings from the almighty.

2009-01-13T11:36:00.003-05:00

Retirement Party

The Church is hosting a retirement party on Saturday, February 7, 2009 at First Presbyterian Church, 136 Capitol Ave., Hartford, CT from 5 to 7:30 PM.

RSVP to the Church 860 246-2224.

My Last Sunday and last Sermon at the Church will be on February 1. Morning worship at 10:30 AM.

2009-01-06T14:32:00.003-05:00

Mayor Mike Peters, long term mayor, cheerleader for the city, and just a nice guy passed away last week. He spoke here for a Palm Sunday Breakfast back when he was still in office. The top two images are from that event, notice June O'Neil has him cornered to talk about environmental justice, and he listened. He was always accessible.

Rick Green has a great tribute in his column this morning. Go to Rick's column.

2008-12-20T14:43:00.002-05:00

About a foot of snow fell last night. It is lovely to look at But definately not fun to drive or walk in. I bought two Christmas books that I can use in place of a sermon on Christmas Eve. One is a poem by Maya Angelou which she wrote and read for the White House Christmas tree lighting in 2005. It is quite lovely and the book includes a CD of her reading it. I thought that after hearing her read it I might not be willing to read it in public.

The second one met my criteria of bringing a tear to my eyes, although none of the ones I read standing in Borders quite matched A Cup of Christmas Tea which I read several years ago, or several others I have used over the years. It is entitled Winter's Gift by Jane Monroe Donovan. Copyright 2004 I have seen it before, but never bought it.

2008-12-15T13:39:00.004-05:00

I was quoted in an article on marriage equality in the edition of Newsweek dated today.
Gay Marriage: Our Mutual Joy Newsweek Culture Opponents of gay marriage often cite Scripture. But what the Bible teaches about love argues for the other side.
I am quoted toward the end of the article

2008-12-03T16:10:00.002-05:00

The latest book that I have read by Paulo Coelho is The Pilgrimage. This is an account of a religious pilgrimage taken by the author on the road to Santiago. Having failed to complete the final steps in his ordination as a Master of the Order of RAM (a minor religious order within the Catholic Church) his master assigns him to walk the Road to Santiago, an ancient Christian pilgrimage route beginning in southern France and continuing across northern Spain. It is a journey traditionally taken on foot and is one of three major medieval pilgrimages each of which provided a plenary indulgence to pilgrims completing the journey. Coelho is told by his guide that there is a fourth secret way to complete the set, but we never find out about this in this book.

The book has been described as a companion piece to The Alchemist, another fictional account of a young shepherd’s pilgrimage across North Africa in pursuit of his dream. Although the shepherd is usually referred to as "the boy" we find when we first meet him that his name is Santiago. Coelho begins to write The Alchemist shortly after completing the pilgrimage to Santiago which was a pivotal event in his life and in vocation.

The Pilgrimage is much more than a travelogue; rather it is an account of Coelho's spiritual journey. Although many pilgrims walk alone or with a group Coelho has a guide for the journey who is also a member of RAM. Along the road he learns nearly a dozen religious exercises of meditation, imagination and discipline. Petrus, his guide, tells him that the way they are following is not an exclusive road; rather the physical and spiritual journey they are on is a simple quest for God that is available to the common person. While his studies to be a Master of the Order of RAM taught him esoteric knowledge available only to a few the common person can participate in the simple exercises Petrus was teaching. Paulo gives detailed directions for each of these exercises, obviously inviting readers to learn each of them.

Along the way with Petrus’s help Coelho becomes acquainted with his personal devil who is an ally in the material world as well as learning to depend on his guardian angel. He learns to overcome his fears and defeat demons. At the end of the journey Petrus presents him with the sword which was denied him at his first initiation.

While pilgrimage is no longer a major part of Catholic practice and most Protestants are virtually ignorant concerning the concept Muslims would certainly understand. Over one million Muslims make the Hajj each year. This pilgrimage is one of the five pillars of Islam expected of every Muslim who is physically and financially capable.

It is worth reading!

2008-12-01T14:51:00.008-05:00

We spent Thanksgiving at our daughter's.

in addition to Sabrena and Arthie, Hanna and Abby Arthie's family was there, his parents, his sister and her three children. It was a happy but hectic time with 12 people, including 5 children in one condo.

We had Pasteles, a latin specialty, for the holidays. I had never had them before although I have seen them on a Puerto Rician menu. The Dominican versions seems very similar. Wonderful! Interesting to come home and read a New York Times article about pasteles. link to article

We took more pictures that you can see by following the link.

2008-11-24T15:48:00.002-05:00

I was asked to do a reflection on my involvement with GLBT issues for the Presbyterian Promise Newsletter.

Here is what I wrote

Back last August Dick Hasbany asked me to consider writing some sort of reflection piece on my involvement with LGBT issues in the 11 years that I have been a member of this Presbytery. Since my tenure with First Presbyterian Church is soon coming to an end (February 1, 2009 is my last day) and I will be leaving Connecticut within another few months, I guess I cannot delay meeting this request much longer. (I do not plan to terminate my membership in the Presbytery until I have voted YES for the “change B” overture at the May 09 Presbytery meeting.)

When I went to Florida in 1990 I was already firmly committed to full equality for GLBT people in the Church and in society. I knew this was not a widely shared commitment in a Presbyterian church in a small town in north Florida and decided that support for this issue would not be a part of my ministry. I felt I had been called to grow this Church located in area with booming population growth and that is what I did. Before the end of my tenure at this Church my views had been revealed in a number of ways including the fact that I spoke and voted against the adoption of the original B overture. The last year of my ministry in that place was a very unpleasant experience. As I was seeking a new call I discovered this Church in Hartford that said on its Church Information Form that they had welcomed people who differ by age, race, ethnic background, sexual orientation, family status, economic situation and theological viewpoint. This sounded more like the kind of place I belonged and I determined that I would not ever again try to disguise my views on this issue, or any other issue of importance.

Being in this Church and having made this commitment to transparency has made it possible for the Church and I to be partners in the cause of justice for LGBT people, as well as other justice issues. During my tenure here we have brought the Shower of Stoles to our sanctuary twice. We have brought or supported several overtures to the Presbytery to change our ordination standards and to recognize marriage equality. I attended the 2006 General Assembly as an overture advocate to support deleting B. This was an opportunity to meet with leaders in the equality movement from across the country. We were among the first Churches to join Presbyterian Promise and the second Church in the Presbytery (by one month) to become affiliated with More Light Presbyterians, to which I had belonged for years. Jane Spahr, Michael Adee and Heather Reichgott have all preached in our pulpit at the invitation of session.

I have been part of the steering committee of Connecticut Clergy for Marriage Equality, and have presided at one Civil Union service. Among my closest friends in ministry are the local Metropolitan Community Church pastors.

In many ways my support for these causes has been an extension of the same commitment to equality that led me to Washington in 1963 as a college senior to demonstrate with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and onto the streets of Louisville with his Brother A. D. Williams King to march for open housing in 1966. All of us regardless of race, ethnicity, income, religion, gender orientation or age are children of one loving creator. When one of our brothers and sisters is diminished because of discrimination we are all diminished and I feel we are all called to work for the equality of all people.

2008-11-13T13:44:00.004-05:00

“In our obsessive wish to arrive, we often forget the most important thing, which is the journey.”
The Pilgrimage
Paulo Coelho
http://www.paulocoelhoblog.com/

I have read several more books by Paulo Coelho since writing about The Alchemist back in August. I find his writing absolutely fascinating, a wealth of the world’s wisdom, and a source of inspiration. As you may know he is Brazilian, his writings have been published in dozens of languages. On a world wide basis his works are best sellers, and I am told that he is very widely read and highly regarded in Brazil. Although he had a Jesuit education his spirituality draws from multiple sources, including magic and earth religions which have brought much criticism by the Brazilian Catholic Church. In The Pilgrimage he writes about his experience as a pilgrim on the road to Santiago.

In The Valkyries, another autobiographical book he writes some about his experiences in the world of Magic. His quest to become a Magnus, a spiritual master, took him into the desert southwest in this country where he was aided in his quest by the Valkyries, a group of women on motorcycles who go about preaching about the dawning of a new age, an open door to paradise.

Valhalla, the leader of the Valkyries is preaching in the following passage which should strike a familiar chord to those who have read Coelho.

“Have Courage. …Open your heart, and listen to what your dreams tell you. Follow those dreams, because only a person who is not ashamed can manifest the glory of God.”

“There is no sin but the lack of love…. Have courage, be capable of loving, even if love appears to be a treacherous and terrible thing. Be happy in love. Be joyful in victory. Follow the dictates of your heart.”

… “Remember that you are a manifestation of the absolute, and do only those things in your lives that are worth the effort. Only those who do that will understand the great transformations that are yet to be seen.”

Paulo wants the Valkyries to teach him to see angels. He knew how to speak to his guardian angel but he wanted to see his guardian angel as well. (In The Alchemist Santiago learns to speak the "language of the soul of the world"). Coelho describes the way that he speaks to his angel as “channeling”. This is a form of ecstatic speech, perhaps the verbal equivalent of automatic writing. Paulo teaches his wife Chris to listen to her second mind until it becomes silent, and then in the silence to began to speak without words, to speak the sounds that come to you. She at last makes a break through: “She began to move her head back and forth, wanting to do all that, and suddenly she wanted to make strange noises. And she did so. It wasn’t ridiculous. She was free to do as she pleased.” He describes it as the joy of a warrior entering into an unknown world. She needed to speak the pure language of the heart. “…she had to continue to speak, making the gestures that came to her, singing the strange melodies. Yes, everything must make some kind of sense because she had never heard these sounds before, these melodies, these words and movements.”

One thing that struck me as I read this was the parallel with speaking in tongues, which plays a prominent part in Coelho’s next book that I will review (soon, I promise) By the River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept.

2008-11-05T13:52:00.001-05:00

Forty Years Later

In 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed in the spring. In August that year Kathleen and I were in Chicago for the Democratic Convention, protesting the war in Vietnam. She had gone back to Louisville to work but I was still there in Grant Park the night of the “police riot” that filled the air with tear gas and the Chicago jail with protestors, many seriously injured by the police. Last night as over one hundred thousand people gathered in that same park to see Barack Obama proclaim victory in the presidential election it was a great day for the United States and for the world.

I would not possibly have believed forty years ago that I would see the United States elect a Black President. Not in my life time, but yesterday we did.

We said then “The whole world is watching.” Last night the whole world was watching this unprecedented, historic moment.

Thanks be to God!

2008-10-30T14:49:00.004-04:00

We traveled to Richmond, VA for Kathleen's ACPE conference; we were gone from October 18-28. We actually spent more time in Sterling Virginia with Sabrena and Arthie and our granddaughters. Getting ready for Halloween we visited a pumpkin patch to pick out their gourds. They had a great time. For more pictures CLICK HERE.

2008-10-16T15:41:00.005-04:00

I had an op-ed article published last Sunday, October 12, 2008 in the Hartford Courant. On October 12, 1998 Matthew Shepard died, brutally attacked and tied to a fence because he was Gay. The article marks this occasion and calls for action against Hate Crimes. Read the article.

Last week Connecticut became the third state in which same sex marriage is allowed. The State Supreme Court ruled under the equal protection of the law provision in the CT constitution that same sex couples have the right to marry. Same Sex Unions are not enough. This is what Love Makes a Family has been saying all along, and what Clergy for Marriage Equality has been working for. I am proud to serve on the steering committee of this organization. Our Church hosted a worship service celebrating the long awaited decision on Monday Evening, October 13. Unfortunately I was not able to be there since I was at a wedding reception.

Last week Presbyterian Promise and First Presbyterian CHurch, Hartford co-sponsored a display of 50 liturgical stoles the Shower of Stoles Project. See Pictures.

2008-09-04T14:38:00.006-04:00

The Last Lecture

I just finished reading this extraordinary book by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zazlow.

I cannot overestimate the value of this book by an obviously brilliant professor whose “Last Lecture” was not an academic exercise in what you would say if you had one last lecture to give, but was in truth his last lecture, he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had an estimated 6 months to live. It is not a sad “be sorry for me” lament, but a joyful celebration of life entitled “Fulfilling your Childhood Dreams”. The book is about preparing and delivering the lecture, but really about living your life well however long you have. Randy admits, no brags about being Tigger, not Eeyore.

Click on the picture above to get to the book’s web page with links to actually view the video recording of the lecture itself, as well as reviews, news reports, etc. Click on the title of today’s Blog to get to the publisher’s web site for the book.

This is a book that I bought and took on vacation, but didn't get to until I got home. I still will share with you my list of books I did read while on vacation and some comments about them, if not full reviews.

2008-08-28T13:00:00.003-04:00

A Wonderful Vacation

We had a great vacation, spent some time with Sabrena and Arthie and our grandbabies. I haven't uploaded pictures to Flickr.com yet, but will put up a link when I do.

Most of our time was spent in North Carolina with our friends. We found a builder for our retirement home, and chose a house plan that seemed closest to what we want. We talked with the builder about what changes we want, he said they were all possible and is sending the project to a draftsman. From there he will be able to price out the project, and if it exceeds our budget he said he will suggest where we can cut back.

The whole thing is very exciting. We retire at the end of January, but do not intend to put our present home on the market during the winter, probably in April. If it sells fairly quickly we would hope to ready to move to NC in May, and that is the builder's goal for completion. (Having built a Church building and rennovated two others I know that construction delays are the norm, not the exception.

We did do a lot of reading, I will share the list here within the next week and have some comments on the most interesting ones.

We of course have been watching the Democratic Convention, quite exciting. I am looking forward to Obama's speech tonight.

2008-08-07T13:55:00.002-04:00

More about the Alchemist

It has been interesting that I have received three comments on my initial blog about the Alchemist since I usually receive none.

I finished the book and immediately went back to the beginning to read it again, finding much that I missed the first time through. It is truly a marvelous work. I went looking for other of his writings at Borders Bookstore and was surprised to find nothing shelved under fiction/Coelho. I wondered why not and on a hunch went over to philosophy where I found six or seven titles on an end cap display. I bought The Fifth Mountain and By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept. to read on vacation (starting Saturday!!!)

A few gems from The Alchemist. “There is one great truth on this planet; whoever you are, or what ever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth…. The Soul of the World is nourished by people’s happiness…. To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only real obligation.” The speaker is an old man who calls himself Melchizedek and ends up charging the boy Santiago one tenth of his flock of sheep in return for his help. He also gave him two divination stones that he called Urim and Thummin. (Biblical references keep recurring through out the book.)

A camel driver tells the boy the secret of happiness. “If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. You’ll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens, and that tribesmen fight because they are part of the human race. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living right now.” The camel driver also said: “To die tomorrow is no worse than dying on any other day.”

A seer also talks to the boy about the present: “How do I guess at the future? Based on the omens of the present. The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better."

The Alchemist several times echoes works we have heard from the lips of Jesus. “It’s not what enters men’s mouths that’s evil. …it’s what comes out of their mouths that is.” On the same page he says “Remember wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.”

At the end the boy can speak the Language of the World. He spoke to the wind, and to the sun and to the hand that wrote all. To the sun he said “When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”

I am looking forward to the other books I bought and you may read more book reviews while I am on vacation, or when I return.

2008-07-23T11:08:00.006-04:00

The Alchemist

Over the weekend I picked up The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian author described on the back cover as "One of the bestselling and most influential authors in the world." The blurb names 8 books which he has published "and others have sold more than 65 Million copies in 150 countries and have been translated into 60 languages."

I have had a hard time putting the book down and am already half way through. It is a simple tale of a shepherd boy who sets out in the world to find his goal in life, his personal legend. Along the way he meets a variety of people who impart wisdom to him.

It is extraordinarily rich in such wisdom from the boy himself and others. One quotation may whet your appetite: "intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it's all written there."

I will write more when I have finished, and I intend to start again at the beginning when I have come to the end. I keep feeling there is even more here than I can appreciate in a single reading.

His spirit and philosophy remind me of Kahlil Gibran, the poet from Lebanon, author of The Prophet, Jesus Son of Man and others.

Do I have any readers who are currently reading or have read this volume? Love to receive your comments.

2008-07-08T11:03:00.002-04:00

Surprises Around the Bend

I just finished reading Richard Hasler’s new volume entitled Surprises Around the Bend. Richard is a former associate pastor of this congregation, 1960-1965. The book consists of stories and quotations from 50 Adventurous walkers. Most of them are people whose names we would recognize starting with Carl Jung and ending with Dietrich Bonhoeffer who continues to walk even when imprisoned in a tiny cell with only a half an hour a day in the prison yard. Hartford Native Wallace Stevens is on the list along with Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. Also included are Soren Kierkegaard, Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa whose life was changed when she went walking among the poor in Calcutta, and William Booth, founder of the Salvation army who discovered the worst slums in London on one of his walks that changed the direction of his life. Social prophets Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez not only walked themselves, but also used mass marches as a means of publicizing their causes.

Again and again these adventurous walkers praised the practice of walking for its benefits both for physical health, and for mental and spiritual health. Many reported that walking provided meaningful moments for prayer and meditation. Poets and authors repeatedly said that walking opened up for them the channels of creativity. Several said that if the circumstances prevented their walking they were unable to do their best and most creative work.

Dick includes as an after word a program for daily walking with a goal of 10,000 steps (about five miles) a day. I have followed this practice for several years and found that in good weather it is not difficult at all to log 10,000 steps a day by taking the dog walking two or three times a day and trying to walk sometime in the middle of the day as well. Parking in the most distant spot in the grocery parking lot helps me know where my car is and increases the length of the walk. I certainly feel better and sleep better when I get my daily exercise, and seem to accomplish more each day.

In a recent sermon on rules for daily living the first rule on my list was to take a walk every day, even better take several. (The other two rules were to spend less than you earn, and to give yourself to a cause greater than yourself.)

I have a copy of the book I would be willing to loan someone else, and a second copy is in process of being catalogued for the Church Library.

2008-06-25T15:53:00.004-04:00

What have you been reading for the summer, or any time recently? I would love to hear from you at revtdavis@sbcglobal.net.

One of the most interesting books I have read lately is entitled, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle with the sub title “A Year of Food Life.” by Barbara Kingsolver. Kingsolver is the author of the widely read Poisonwood Bible and numerous other books and essays. In the present volume she tells the story of her family moving from the Arizona desert to property her husband owned in southern Appalachia determined to live for one year raising most of their own food and buying what food they did not produce from their neighbors. The few things they could not find grown within 100 miles of where they lived included coffee, flour (an essential since her husband Steven made all the bread and Pizza dough for the family). They found that although some of their neighbors grew wheat that all of the local flour mills had gone out of business and all the flour in the country was produced by a half a dozen giant corporations. They also found that there were some spices that they needed that were not local. They did do with out all tropical fruits, and anything that was out of season. They ate food as it came into season, when they canned or froze everything that they produced. Quart after quart of tomatoes and tomato sauce, along with dried tomatoes and frozen everything carried them through the whole winter. Her youngest daughter Lilly raised chickens that graced the Sunday dinner table and eventually produced enough eggs to feed the family and to sell to the neighbors. They raised turkeys and actually kept them long enough to breed (did you know that every broad breasted white sold at thanksgiving is less than 6 months old and bred by means of artificial insemination.) She said when one of hers finally hatched some chicks that the mother was one of the oldest turkeys in the country (about a year old).

Along with her narrative, the book also includes a variety of her husband Steven’s essays on everything from the high cost to the environment of shipping food across the country, not just the cost of transportation but the damage to the ecology of the planet, the reduction of food quality, flavor and nutrition, the downside of genetic modified foods, the danger of the loss of agricultural variety and heirloom varieties. I could never understand what was wrong with Genetically Modified foods, I certainly do now.

Barbara’s older daughter Camille has also contributed her reflections to the book, about the advantages of organic, and about cooking and about leaving home for college and trying to apply what she had learned in that environment. There are loads of recipes and meals in the book, and they are available on line at www.AnimalVegetableMiracle.com.

I found it inspiring, enlightening, occasionally emotionally touching. It has moved me from casual interest in local foods, mostly because of taste and price, to a person who is and should be more a champion of eating local. I have not become convinced that I want to grow our own food, although we did a lot and canned and froze food early on in our marriage. We still grew tomatoes up until a few years ago, and I have potted herbs growing on our deck. We finally quit the tomatoes when I realized that we were mainly feeding our neighbors since we were on vacation at the peak of the harvest; and my tomatoes came in at the same time that they became abundant in the farmer’s markets. At 65 I don’t intend to go back into farming; but here and where we will be retiring next year there is an abundance of farmers markets and farm stands, and others tell me that there are places to buy local all year long close to Hartford. An added advantage to moving to costal North Carolina is being able to get fresh seafood right off the boats when they dock. Just a sampling of what is available to us includes a wonderful market at Billings Forge on Broad Street, Hartford, south of Capitol Ave – open about 11 AM to 2 PM Mondays and Thursdays. Monday, Wednesday and Friday is a market at the Old State House, about the same hours. I was there today and got a quart of Strawberries and a cucumber. The greens that probably looked wonderful at 10 AM did not look so fresh at 1:30 PM so I passed them by. I will be at Billings Forge soon after they open tomorrow. One or two farmers will be in our parking lot at the Church on Mondays beginning July 7, 2008. I know there is a market on Laurel Street in Hartford and another at the United Methodist Church at Farmington and Whitney. We often go to the West Hartford Market on LaSalle Road in the Center, it is Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. A quick internet search did not turn up a complete and current list of farmer’s markets but here is last year’s Department of Agriculture List. Of course this doesn’t include a multiple of farm stands that become numerous as you get outside the central Urban area to places like Granby, Simsbury, South Glastonbury, Manchester, etc.

Eating local has suddenly become immensely popular perhaps outstripping the interest in eating organic. For the best of the best find organic farmers and organic farmers markets, and they are not hard to find. One of the farmers who was at the Church last year was certified organic, and the one who will be back engages in many organic practices and uses little or no non-organic pesticides on most of their crops.

I recommend the book as a marvelous read, and the local foods movement as strongly as I can. Reading the book can be an adventure and education that could change your life.

2008-05-12T12:10:00.004-04:00

First Presbyterian supports the Walk Against Hunger

More pictures (the folks without Hands ON tee shirts were also sharing lunch with the walkers prior to participating in an "appreciative inquiry" as part of the revitalization process we are involved in.)

Let me brag, even if belatedly, (the walk was May 4) about our Church's support for the Walk Against Hunger. As we have done for years we led the way among the Churches designating their support for Hands ON Hartford. We raised over $7500 for the walk. I personally raised over $1200 of this total and I was not the top fund raiser for First Presbyterian. That honor goes to Holly Billings who passed me on her walk total, and also solicited from Robin Roberts a $25,000 challenge gift to match the first $25,000 raised by Hands ON Hartford. (Robin is one of the Hosts on CBS's Good Morning America program and a member of First Presbyterian Church.)
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One of the things that gave me particular pride was that not only did the current confirmation class all raise money and participate in the walk (we did tell them it was a class requirement) but also that most of the previous class also participated again this year.
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Last Sunday, which was Pentecost, was a marvelous service. We used red ribbon to block off many of the pews, forcing worshippers to sit closer to one another in the front middle section of the sanctuary, the children formed a rhythm band with a variety of world instruments to duplicate the sound of a mighty rushing wind, and seven players presented a dramatic reading as part of the message for the morning.

2008-04-24T15:09:00.004-04:00

Talking about Race

Much has been made in the news and the debates about some inflammatory remarks made by the former pastor of Trinity UCC church where Barak Obama is a member. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is a widely popular preacher who has preached many sermons at Trinity UCC (The Nation’s largest UCC congregation) and in other churches and conferences across this country. Hundreds of them have been videotaped. I personally have a video of his keynote presentation at a conference I attended. Kathleen has heard him speak on several occasions. Out of his hundreds of sermons some few have contained language that white folks have considered over the top, as when at Howard University, to an almost entirely African American gathering a few days after 9/11 he said that instead of singing God Bless America he would say, “God Damn America.”

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We ask “How in the world could anyone not love America?” “Why in the world would anyone want to harm and humiliate the United States on a major scale?” “Aren’t we the greatest and most free nation in the whole history of human civilization?”

All Americans do not agree that the United States is the greatest nation on earth, the most moral, the most prosperous, and certainly not the nations which is most just and fair and careful of the rights of its citizens. We have been poisoned by our history of chattel slavery, and by pervasive racism that persists over 150 years after the end of slavery. Many African Americans are more than bitter, often angry because of the limitations and insults that they have lived with all of their lives. Fifty years after Brown versus Board of Education we still have segregated schools. School systems like Hartford which serve the minority community do not provide education equal to what is offered in suburban schools. The horrifically low graduation rate for Hartford’s youth would not be tolerated in any suburban school. On April 17 I went to an event at the legislature highlighting the health disparities in our state. I was shocked at some of the facts presented. In our state per 1000 live births of white babies five die before the age of one, over 14 out of 1000 Blacks babies die in the first year of life. Ten percent of white adults are uninsured in the state, 21.4 % of Black adults are uninsured. For Pediatric Asthma the hospitalization rate for whites is 90, it is 263 for Blacks. The same kind of disparities exists for poverty, education, housing etc. Blacks are behind in every measure of social and economic health as a result of persistent and pervasive racism.

But white folks do not get it; even those of us who have had African American friends for many years still do not get it, because we do not personally experience these disparities. Our African American friends seldom share their experiences and their rage with those of us who are white. We can dismiss the few stories we hear about our friends being detained for driving while black as the result of a few bad cops. In Memphis I picked up a book entitled Gracism, The Art of Inclusion by David Anderson, an African American Pastor. He said he was detained three times on his first day on his job as associate pastor at a predominantly white church in a ritzy Chicago neighborhood. Those of us who live in white skin don’t get it! We do not hear about more than a fraction of the discrimination and insults that our African American, Latino and Muslim friends experience daily.

Our society will not change if we continue to remain silent and pretend that racism is not a problem in this country and that we are not racists. Other people may be racists, but we want to think we are not, and we are. Racism and the myth of Black inferiority have poisoned all of us, what ever color our skin is. Barack Obama broke the conspiracy of silence that has gripped America; now it is time that the rest of us join in the conversation about race and racism.

2008-04-07T14:56:00.003-04:00

A Week in Memphis

Kathleen and I spent the past week in Memphis, TN. Actually we spent Monday and much of Saturday at O'Hare Field, the Chicago Airport.

The Racial Ethnic Multicultural Network of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education was meeting there for an Annual Meeting, and Kathleen’s associate was meeting a committee to receive full certification as a CPE Supervisor. She did receive this certification, which was cause to celebrate on Beale Street where we ate Barbecue and listened to Blues. Memphis is famous for both.

The conference was centered around remembering Dr. Martin Luther King who was gunned down in Memphis on the balcony of the Loraine Motel on April 4, 1968, forty years ago. We heard a panel of REM founders all talk about how Dr. King’s life and ministry effected them, attended seminars, worshipped and participated in City Wide Events remembering Dr. King.

He had gone to Memphis in 1968 to support the garbage workers who wanted union recognition (AFSCME), decent wages, and to be treated with dignity as men. They claimed that the city of Memphis was treating them like dogs and their signs read, I AM A MAN.

A few more pictures from the March.
On Friday we joined hundreds of others in walking the route the marchers took on April 4, 1968 with Dr. King at the lead. It was 6:01 PM that evening that shots rang out and Dr. King fell dead on the balcony of the Loraine Motel. The march ended at the Motel where everyone spoke. Both Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton passed us by in the crowd and we saw John McCain on the Motel Balcony. He now wants to apologize for voting against making Dr. King’s birthday a national holiday. A little late, don’t you think?

We toured the National Civil Rights Museum with included the Loraine Motel, STAX Records Museum, and attended a huge gala celebration where Harry Belafonte was Honored (and spoke 20 or 30 minutes). He was supposed to make a brief response, but took the time allocated for Dr. Joseph Lowry, who gave him a very hard time, but them spoke briefly and to the point.

If there were any Clinton supporters on the platform that night they were certainly undercover, most of the speakers were clearly supporting Barak Obama.

The food, by the way was awful, overdone tough steak. A terrible choice to try to serve a big crowd. The tickets were $100 full price, although REM had a much cheaper price by buying multiple tables.

2008-03-25T13:42:00.007-04:00

Easter Sunday was Wonderful -- Except

More photos from Easter

The Lilies were beautiful, the Church was full, (well not really since the sanctuary can hold over 300 and our attendance was 125, but it looks much fuller than the usual 75 people) and a few ladies had on their Easter bonnets. Actually very few had on Easter bonnets since straw hats and wool clothing just doesn’t go together and it was a very cold and very early Easter. I thought that the sexton with his cap on might be the only hat I had to photograph, but then more people showed. If you look at the picture set, however you will have seen all the hats there were.

The choir was in its best form following a prelude for Organ and Piano with Dianne Ney on the organ and Tonya Spears on the piano, and then Ray Gonzales came in with the trumpet on the first Hymn. Dianne invited all the singers in the congregation to join with the choir in singing the Halleluiah chorus from the Messiah after the benediction and over a half a dozen did. It sounded spectacular. I thought I had a good sermon, and it was brief.

There were just the two of us for dinner and we had pistachio encrusted rack of Lamb, it was delicious!

It was a Wonderful Easter – Except, Except, on Easter Sunday on the other side of the world the 4000th officially recognized casualty to an American serviceperson took place in Iraq. On Easter, the holiday of life, resurrection, hope, renewal we go on with business as usual in Iraq, and business as usual involves killing and being killed.

Photos from Holy Thursday service at Westminster

2008-03-20T11:24:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary
of the war in Iraq.

I was among 200 plus protesters on Main Street in Hartford on a cold and rainy day. After over five minutes of conversation with a Hartford Courant reporter I got one sentence quoted. "As nasty as [this weather] is, I could not, not be here. Other people are making much worse sacrifices than walking out on a cold day," said Terry Davis, pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Hartford. Link to full article. (Pictures from Courant Web Site)

The protest started on the steps of Center Church (UCC) and ended at the Federal Building. At the Federal Building five of the protesters blocked the employee entrance to the building (leaving the public entrance open for those needing to conduct business with the immigration or other offices and courts in the building). They were eventually arrested by city police, although from conversations I overheard at the edge of the crowd the city police at first insisted that they should not make arrests on Federal Property. They wanted the private security officers guarding the building to call the federal Marshals to make the arrests.

Among those arrested were two people over 80 years old. The Rev Kathy McTigue, senior minister at the Unitarian Society in New Haven, said moments before she and the others were taken into custody. "It is a way of putting our bodies in the way of business as usual and business as usual is killing people.”

The cost of the war have been tremendous, nearly 4,000 dead American Soldiers, and no counting how many have been injured physically, mentally and spiritually. It has cost over $3 trillion to pursue the war according to Bob Beckel, a liberal Democratic strategist who also estimated that over 150,000 Iraqis have died. This war has now lasted longer than World War I, World War II, or the Civil War.

Barack Obama asked in a recent fund raising letter: “And where are we for all of this sacrifice?

We are less safe and less able to shape events abroad. We are divided at home, and our alliances around the world have been strained. The threats of a new century have roiled the waters of peace and stability, and yet America remains anchored in Iraq.

Enough!”

2008-03-17T13:22:00.008-04:00

Palm Sunday was a great day at
First Presbyterian Church, Hartford, CT

Click Here for More Pictures

In every way Palm Sunday was a wonderful time to celebrate the goodness of God at First Presbyterian. We started off with a Breakfast planned by Parish Life with a speaker arranged by the Multicultural Team. The speaker was Heidi Hadsell, president of Hartford Seminary who spoke about Multiculturalism in Church and Society.

The historic sanctuary was beautiful as always, enhanced by live palm trees and two large Salvador Dali prints, one the last supper, the other the crucifixion. (I bought the eight foot live palms from BJ’s Discount Warehouse at the bargain price of $19.99 each) Choir and worshipers carried palm fronds and processed around the sanctuary singing “Hosanna, Loud Hosannas…” The choir sang “Ride on King Jesus” and “Sing Hosanna!”. Both were beautifully done. I thought I had a very good sermon which you can read on line. Carl Dudley was at both the breakfast and service, back at the Church for the first time in four months. Carl has been and continues to fight a very serious disease.

2008-03-11T14:48:00.003-04:00

The Bluest Eye

On Sunday we saw The Bluest Eye at Hartford Stage. This is a stage adaptation of Toni Morrison’s novel of the same name. It was a tremendously powerful production, had a great cast, and obviously a very good director as well as a creative set designer. I recommend it to anyone. Looking around the nearly filled theater on Sunday (not usually not a prime time for attendance at Hartford Stage) it was obvious that the play has great appeal to African American audiences, but all of us who seek to understand racism in our country will benefit into this look at the psyche of African American folk in a white world. The protagonists are children, honest in their expression of their feelings and experience.

Their ways of dealing with a white world are very different, Claudia tears up and destroys her blue eyed and blond hair doll, while Percola wants to be that doll, someone no longer looked at as ugly and invisible.

Go to the Hartford Stage website to view two reviews, both excellent and far more descriptive than anything I could write, or better still run out and get tickets and see this outstanding performance yourself.

2008-03-10T14:52:00.009-04:00

Three Church Retreat

More pictures from the retreat

Last Saturday we hosted a Presbytery sponsored retreat for leaders of the three Churches participating in a revitalization consultation. Our Consultant, Ann Philbrick from the Heartwood group did a presentation about the life cycle of Churches, like our own lives Churches move from their founding (birth) growth and development, (she calls this incline), then a Church reaches its prime, membership and program development plateau, these are the Church’s golden years (she calls this recline, besides rhyming it symbolizes a leaning back being satisfied with maintaining the good thing we have going). She says no Church stays at this point forever, at some point decline sets in, and eventually will end with death with out a new birth, without a resurrection. Churches call this redevelopment or revitalization or the new in word is transformation. I like the resurrection image since that went with the scriptures for the following day, the dry bones (Ezekiel 37) and the resurrection of Lazarus (John chapter 11).

I suggested Sunday (read the entire sermon) that this was our hope as a Church since First Presbyterian peaked near its 100th Anniversary when there were purportedly 600 to 800 members. The Church has been in a 50 year decline, although we have halted the loss of members over the past 10 years adding 75 new members to replace the 75 we have lost. I said that death was not the inevitable end, but when the spirit blows and when Christ’s power intervenes, and when we engage fully in the revitalization process resurrection is a possibility.

I also noted in thinking of the resurrection of Lazarus that there was a strangeness about the story, although the emotions of grief and pain, crying and anger are vividly portrayed as John tells this story that what is missing is that there is no picture of great joy and gladness and no expression of gratitude toward Jesus when Lazarus is raised. The shepherd has a party for his friends when he finds the one lost sheep, the woman invites others to rejoice with her when she finds her lost coin, the Prodigal’s father throws a banquet complete with veal and wine, music and dancing, but it is many days later before Martha and Mary have a dinner party for Jesus.

The women seemed to still be in shock, so overwhelmed by their grief over their loss that they cannot rejoice. I suggested that we also might be focused on our losses, those who have moved away, drifted away or passed away and be missing signs of hope and joy that we have received so many new members and families into the Church. Our newer members are younger and more racially and ethnically diverse than those who are gone.

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What I believe that these passages challenge us to do is to deal with our losses, but also to see what God is doing and what God will be doing in our midst and to celebrate the hope and the already present reality of resurrection and new life, in our personal lives, and in our life as a Church.

2008-03-04T12:44:00.001-05:00

Was Lethal Force Necessary?

The Hartford Courant reported this morning that a man was shot by state police within a five minute walk from my office (and even closer to the State Capitol). Did he have a gun? Was he holding a hostage captive? Had he committed a capital felony? Did the confrontation take place in the dark of night? Did two trained and highly experienced state troopers have a reasonable fear for their lives? No, no, no, no, no. He had left the stolen auto at the corner of Russ and Broad Streets and was running from the police. In the parking lot of the Firebox Restaurant he pulled a knife and refused to drop it; both of the troopers, members of the state police SWAT team, fired their weapons and the suspect was taken to Hartford Hospital where he was pronounced dead. All this took place shortly before noon yesterday. It is a wonder that no one else was injured by the gunfire, the last time I was at the Firebox there were lots of people around at noon.

There is no doubt, the man who was shot was one of the bad guys; in a short period of time he had committed sexual assault, auto theft, & bank robbery. He was on probation after committing first-degree robbery and he did lead police on a chase during which he had been involved in a traffic accident. He needed to be stopped and arrested, but is it not reasonable to expect that two trained and experienced members of a SWAT team could disarm and arrest a single man with a single knife. Where was the Tazer? Where are the other non-lethal means of subduing a person?

I am not buying that this was a necessary use of force.

2008-03-03T13:18:00.003-05:00

More Light Sunday

Guest preacher Heather Reighgott and myself, click for more pictures

What a great day we had on Sunday. We were celebrating our session’s decision to affiliate with More Light Presbyterians, a national network of people seeking the full participation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of faith in the life, ministry and witness of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Elder Lois Maxwell coordinated our celebration and invited Heather Reichgott, a member of the national More Light Board be our guest preacher. Heather is a graduate of San Francisco Theological Seminary and a candidate for ministry in the Presbyterian Church (USA). She now lives in North Hadley with her wonderful wife Gillian Woldorf to whom she was married in 2005 in Amherst, Massachusetts. They are joyfully expecting their first child (due in April.)

We found Heather to be a wonderful preacher and very open to tell her personal story and relate her story to THE story told in scripture. She has a great sense of herself and confidence as a preacher and was eager on almost no notice to bring the Children’s message as well as the sermon.

Deacon Keith Rhoden and I traveled to New Haven that after noon for our Presbyterian Promise meeting and an opportunity to meet with another candidate for ministry (for 22 years) Lisa Larges. At last Lisa has been certified ready to receive a call; she presently serves as national director of That All May Freely Serve, another national organization that advocates for “an inclusive church that honors diversity and welcomes lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons as full members. Full membership includes eligibility for ordination to the offices of elder, deacon, and pastor.”

2008-02-27T10:37:00.003-05:00

Kenyan Pastor is Modern Day Abraham

I drove to Springfield, Mass. yesterday to have lunch with the Rev. Joseph Kimatu, pastor of the Tumaini fellowship in Springfield. This is a worshipping fellowship of Christians from different faith backgrounds who share the same heritage of immigration from Kenya. It seems that most or perhaps all of them are from the Kikuyu tribe. Pastor Joseph is from the Presbyterian Church, a member of our Presbytery as well as retaining his membership in the Presbytery of East Africa. I am serving on a team charged with nurturing this fellowship and helping them move from being a fellowship to becoming a Presbyterian Church.

As I listened to Pastor Joseph describe his travels to this country and then his call to minister in Springfield his journey seemed so much like that of Abram (later known as Abraham). Abram’s father immigrated to Haran with his family including Abram and Sarai where they settled and apparently led comfortable life. After his father’s death “The LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.’” (Genesis 12:1) Jews, Christians and Muslims all know the story of how this family led a nomadic life living in tents and moving from place to place, never owning any land except the burial plot that Abraham bought when his wife died.

After years of ministry as pastor of large Churches in Kenya Joseph came to the states for graduate theological studies and pursued several Masters Degrees from both Johnson C. Smith and Erskine Theological Seminaries. While serving on the staff of a large Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Georgia he accepted an invitation to preach at this fellowship in Springfield. This led to the fellowship extending a call to him to be their pastor and after much prayer and consultation with his family the family decided that this was a calling from God to leave the comfort of their situation in Atlanta and to step out on faith and follow where God was leading them.

The Tumaini (the word means HOPE) fellowship in Springfield is small with just over 40 adult members and they are able to pay rent on the building where they worship, provide a home for Joseph and his wife and two children (a third child stayed in Georgia to continue her college education). They also provide a small travel allowance but are able to do no more financially for their pastor.

This dedicated man has supported his ministry and his family using personal resources (including proceeds from the sale of property they owned in Kenya) and still is making considerable sacrifice to be faithful to his calling. One son is in high school in Springfield and a second son was enrolled in a vocational/technical college in the area but has dropped out for lack of funds to pay tuition.

While we have hope that the day will come when the ministry will grow and become more stable financially at this point it seems that there is a need for individuals of good will as well as our denomination to provide some pastoral support as well as development funding. Any readers who would like to contribute can send contributions to the Presbytery of Southern New England, 123 Elm Street, # 200, Old Saybrook, CT 06475 and indicate that the funds are for the Tumaini fellowship.

2008-02-20T13:55:00.003-05:00

Hannah Celebrates a Second Birthday

We went to our daughter's to celebrate Hannah's Second Birthday last weekend. Beside her parents her sister Abby was there, along with Papa Tony and Mami Myra and cousin Chantel.

We took loads of pictures, click here to see the whole set.

2008-02-14T09:36:00.002-05:00

THE VALUE OF ONE

Our session sent two overtures to the Presbytery meeting held February 9 in Fall River, MA. Both were requests that the Presbytery send an overture to the General Assembly to change the constitution of our denomination to make it more welcoming to GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender) people. Both were defeated, one on a tie vote. If only ONE more supportive person had made the long trip to Fall River, or ONE more supportive person who did attend had stayed until the overtures were voted on instead of leaving at the lunch break the motion would have passed. Why didn’t it happen?

I think in our mass society people have come to think of themselves as unimportant. What difference would my ONE more vote make? It is the same reason people do not go to the polls for elections. Only a few more Democratic voters voting in Florida (without hanging chads) would have changed the course of the 2000 election, perhaps would prevented U.S. intervention in Iraq, and prevented all of the injuries and deaths suffered by our armed forces and the people of Iraq. How can we believe that our ONE vote is unimportant?

We think my ONE can of beans, my ONE can of baby formula, my ONE pound of rice doesn’t matter when the food pantry hands out tons of food each year, but ONE can or ONE pound is very important to the ONE person who receives that food to feed her family.

An important message of the Gospel is that every ONE was important to Jesus. He did preach and teach crowds, but he also took time to meet and teach individuals, to touch and heal individuals. There is no indication that Jesus ever did mass healings, he always dealt with people ONE by ONE, in most cases laying his hands on individuals in need. Nicodemus was ONE person, the woman at the well was ONE person, and the man born blind was a single individual. When he dealt with the family in Bethany he met with Martha individually, then he talked personally to Mary, then he went to the grave yard and called Lazarus by name. If he had only called: “come out!” every grave in the cemetery might have erupted; he cried “Lazarus, come out!” When he was raised he first met with ONE woman, Mary, in the grave yard. ONE disciple, Thomas, was missing when Jesus appeared to them in the upper room. He came back to the upper room the next first day to meet with the ONE doubter.

Jesus is the good shepherd who goes out in the night to seek the ONE sheep that is lost, and seeks until he finds the ONE missing sheep. John 3:16 says that God so loved the world, and then goes on to speak of whosoever, what ever ONE individual, believes in his shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

Every ONE of our church members is important, not just the largest givers, not just the officers, not just the most involved members, but every ONE is important. Every ONE’S opinion is important, not just the opinions of those in the majority.

God loves every ONE of us with an everlasting love. God loves you with an everlasting love. If you were the only person in the world in need of salvation Jesus would have lived and died and risen again for you. Every ONE matters, every vote counts, the family of God is not complete when ONE is missing or unwelcomed or unincluded.

Yours in Love
Pastor Terry

2008-02-11T10:22:00.000-05:00

Presbytery rejects welcoming overtures

The session (governing body) of First Presbyterian Church, Hartford endorsed a proposal from the First Presbyterian Chuch in New Haven to alter language presently in the denominational constitution which requires ministers, elders and deacons to live in fidelity in marriage between a man and woman or chastity in singleness. The change would allow Churches to ordain GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) people as elders and deacons, and Presbyteries to ordian GLBT people as ministers.

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On a twice counted vote the proposal failed to pass our regional governing body, the Presbytery of Southern New England on a tie vote. If just one more person supporting the proposal had made the trip to Fall River, MA the overture could have prevailed. Many people left the meeting at lunch before the vote was taken and one of our elders believes if we had voted before lunch the results would have been favorable.

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One more problem with the voting was that we dismissed one of our Churches to another denomination before lunch, but since the action was taken pending their reception into the other denomination their representatives were allowed to vote (and they all voted NO). Likewise new ministers who were received pending their dismissal from other Presbyteries were not allowed to vote. at least one of whom would have voted with us.

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Our session sent a second proposal (we call them overtures) to change a few words in four paragraphs in the directory for worship that would treat same sex couples in the same way as opposite sex couples when it comes to marriage and blessing civil unions. That proposal failed by a margin of ten votes, my memory is the vote was 42 to 52.

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I find this very discouraging. On at least two previous occasions the presbytery passed similar overtures to change the constitution by margins of 60%. Each time the change was rejected by the General Assembly. This was the first time the body had considered the marriage overture.

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It is extremely troubling to my conscience to belong to a denomination that is so intollerant and unwilling to welcome GLBT people as full equals and leaders in the Church. The Lord I serve through Jesus Christ certainly loves all of us and welcomes all people into the family of God. I have resisted changing to another denomination feeling that the only way to change this Church, which has so many good qualities, is to work from the inside. It took years and years to change the policy on women ministers, but we just celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of that change. At this point it seems doubtful that I will ever see the change while I am still in active ministry (I intend to retire in January 09), and I wonder if it will happen in my life time.

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The woman who presented the marriage overture on our behalf is herself in a civil union with her partner of fifteen years was very personally hurt and says she will never attend Presbytery again. She did not come to Church either on Sunday morning. She is one of our most outstanding leaders, giving herself to many of our ministries, heading the revitalization committee for the Church. She and her partner are generous supporters of our Church and its outreach to the poor and needy.

2008-02-07T13:49:00.000-05:00

Remarks to Legislative Prayer Breakfast

The Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance (IMA) and the Greater Hartford Coalition for Equity and Justice co sponsored a prayer breakfast for Connecticut legislators on the second day of the session.

I was asked to talk about the ICEJ issues, and then get out of the way for a major presentation on youth violence. The press conference ended with a challenge to clergy and legislators to pledge to give as much attention to the 33 murders in Hartford as has already been given to 3 murders in Cheshire.

Here is the text of my remarks:

Remarks delivered at Legislative Prayer Breakfast February 7, 2008
By Terry Davis

I have been asked to speak briefly about work of the Greater Hartford Interfaith Coalition for Equity and Justice, and about those issues that have been and continue to be our primary concern. Most of you are familiar with the Interfaith Coalition which represents 32 Churches joined together to be A Faith Movement Acting For a Just Society.

One year ago we had great optimism that we were going to see progress on our legislative agenda which includes passage of a state Earned Income Tax Credit, improvements in our system of healthcare which move toward a universal healthcare system, and major improvements in the funding of public education including moving toward making preschool and head start programs available to all of the children of this state.

I must say that at the conclusion of the last budget we felt universal disappointment and more than a few of us felt some anger for the legislative failure to move this agenda forward.

Our keenest disappointment was the failure to enact the EITC. Prior to the final budget negotiations the passage of this much needed bill seemed assured, but when the legislative leaders went behind closed doors to hammer out a budget they came out with a budget that did not include the Earned Income Tax Credit. We frankly felt more than disappointment about the failure to provide this small benefit for the working poor. The working poor pay a much higher percentage of their meager incomes in taxes than any other segment of society. Even those who pay no income taxes still pay social security tax, sales taxes, gasoline taxes and property taxes. Many people are under the illusion that renters avoid paying property taxes, but let me assure you every landlord includes the cost of property taxes in the lease price for their apartments.

The EITC is not charity, but justice for the poor, and we expect this legislature this year to enact this into law and into the budget. We are pleased to see it put forth as part of an economic stimulus package, but I want to say to you that the working poor have needed economic stimulus long before the middle class knew we were headed into an economic downturn.

Everyone knows that the present health care system is broken from the presidential candidates down to those who personally go without medical care or who are forced into bankruptcy because of their medical bills. We need a system that is universal, accessible, affordable, and of high quality and further we know that the system must be sustainable. Improvements to the Husky program are important, but we remain a world away from these goals.

We are here today to describe a great healthcare crisis involving urban violence, but you will see us back here pressing for the balance of our agenda as well.

2008-02-07T13:30:00.001-05:00

ASH WEDNESDAY

We had services in the morning with other congregations from Hands on Hartford. I brought the homily or meditation for this morning service which follows.

Lent of course begins today and when the average Christian thinks of lent we tend to think about what we will give up for Lent. Some Churches have carefully defined rules about Lenten fasting, but the trend is much more toward leaving it to the believer to search her or his own heart and to make some sort of sacrifice as a spiritual discipline.

The more I come into contact with our Muslim brothers and sisters the more I am impressed that they take the matter of fasting much more seriously than we Christians do. During the month or Ramadan they fast every day from any food or drink during the hours between sun up and sun down. I assure you that during this kind of fasting they become keenly aware of what hunger really is. They claim this is a spiritual discipline and that it brings them into solidarity with the poor and needy of the world who know hunger on a daily basis. Some members of our community will also engage in significant fasting by living for days, or weeks or even a whole month on a food stamp budget of $4.00 a day for food.

But the rest of us do well to decide what we will give up for Lent. One person says they are going to give up red meat for some or all of Lent’s 40 days, another will give up chocolate or perhaps even give up sweets altogether, some people will try to give up smoking or give up using beverage alcohol during lent. Many of us who have good intentions at the beginning of Lent find that our resolve has weakened long before Easter arrives, just as happens with our new year’s resolutions.

I suggested in my Lenten pastor’s column that if we took seriously the Isaiah passage we read for our call to worship we would not be fasting from food or drink, but we would give up narrow mindedness and prejudice; we would give up looking down on other people who are different from us; we would give up every jealousy and hatred. I asked our members and I ask you now to suppose we were to give up complaining and criticizing and instead resolve to do an act of kindness each day. Just think if we did 40 new acts of kindness, it might become habitual!

I believe my sisters and brothers in Christ that if we are really gong to grow in our faith during this Lenten season we need to go beyond giving up anything and instead begin to develop some new habits of faith.

If our Lenten discipline is only about “giving up” then we may end up like the soul from whom the unclean spirit was cast out. This person failed to bring anything new into the heart and as a result the unclean spirit moved back into the empty house along with seven others and the last state was worse than the former. I believe this a part of the reason that Alcoholics Anonymous and similar 12 step programs work. The AA member does not only try to evict drinking from his or her life, but puts something new and positive in its place. Going to meetings and drinking coffee takes the place of going to the bar and drinking. Instead of a drinking buddy you now have a sponsor. Self destructive behavior is replaced by working the program.

Giving up food is not enough; we need to share our food with the poor and needy. Giving up indifference to others as well as hatred and prejudice is not enough, we need to replace indifference, hatred and prejudice with love and empathy and kindness.

We need to give up complaining about how bad our Church is how bad our schools are, how bad the economy is and instead rolls up our sleeves and work for the coming of that kingdom where justice rolls down like waters and righteousness flows like an ever rolling stream. We need to be willing to go into failing schools and be willing to mentor our community’s children. We need to work tirelessly to change the failed policies of division and to work for reconciliation among people and nations, beginning in our own neighborhoods and communities.

Let us move beyond “giving up” and instead in this Lenten season to consider what new habits and disciplines we will cultivate that will bring us into a new relationship with our neighbors and with our God. When we do this then our light shall rise in the darkness and our gloom be like the noonday.

When we dedicate ourselves to rebuilding community and rebuilding lives in our city then our ruins shall be rebuilt; and this community in Christ shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

Here are a few pictures taken before the evening service.

Evening service included the imposition of ashes, a fellowship meal in the midst of the service, a sermon by Evan Harrison, Warburton Urban Resident with Hands on Hartford, and communion around the tables.

Evan, who attended the meal with his wife Emily, is a Presbyterian Candidate for ministry, a graduate of Louisville Presbyterian Seminary.

2008-01-07T16:11:00.000-05:00

Christmas is special with family and friends.

We did arrive on Christmas Day in time to see the girls open their presents, including the ones we brought. Here are more pictures of the grandbabies.

I was interested to receive a shocked note from someone questioning why I posted my astrological sign on this blog; the person said I needed to check my faith. I deleted the email instead or replying, but later thought that if it were not for astrology, the belief that the stars fortold events on earth there would have been no wise men come to visit the Baby Jesus. They were astrologers and a star led them to the one born king of the Jews.

Maybe my critic should check his faith!

Last Friday I reached the age of 65, the beginning of the golden years. I can't say I really feel any differently except it means I will retire in one more year. That is a happy thought.

2007-12-19T10:38:00.000-05:00

LATE DECEMBER THOUGHTS

First Presbyterian Church has a candlelight communion service on Christmas Eve, always a beautiful and moving service. I never preach, instead I share a Christmas Story; this year I will read Great Joy by Kate DiCamillo. What I do is go to a bookstore and read the new children's Christmas stories, when one brings tears to my eyes that is the one I will read this year.

We will travel on Christmas Day, as early as we can, to be with our family, especially our grandaughters, for Christmas. We will also visit with friends in North Carolina and then return to our daughter's home on the way back to Connecticut. I will be back preaching for Epiphany, Three Kings Day, January 6.

Here are the pictures we took at Thanksgiving.

Here are the thoughts I wrote yesterday as first thoughts for the January Newsletter.

We don’t really know the date of Jesus’ birth although it is unlikely that it was in midwinter because that is the one season of year when the shepherds do not abide in the fields keeping watch over their flocks by night. It is widely believed that when the Christians sought a time to celebrate the savior’s birth they chose midwinter because the pagans in whose midst they lived celebrated the solstice, or as the Romans called it the Saturnalia at this time. In many cultures the shortest day of the year of the year is celebrated, with great partying because it marks the date when the days no longer get shorter, but instead begin to lengthen. The return of light and warmth is a time of great joy for those of us who love the warmth of summer, and for those whose livelihood depends on growing crops. It was possible for Christians to celebrate Jesus birth unnoticed at this time of year, their pagan neighbors would have thought that they were joining in the general celebrating and partying going on in honor of the season.

Although the date we celebrate for Christmas may be somewhat arbitrary it seems a wonderful time to celebrate the incarnation of one who is the light of the world. One of the prophesies we read in Advent says: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness-- on them light has shined.” (Isaiah 9:2) The Gospel of John says: “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us... “ (John 1:9-14)

On Christmas Eve we end our service by filling the sanctuary with candlelight as the fire is passed from one to another, and we are invited to carry our light out in the world that we also might shine as lights in the darkness. I believe that it was Father Christopher who said that it is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. Christmas is only the beginning of the season of light, because we move on to celebrate the revealing of the light of Christ to the Gentiles, then the Baptism of Jesus, and onward with the message about the light that shines in the darkness which the darkness cannot overcome.

My prayer for you as we begin this new year is that the light of Christ may shine in your life bringing you peace and comfort, inspiration and direction, and strength for the journey of life. I also pray that each of us may be at work bringing light to our dark world. St Francis prayed that where there is darkness he might sow light. Let his prayer be a gift to each of us in this season of light.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

2007-11-26T21:35:00.000-05:00

HARVEST PICTURES

Can't believe that it has been two months since I have made an entry. Here are pictures from the Harvest Festival.

Our family joined us for Thanksgiving, I will upload pictures tomorrow and put a link here.

2007-09-25T15:57:00.000-04:00

HARVEST - A MULTICULTURAL CELEBRATION

On October 7, 2007 as the Christian Church worldwide celebrates World Communion Sunday we at First Presbyterian Church will also be celebrating HARVEST. Almost every cultural community in the world that engages in agriculture has some sort of Harvest Celebration to give thanks to the creator for the gifts of the earth. Our Multicultural Team found that our Jamaican Members and our Ghanaian members had a similar tradition of bringing a portion of the crops they grow to Church for Harvest Celebration where they are displayed in the sanctuary and then sold or auctioned to raise money for the Church. We will be doing the same thing, except that the profits from the sale of the donated produce will be used to help feed impoverished people in Hartford through MANNA, a program of Hands on Hartford (formerly Center City Churches).

In the Presbyterian Church we also receive an Offering for Peacemaking on this Sunday.

Come and join us on this or any other Sunday at 10:30 AM. First Presbyterian Church

2007-09-19T14:59:00.000-04:00

TOO MUCH HAPPENING

Wow, it has been a while since I wrote, not because nothing is happening but so much is that I have hardly had time to think about it, much less write about it.

Last Weekend was Presbytery in Fairfield, this weekend we will travel to Stamford where my Niece Nicole recently moved, my sister Nancy and her husband will be visiting and we will all do lunch together.

The summer doldrums are really over at Church. On September 30 we will have a nationally known speaker and leader in the inclusive church movement, Michael Adee, to bring our sermon and also to present an adult forum. His title for the forum is "Is there Room in the Gospel & Church for Gays?" Click here for his bio and information about the day.

Also Just announced: we will be traveling to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi for an inter generational mission trip to aid with Katrina Recovery. The trip will be in February and already 22 people are signed up. We are inviting anyone who wants to help to join up, we will make all arrangements and take care of modest accommodations and travel. As a bonus for working four days we will have a day to enjoy the recovering city of New Orleans, the Big Easy. All the details here. Want more information still or want to sign up, call First Presbyterian Church at 860 246-2224.

Check back tomorrow and I hope to have information on HARVEST, a multicultural celebration at First Presbyterian Church on October 7, 2007.

2007-09-04T15:59:00.000-04:00

Evangelism Conference

Over the Labor Day weekend I attended the National Evangelism Conference of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The setting was the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center in Nashville Tennessee. They claim that this is the largest hotel in the United States. I must say that it was a beautiful setting with all its indoor gardens under three huge domes; the facilities for our meetings were very nice. Getting around was a challenge to those with mobility limits. I walked over 6 miles every day getting from room to meeting place, to restaurants, back to room, etc. Although it was possible to get to all the rooms and meetings by wheelchair it meant some circuitous routes to take ramps and elevators.

More pictures I took at the Conference.

It also seemed to be inappropriate for a Church group living in an awareness of the fact that two thirds of the world's people do not have enough to eat to meet in a place that I would describe as a temple to consumerism. I actually used the word obscene to describe my reaction to the great expense it takes to maintain the tropical gardens. It was not that the costs to participants were so outrageous, I probably paid as much for a room in a second class hotel in New York City at the multicultural conference several years ago. It is the total cost of maintaining this luxury facility, the carbon foot print something like this must occupy, and the isolation from the poor. Even in the most luxurious hotel in a major city the poor at visible when you step out into the streets. Here the impoverished were miles away in the city.

I was shocked not just how luxurious and isolated this was, but how quickly I became acclimated to this level of luxury, hardly thinking about the level of excess I was experiencing.

As for the conference I thought there were many good things going on. Jim Wallace from Sojourners magazine spoke on the first night, (read Presbyterian News Service Article) we had some great preachers. A two and a half hour worship service with communion seemed a little over the top, and then the preacher was far from the best that the conference presented. Although most of the music was not my style it was impressive and appealing to a younger generation. One of the most impressive services was with the Hot Metal Connection faith community leading. The co pastors presented the sermon barefooted, jeans and a tee shirt, holding a fishing net and engaging in dialogue between Peter and Andrew. They were wonderfully gifted and very thought provoking. It was the first event of the conference and for me the highlight of the conference. I went to four workshops, three either good or excellent, the last so boring that I could not stay for more than one hour of a 90 minute workshop.

2007-09-04T11:59:00.000-04:00

A very slippery slope

One of my seminary professors shared this story with us about why his family left Germany. One day as his neighbor was preparing dinner she grabbed one of her chickens and stretched out its neck on a tree stump in the yard and as she cut off its head she said "I wish this was Hitler." The next day she was arrested and never seen again.

Is this not the frightening bottom of the slippery slope down which we are falling when a federal Judge rules that a school can discipline a girl for using a common vulgar insult in reference to school officials in a blog entry posted from her home computer. Read the story What happened to the Constitution and freedom of speech?

2007-08-29T11:39:00.000-04:00

FIRE THE PRESIDENT? WHY NOT? NO CORPORATE BOARD WOULD TOLERATE A CHIEF EXECUTIVE WHO IS AS INCOMPETANT AS BUSH. Read an opinion piece from the Christian Schence Monitor.

2007-08-29T11:02:00.000-04:00

I'M BACK - LOOK AT OUR NEW GRANDAUGHTER, Abigail was born July 2, 2007; this picture was taken at 6 weeks.

I know it is more than a month since my last entry, but we have been away to visit our family in Sterling, Virginia and Friends in North Carolina. Here are some pictures that I took. We did lots of reading, lots of loving the grandbabies, and enjoyed the beach on Holden Beach, the shrimp and the relaxed life near the shore of North Carolina.

I am off to Nashville on Friday for an Evangelism Conference and promise to actually write about something when I get back.

2007-07-24T14:19:00.000-04:00

Saturday we went to a matinee performance of Eve Ensler’s new play, “The Good Body”. This production at Hartford Stage does not feature Eve herself as an actor, but instead Brigitte Viellieu-Davis plays Ensler, with two other actresses - Erica Bradshaw and Judith Delgado - taking on multiple parts. It was a sparsely attended performance, although having never attended a Saturday Matinee I don’t know if this is typical or not. I did note that as a man I was in a definite minority. For a long time I was the only man in the theater; by the time the play began there were still less than three dozen of us. This was probably more men than I saw at the production of “The Vagina Monologues” in the much larger Belding Theater at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts.

Both Kathleen and I enjoyed the play immensely, it is about women’s body image from the point of view of Eve whose problem is her stomach which is not as flat as she wants, and dozens of other women from across the world who tell her their stories about their own special body part (or parts) with which they are unsatisfied and what they are doing about it. I particularly loved the Indian woman who finally kicked Eve off the treadmill. She told her she did not use the machine to loose her “jolly” (that is her fat) but because it gave her so much more energy for living. She tells Eve “We are all trees, be your own tree.” Eve seems to embrace this advice and tells her husband who travels half way around the world to be with her that she is a tree. He tells her he loves her tree and tells her several good things he loves about her tree, including that it is “sturdy.” “What do you mean, are you saying I’m fat”, and she is off again; he gives up and goes home.

I guess I can identify with her problem with her stomach since I have an issue with mine. My wife does not completely love and embrace this part of my tree. Sturdy is not the word she uses, rather she has said on several occasions that I look pregnant. Anyway it was fun, enjoyable, and hopefully good for every one who sees it.

Read a review of this production in the Hartford Courant or from the New York Times where it was published just last Sunday in the Connecticut Section.

2007-07-19T11:23:00.000-04:00

Letty Russell, Family Visit, Picnic and Consultation.

I was much saddened to learn about the death of Letty Russell who has had a tremendous impact on the Presbyterian Church and particularly on the lives of women and LGBT folks. More Light Presbyterians has a nice tribute to her on their website, click here to read this. She served as co-chair of Presbyterian Promise here in this Presbytery for a while and was also active with Love Makes a Family. It was always a pleasure to be in her home for either business or social events.

Last week Kathleen and I had the chance to visit with our family including our newest granddaughter who was born on July 2, 2007. Here are some more pictures of her and her sister.

Last Sunday the Youth of our Church hosted a Picnic on the Church Lawn as a fund raiser for their mission trip to San Antonio, Texas (They leave on Saturday). Here are some more pictures.

And finally, playing catch up after not updating for a while, we had an exciting meeting of our Church leadership on Tuesday night. Twenty three folks attended this beginning event for an 18 month consultation/partnership with our Presbytery to look at the future of First Presbyterian Church, particularly in light of my retirement in a year and a half, and our growing realization that unless some radical changes take place we will have exhausted the unrestricted portion of our endowment in less than ten years. There was a lot of positive energy and hope, and people seemed gratified to hear our Presbytery executive talk about the strengths and the importance of this particular Church in the Capital of the state. (He didn't even mention that we were also the oldest continuously operating Presbyterian Church in the state.)

2007-07-02T11:10:00.000-04:00

NEW GRANDAUGHTER

Our new granddaughter Abigail Ann Thormes arrived this morning at 5 AM. She weighed seven pounds five ounces and is 20 incles long. Here is a picture her father sent from his cell phone.

Her sister Hannah Marie also had some pictures taken last week. Click here to view them.

2007-06-28T15:54:00.000-04:00

Theology for Liberal Presbyterians and Other Endangered Species, by Douglas Ottati, professor of theology at Union/PSCE in Richmond, VA.

The title sounded very promising when Lois sent me a note on the book, but it was really a dull read. Not that I disagreed with the author, I was in agreement with him practically every step of the way. He talks about the centrality of grace in reformed theology and how a grace centered theology leads to acceptance for all people because God has accepted all of us sinners in his marvelous grace.

Here is a paragraph that I am totally in agreement with: “We belong to the God of grace. Once we are clear about this, a number of things follow. First we live in assurance, refuse to set limits on the extent of God’s faithfulness, and refuse to exclude anyone from the scope of Grace and redemption. We then work for an inclusive church, support a ministry of reconciliation, and invite everyone everywhere to lay hold of the assurance and confidence that come with the knowledge of a gracious God. Second we acknowledge the human fault and, without losing hope, maintain a realistic attitude toward the present age and its daunting challenges. Finally, we affirm that all people have worth, and we commit ourselves to public practices, policies, and leadership that respect persons, pursue equitable opportunities for the poor, and care for those in need.” (Page 20)

My problem is that it is dense writing, it lacks stories, real life examples, personal passion. Finding something I agree with is not the same as being interested in what is written.

Others may have a totally different reaction to his writing style.

It is solid theologically, although I am sure that the right wing of the Church would like to label him as a heritic. That would be a hard charge to sustain since he bases his theological conclusions on the very mainstream documents of the Presbyterian Church, the such as the Heidelberg Catechism, the Confession of 1967, the Book of Common Worship.

An A for theology, hardly above a D for entertainment value. I suppose some people might have the same comment about my sermons.

Going back to the quotation above, it does highlight a problem I have been having, maintaining hope, hope for an end to the sensless war in Iraq, hope for making significant changes in our state (see my blog for yesterday), hope for changing the Presbyterian Church into a truly accepting community for all people.

Here are a few paragraphs I wrote to a friend earlier today in regard to my frustration with the past legislative session.

I hear you when you say we built relationships, we got people thinking about our ideas, we laid the groundwork for success in the future. It is what I have been telling myself for the past 50 years of political advocacy. Some day our efforts will bear fruit. Next year in Jerusalem.

My problem is that as my career comes to an end I have a greater and greater difficulty in believing what I keep telling myself. There are times when I think perhaps my Communist friends from years ago were right that we need a revolution, not simply more effective advocacy.

The whole direction of our country is wrong, our civil liberties are being eroded, the power of the few is growing greater and greater and the power of the people is shrinking. Is it really possible for this or any citizens group interested in justice to really impact the legislature in the face of established power and special interests?

While we could not win for the working poor a few hundred dollars a year in earned income tax credits this is what is happening at the other end of the income scale. http://www.courant.com/business/hc-worldwealth0628.artjun28,0,483148.story

Is the ballot box the way to change our state, our country, our world? The country effectively voted to end the war in Iraq, we expressed our national lack of confidence in the president and the Republican Majority, but the war rages on with 30,000 more troops in harms way and the body count rising every month.

Throw the tea in the harbor, over turn king George, storm the Bastille, remember Stonewall, end apartheid now!

Maybe I will be less frustrated next week and more optimistic about the success or legislative advocacy; or maybe not.

2007-06-27T15:28:00.000-04:00

The 2007 session of the Connecticut legislature has come close to being an utter and complete disappointment. Considering the fact that the democratic party (supposedly the left or liberal party, in a reportedly liberal state) had a veto proof majority in both the house and the senate virtually no part of the liberal agenda moved very far forward. Click on the headings below for my take on the major issues. [All of these issues except the same gender marriage issue were identified by ICEJ as high priority issues.]

Tax Reform
Immigration Issues
Healthcare Reform
Education Issues
Same Gender Marriage
A Cynical View

The gold coast legislators sided with the republicans on the issues of tax reform; we have to do everything we can to help the rich get richer and pay less taxes while the middle and lower class rate payers get stuck with the bill. The complaint is made that progressive income taxes and the inheritance tax confiscate the wealth of the most affluent members of society. Well yes they do. Isn’t that what we should be doing; narrowing the gaps between the haves and the have nots? It is certainly the Biblical ethic beginning with the Jewish law of the Jubilee. Under the law of Moses in the year of Jubilee (See Leviticus 25 and 26), each 49th or 50th year, all land was to return to the families that originally owned it, all debts were cancelled. It is the divine plan for redistributing wealth; the divine plan for land reform. (This law was of course proclaimed in a time when wealth consisted primarily of property, not stocks and bonds and precious metals). Conservative religious people who are so eager to uphold the ten commandments and the holiness code might ask themselves why they are not supporting laws to confiscate excessive wealth and redistribute it to the poor.

Score the legislature as a total failure on significant tax reform; the progressive income tax was defeated. It looked as though progressive legislators might preserve the state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) if they were willing to roll back or abolish the estate tax on estates over $2 Million Dollars. That was a draconian compromise, but in the end it was lost also.

Score one for the legislature for passing a bill that granted a few hundred undocumented immigrant children the right to pay the same tuition that other state residents pay at state universities. These are children whose parents are undocumented, but who have been living long term in the state, in many cases not even knowing that their status was not copasetic. (Anti immigrant agitators like to talk about these people as illegal immigrants. In the first place it is not a crime but a civil offense to be here with out documentation. Second the illegal term implies that all these people snuck in to this country by violating the law; many of them came here legally as tourists or other visitors, students, etc. but stayed after their visas expired. Others were here legally as spouses of US citizens or permanent legal residents and may not have even been aware that their status changed when they were divorced.) Unfortunately although the legislature passed this progressive measure the margin was slim and our wonderful and popular governor vetoed the bill. Put a black mark next to her name.

Healthcare reform seemed off to a hopeful start with State Senate President Pro Tempore Donald E. Williams, Jr. being a primary champion for universal healthcare in Connecticut. In the end all that was accomplished was to increase the compensation rate for healthcare providers under the Husky Plan. (Of course that is significant since the rates were so low that many impoverished children had limited access to doctors for non-emergency care, and no access to dental healthcare.) But the hopes of Don Williams, Healthcare for All, the ICEJ and so many other groups for significant progress were sadly disappointed.

What was accomplished? There is significant new money for education in the budget, but whether this will mean more money for the public schools in most districts remains to be seen. The governor’s education package was touted as giving a tax break to the cities; the state will give cities more money for education so the cities do not need to impose such high property taxes to pay for education. Every one wants property tax relief, but is the almost flat rate state income tax that much more desirable as a revenue source? What is positive about the shift in who pays for education is that the same tax base will be supporting the schools in every town. Without the new state money impoverished (i.e. low total property value) districts like Hartford simply lack the revenue to provide support for the high cost of educating underperforming students. Score the legislature a partial success in the educational field. (On the other hand are we doing all we can, and need to do to move toward universal access to preschool.)

The bill creating same gender marriages in Connecticut seemed to be off to a good start when the joint Judiciary Committee passed it by a much larger majority than even the most optimistic supporters expected. Unfortunately the Governor, bless her small minded heart, promised to veto it. The Leadership of the Judiciary Committee counted the votes and were uncertain about having a majority in both houses, and were certain that the votes were not there to override the veto so withdrew the bill before it ever came to the floor in either house. While this is considered a better strategy than bringing up the bill and seeing it either defeated or vetoed I am not sure it is a moral strategy.

One of the most dismaying facts about the Connecticut Legislature is that it is still dominated by an entrenched leadership and a incompetent and unprogressive governor. During the session everything is so democratic and open with public hearings and debate on every issue of importance, with everything exposed to the light, everything open the public scrutiny. Then the session ends with no budget, no tax plan and no spending plan, and the key leaders get together totally in secret and decide what is going to happen with state spending, then the legislature convenes and rubber stamps what the leadership has decided, without even knowing what is in the budget in most cases. Why have the 6 month long session? Just let the governor and a few other folks make the decisions and then call a session to rubber stamp everything. No matter how successfully I lobby my representative and senator, it doesn’t make a dimes worth of difference.

2007-06-21T11:24:00.000-04:00

Running with Scissors and A Thousand Splendid Suns both engaging reads.

I finished Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs while we were in Virginia and found it hard to put down. It is a memoir, so apparently true account of his very sick and warped childhood. Actually in the midst of a most chaotic situation he maintained a relative sanity; which is totally amazing considering that his crazy mother gave him over to the care of her psychiatrist, who was crazier than a loon. Meanwhile Augusten is coping with his sexuality at the time of his puberty. He says that he has known all his life that he was gay, but of course at puberty this translates into first experiences with other men. The totally uninhibited atmosphere in the Finch household may have made it easier for him to cope with his sexuality than if he had been in a repressive home atmosphere.

Taken in isolation most every chapter is outrageously funny, but at the same time knowing that it is not fiction but a memoir gives a poignancy to the most hilarious situations.

It is really worth reading, and I totally understand why it was made into a major motion picture. I would like to read his second book, Dry. There is a one chapter excerpt in the back of the paperback edition of Running with Scissors which I read; but I resisted the urge to read the teaser, knowing I would be frustrated by having my appetite stirred up, but then having to wait for satisfaction.

Before reading Burroughs book I finished A Thousand Splendid Suns, a second book by Khaled Hosseini. His first book, The Kite Runner, was a best seller and I am sure that this one will be too. (Just checked the New York Times and found it was number one on the hardcover fiction best seller list.) Read the NYT review of the book. You may need to register with the NYT, but it is quick and painless and free.

Like his first book this one follows the life of one family with the very prominent backdrop of Afghan culture and recent history. Over the course of the book the lives of the two women, who come to be married to the same man first and best friends later, move through the changes with the take over of the Mujaheem, then the Taliban, The Russian Occupation, the return of the Taliban, and then the American Invasion. The repression of women is a major theme in the book including a celebration of the relative freedom of women in Kabul when we first experience this city and the total repression of women (and everyone) by the Taliban.

It is a complicated family drama with many twists and turns along the way, it was a page turner that I thoroughly enjoyed.

What have you been reading? I am always interested in knowing what my readers (assuming I have any) are reading and how you are enjoying your reading? Recommendations for my summer vacation?

2007-06-20T13:54:00.001-04:00

We visit the family.

We had an opportunity to travel last weekend to Sterling Virginia to visit with our family there, and particularly to see our now 16 month old Grand daughter Hannah Marie. We took some pictures which you can see.

Hannah is expecting a new baby sister, Abigail Ann on or before July 1. We will be back to see them in the middle of July. The Father's parents will be with them for this birth.

2007-06-13T14:05:00.000-04:00

Nightingale sang a disappointing song.

The last time I saw a drama at Hartford Stage I said that it exceeded my expectations because I usually have low expectations for one actor plays. Last Sunday I reverted to my normal opinion of one actor plays. My reaction to Lynn Redgrave’s play was to fall asleep. Repeatedly. Kathleen was vigilant to wake me before I started snoring (I think).

The play, Nightingale, which was written and performed by Lynn Redgrave, is the story of her grandmother’s life, or more accurately Lynn’s imagination of what her grandmother’s life must have like. The story was at least moderately interesting and does reflect “what challenges an English woman born at the end of the nineteenth century might face.” (from Stage notes by Christopher Baker.) Unfortunately it was a very ordinary and sheltered life, and just not that very interesting.

The critic in the Hartfort Courant thought that the acting was stronger than the play. Click here for review. I thought the opposite, I thought that Lynn’s acting was abasmyl. Her voice droned on and on with very little variation, this is what I found most deadly. James Lecesne in I am My Own Wife was a master of dozens of voices, it seemed like there was a cast of several dozen playing out the drama, but Sunday night it was only Lynn droning on and on.

Of course that is only my opinion, Kathleen enjoyed the play greatly, and a lot of people were quickly on their feet for a standing ovation when the play was over. Needless to say I was not one of them. I also noticed several people who left in the middle of the 90 minute performance. There were no intermissions.

They did have a “High Tea” and Jewelry exposition/sale in the upstairs lobby before the show. I thought the difference between High Tea and just Tea was that High Tea had more substantial food, well I was glad that we had eaten a late lunch before the theater, although everything that I ate was quite tasty, just very dainty. I don’t know if this was a one night event by invitation to theater goers on this particular night, or if it also happened for other performances. We did see some interesting work and met one of the artisans who was quite talkative and we discovered that we had a mutual friend. Kathleen asked the price on one of her pieces because the little price tag was hard to read. Kathleen thought it said $65, but discovered that it said $650. Needless to say she did not get it as a belated anniversary present.

2007-06-12T14:40:00.000-04:00

Youth have a message to bring.

On this past Sunday morning at First Presbyterian Church the children and youth were in charge of the whole service. They did a wonderful job, thought those of you who are part of the Church would want to see the pictures. Click here and enjoy.

2007-06-06T15:04:00.000-04:00

The Walk Against Hunger this year was a tremendous success.

That's Me with Gloria McAdam, executive of Foodshare receiving my certificate. More Pictures from the Award celebration. I personally raised $1250, $100 was redistributed to other First Pres walkers so some of our younger walkers could receive a prize.

The total raised by Team First Presbyterian for the Walk Against Hunger was over $11,400!

Once again, First Presbyterian's walkers and contributors outdid themselves in helping Hartford's hungry people. Led financially by a fabulous showing from Holly Billings and Pastor Terry Davis, FPC raised $5300 dollars more than last year's not insubstantial effort and was well represented when eighteen members and friends cruised through the sunshine in Hartford's West End. Based on the on line fundraising totals we believed that Holly Billings was the top individual fund raiser and that First Presbyterian Church was on top of the list of faith organizations. At the awards presentation we discovered that one or two other individuals raised more over all than Holly’s $6100 plus. With $15,621 in gifts the team from St. Patrick St. Anthony parish (With a much larger congregation) bested First Presbyterian Church.
Thanks to all of our members who again so amply supported the FPC team!. Thanks again to Keith Rhoden, Barb Yates, Sue Jungi, Deb Meadows, Terry Davis, Carl and Shirley Dudley, Pauline Robertson, Holly Billings, Lois Maxwell, Saundra Spinelli, Marissa Cort, Esther Darko, Solana Gadson, Rusty, Grant, and Karen Spears, and George and Carolyn Blick for going out and asking their friends, neighbors, co-workers, and relatives to support this worthwhile cause. Special thanks as well to Marian Cooke for helping with the pre-walk luncheon as well as Robin Roberts for catapulting the team so far up the donor list.

For the second consecutive year, Center City Churches has been named the number one fundraiser among benefiting agencies with our 218 walkers amassing $60,090, the largest sum ever raised by a single agency. (Eighty percent of the gross total comes directly to the agency to support MANNA: 20 percent goes to Foodshare to support other Hartford-area food programs.) This distinction will bring a $500 bonus to the net total, with contributions are still being submitted to Foodshare in our name. Plus corporate matching gifts and contributions made directly to MANNA will take us over the top of the Walk Committee's s-t-r-e-t-c-h goal of $62,500!

Gloria McAdams, Executive Director of Foodshare reports on the overall results. In total, this year's Walk Against Hunger raised $442,000! A full 10% above last year's results of $400,000 and well over our goal of $430,000! Congratulations and thank you to everyone who made that happen!

2007-06-05T12:17:00.000-04:00

CT Legislature draws to a close with unfinished work. Books I have and am reading.

In less that 48 hours the Connecticut legislature will adjourn as required by law, with much of their work still unfinished, including both the tax plan and the spending budget. I guess none of the Legislators mind coming back for a special session since they will be paid for the time they spend in the special session. I have always been surprised that the precedent which was common in Kentucky seems unknown in the northeast. When the statutory hour for ending the session drew near with the work incomplete it was common practice that the clocks in the legislative chambers were stopped so that officially midnight did not come until the work was complete.

What have you been reading lately? I am always interested in what is on other people’s reading list. I have recently completed The Children of Hurin, by J.R.R. Tolkien. The author has long since passed from this earth; his now aged son Christopher has pulled the book together from his father’s various writings, published and unpublished. I certainly enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I missed the Hobbits and Dwarves and Trolls; this book is concerned with the history of men in Middle Earth, along with the elves who did not make the great voyage to Valinor. There is one aged Dwarf remaining, but it is the later children of Iluvator (men) who are most involved in the conflict with the evil Morgoth and his armies of Orcs.

I also read a New York Times Bestseller, Labyrinth by Kate Mosse. Another of a number of books like The DaVinci Code that take their setting from legends of the Grail and alternate understandings of what the true Grail is. It is of course pure fiction set in Languedoc in southern France, but a very interesting page turner with an interesting theory to explain who were the heretics (variously known as Cathars, Bons Chetiens, or Albigensians) against whom the Pope declared a Crusade and who were the first objects of the inquisition.

I am now reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini whose first novel was the wonderfully popular The Kite Runner. I had printed out the coupon to buy the book at Borders Books and then failed to get there before the coupon expired. The next weekend in the Hartford Courant is an ad for a book signing by Hosseini at all places at BJ’s Wholesale Club. I am continually amazed at their selection of books, often including new releases and bestsellers, and the prices cannot be beat. Anyway I was enjoying the beginning of the book when we came to a new section labeled Book Two which picks up new characters 9 years later with no obvious relationship to the first story. I have gotten far enough to find the connection.

2007-06-01T10:29:00.000-04:00

Outdoor Art Installation on the grounds of the Hartford Insurance Company

Thursday, May 31, 2007 I walked over to the Hartford Insurance Company to see an Outdoor Art Installation entitled COEXISTANCE. The website describes it as “An International Outdoor Exhibition of Art and Words on Diversity, Tolerance & Acceptance Initiated and created by Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem, Raphie Etgar, Curator.

The huge images on canvas are varied, some are beautiful, most are provocative. I took pictures of a few of them. Lois sent me the information and said that you could see some of the art as you drive by on Asylum Street, but you really have to be on foot to see this. The canvases are stretched over three sided support structures. I had looked at most of the images before I realized that there was text below each of the canvases, quotations from a variety of people including the Dali Lama, John Lennon (Imagine), Khalil Gibran (On Giving), Archbishop Desmond Tutu and many more, all in multiple languages.

If you are used to walking you can certainly walk from the Church to the Hartford, it took me 1700 steps to make the trip back from the far end of the exhibition to the Church, this is a little less than a mile and the nice thing about the trip is that it is mostly downhill coming back to the Church. (Better to walk uphill at the beginning of your walk than at the end.) The heart association suggests all of us who are in reasonable health should walk five miles/ 10,000 steps a day; in the summer I do this on the average.

I am convinced that the only to really experience the city is on foot and I enjoy walking at midday in nice weather. Come walk with me; give me a call and we will walk together if I don’t have another midday appointment; we might even include lunch in our time together.

2007-05-31T09:22:00.000-04:00

Early Summer Beauty. Last Week's Picture of the Week. Ghanaian Lunch

It is a beautiful time of the year, pictured is a rose blooming on a little island in the midst of the Church parking lot. At home I think our Rhododendrons are fuller and more beautiful than they have ever been before. Our peonies are coming into bloom, one oriental poppy with three blooms at once is making a spectacular show, and I counted a dozen smaller poppies in bloom this morning.

Holly Billings finally identified the swords into plowshares sculpture as being located in front of Hartford City Hall. To the shame of city maintenance the base of the sculpture has been buried under soil and mulch so the inscription calling for an end to gang violence in the city can no longer be read. Today shootings seem more drug related than gang related, although some are simply personal beefs over being disrespected or arguments over a woman. In any case a plea against violence seems relevant and needed when there is at least one a week and often more.

On May 20 we had a guest preacher from Ghana, Dr. Elizabeth Amoah, and following service we had a festive Ghanaian lunch. Pictured above is myself surrounded by some of our very attractive members from Ghana, Francisca, Juliana and Yaa. We dedicated a first gift of $350 to the Salvation Army hospital in Anum, Ghana and received a free will offering of over $800 for continuation of the work of building a relationship with the homeland of so many of our members. More Pictures

Last Sunday the members who were doing the coffee hour had a beautiful cake decorated in honor of the 40th anniversary of my being ordained to the Gospel Ministry. My pretty wife took me to dinner at Abbotts in the Rough, the prime place in Connecticut for delicious lobster dinners while overlooking the Long Island Sound. One person wanted to order 2 seven pound Lobsters, but they only had one that large on that day. I was standing at the pick up counter while they were showing it to him. It would take several people with my appetite to deal with that baby.

2007-05-14T15:11:00.000-04:00

Same Sex Marriage - Picture of the week.

We have been publishing a picture of the week on the Church Web Site, all objects within walking distance of the Church. Do you know where this Biblically based Sculpture is located?

It was disappointing to read this morning that the proposal to recognize same sex marriage in Connecticut has been withdrawn for this session.
Story from CT News Junkie.
Comment from Love Makes a Family.
Those who count votes predicted that the bill would lose by a few votes in the House. We can be certain that the proposal will be back in the 2009 legislature, and likely that it will pass then.

2007-05-09T15:12:00.000-04:00

Walk Against Hunger

Sunday, May 6 was a beautiful day for the annual Walk Against Hunger. A couple of dozen members and friends from First Presbyterian Church joined thousands of others in the great event. We shared lunch before traveling to the Hartford for walk check in. Two personal friends, Paul and Mary Berlejung from Vermont arrived in time for both morning service and lunch before participating in the walk. Several people who joined us for the mission trip, Joy and Beth from Manchester and Sue and Debbie from Provincetown also joined in lunch and walk.

First Presbyterian raised over $11,000 for the walk. Because our team designated contributions for Center City Churches, Center City will receive 80% of this amount for the MANNA Food Programs while the rest is retained by Foodshare to support over 350 Hartford Area programs. Overall Center City Churches hopes that the 45 teams designating their contributions to the event will bring in $62, 500 (Gross $50,000). The MANNA basic needs programs annually provide more that 65,000 meals to homeless and low-income individuals, 76,000 pounds (that is 38 tons) of food to struggling families as well as weekend meals for hundred’s of frail seniors as well as supplemental food for children through the weekend backpack program.

View Pictures

2007-05-03T15:47:00.000-04:00

Grace (Eventually) – Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott

Just finished this her latest book on faith, enjoyed it greatly. It is a collection of essays many of which originally appeared in the Boston Globe, Salon and a dozen or so other magazines.

Anne is a white woman with dreadlocks, above all honest and open with her own experiences, usually witty, sometimes side-splittingly funny. She is an alcoholic who has been in recovery and sober for 20 years, a single mom, and totally committed member of St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Marin City, CA. In both the preface and the Acknowledgements she mentions her gratitude to the members of St. Andrew and her pastor the Rev. Veronica Goines. She gives them credit for helping her become sober and a person of faith.

I have met both her pastor and several of the ladies from St. Andrew at Multicultural and can testify that the ladies were very loving people who reminded me of many of the mothers in my first church (also a largely African American congregation). Veronica is obvious an outstanding pastor and preacher.

I would recommend the book to any believer, for that matter any seeker, who is not offended by honesty and by unconventional ways of talking about the faith we share. I was enriched by reading about the lay ministries she is involved with, I quoted her last week in my sermon on belonging, and I probably will quote from the last chapter when I preach Sunday about eating and drinking with Jesus.

This is the paragraph: “The best way to change the world is to change your mind, which often requires feeding yourself. It makes for biochemical peace. It’s almost like a prayer: to be needy, to eat, to taste, to be filled, building up instead of tearing down. You find energy to do something your hadn’t expected to do, maybe even one of the holiest things: to go outside and stand under the stars, or to go for a walk in the morning, or in such hard times, both.”

2007-05-02T13:12:00.000-04:00

I Am My Own Wife

My expectations were not particularly high when I went to Hartford Stage last Sunday night to see Doug Wright’s play, I Am My Own Wife. I have seen a number of plays with only a single actor or actress, and most have been disappointing. Not so with this play. Kathleen and I were both on the edge of our seats during the whole production, simply fascinated by the story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. I gather that the author did indeed interview her extensively, and what is portrayed is largely her self reports of her life as a transvestite; a man who dressed and lived as a woman and was openly the center of Gay and Lesbian life in Berlin during both the Nazi and the Soviet rule. The author enters into a brief discussion of the difference between her self accounts and official records as well as press reports, and leaves unanswered the question of how one might resolve these conflicts.

James Lecesne plays almost three dozen characters in the course of the play using little besides his voice, movement and gestures to convey who is speaking. His skill is unbelievable, and you believe you have met all these different people. Costuming is no more than a skirt, blouse, shoes and a string of pearls donned early in the first act, and a similar but slightly different outfit for the briefer second act. The staging is very minimal, although the skillful use of perspective makes the stage seem much deeper than it is. All of the extensive furniture is added only by Charlotte’s description of the unseen pieces.

We had seen Lecesne before is the fast paced farce The Mystery of Irma Vep. In I Am My Own Wife he displays an entirely different repertoire of skills. It is a play well worth seeing.

I am looking forward to the summer season when Hartford Stage will present The Good Body by Eve Ensler, and Mahalia, A Gospel Musical.

2007-04-30T16:28:00.000-04:00

We visited our granddaughter Hannah Marie last weekend and took some pictures. To see more click here.

Of course we got back in time for service on Sunday, and then in the evening went to Hartford Stage to see an impressive presentation of "I Am My Own Wife" at Hartford Stage. I will say more about this in my next post.

2007-04-23T10:55:00.000-04:00

Wedding Anniversary

Last Friday, April 20, 2007 Kathleen and I celebrated our 38th Wedding Anniversary (that is her pictured above). We had dinner at the Gelston House and then went next door to the Goodspeed Opera House where we saw the opening night of Singing in The Rain. It was a wonderful experience, the first time we had been to the Goodspeed (or the Gelston House) since coming to Connecticut nearly 10 years ago.

I did not expect to enjoy the play as much as I did. Broadway Musicals are a form of entertainment for which I have less appreciation than Kathleen does. However it was a very different experience seeing the production in a very small and intimate house (about 300 seats). It was an excellent performance, and made even more fun by the fact that the production started before you got into the Theater. I don't know if this will happen every night, but for opening night they had spotlights and a red carpet lined with actresses contumed as reporters with flash cameras and big microphones contucting interviews with play goers as we entered.

I also noted with some satisfaction that people really dressed for the theater. Coming from the south I have been shocked to see people come so casual to plays at both the Bushnell and Hartford stage. In Louisville you would see men in tuxedos for opening night at Actors Theatre, and the director always appeared on stage in Tux for the opening remarks. I didn't see a tux at this opening night, but I certainly didn't see cut off jeans either. Almost all the women had on fancy dresses, most of the men coats and ties.

I guess I am old fashioned, but I appreciate that!

2007-04-20T14:08:00.000-04:00

The picture says it, Marriage Equality. Yesterday First Presbyterian hosted a prayer breakfast for Connecticut Clergy for Marriage Equality. After breakfast and a keynote speaker, Bishop John Selders we walked over to the press conference at the Capitol. Here is my set of pictures from the event. Another set by Chion Wolf

2007-04-19T15:32:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill. Joe Hill is the pen name of the son of Steven King, although you would never know it from reading the book. I only found this out and discovered the book because I heard an interview on NPR. I enjoyed the book, it was more than slightly scary. While he is not his father he has great potential as a horror writer. He has published short stories previously, but this is his first novel. I got the book at Boarders, it is probably widely available.

The premise of the book is that Jude Coyne, aging rock star, buys a ghost off the internet, and what comes in the mail in a heart shaped box is a suit. Along with the suit comes the ghost of the old man, who is determined to kill Jude and his present girlfriend. We soon discover that he has been duped into buying this ghost; it was sold to him by the sister of a previous and now deceased girlfriend. For the next 376 pages we are off on a trail of near insanity, mayhem, close calls and a final ending surprise. If you like this kind of escapist reading (the cover describes it as “Dark Fantasy”) it is worth buying.

I have begun on Anne Lamott’s newest book Grace (Eventually). I have only read the first chapter so far, but it promises to be as funny, tragic, redeeming and inspirational as her previous writings. What ever she writes I read; her thoughts on faith or her fiction (often close to autobiographical) are a seamless piece of insight into the wonderful adventure we call life. The bonus for me is that she is Presbyterian, a member of a Multicultural Church and I have been privileged to meet her pastor and some of the “Church Ladies” she so often mentions.

I also bought Robin Roberts’ new book, From the Heart – Seven Rules to Live By. There was an excellent and favorable review and interview published by Essence.com. Robin is officially a member of First Presbyterian Church, Hartford, CT. She joined when she was living in Farmington and working for ESPN. Although she has moved to New York and is now Co-Anchor on Good Morning America she maintains her membership here and attends occasionally. In person she is a wonderfully gracious person, just as she is on camera. One reason we went to Camp Coast Care for our Summer Youth Mission Trip and in February for our Adult Mission was that most of their work is in Pas Christian, Mississippi, which is where Robin grew up. Her mother still owns a home there, which like the rest of Pas Christian was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

The next book I will be buying within the week (while it is 40% off for Borders Books members) is J.R.R.Tolkein's The Children of Hurin. I know he has been dead for 30 or so years, but his 83 year old son has edited this from other of his works, published and unpublished. It should be an interesting read.

2007-04-18T10:03:00.000-04:00

Tragedy in Virginia

As I write on April 17 it is hard to think without thinking about the violence at Virginia Tech yesterday. We live in a violent society, a violent world. Despite admonitions in all of the worlds great religions against killing we know that murder has been welling up in the human heart from the very beginning. We find this expressed in the stories of our first parents how jealousy and hatred built up between their children and Cain rose up and killed Abel. We quickly learn two things from God’s dealing with this situation, first that God condemns murder, and second that God’s solution is not to murder (or execute) the murderer. The mark of Cain was given not to condemn him, but to protect him from others who might take his life.

While the problem of violence is not new, I believe that violence and particularly murder has become a greater problem in modern times than ever before. Despite the spread of education and “civilization” in our modern world the more civilized societies of modern times seem more violent than those of the more “primitive” past. The scale of the genocide in the Nazi holocaust was unprecedented in the previous history of the world; what is going on in Darfur is equally tragic. In a matter of days in August 1945 just two bombs killed thousands of Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an act of violence unparalleled in the history of the world. Yesterday we saw a single individual kill at least 33 people in a matter of hours. There may have been some motive for two of the killings that have been described as arising out of a love relationship, but the rest of the killings seem totally random.

What is the cause of such widespread violence; what can we do to change the direction of history?

I immediately think of three modern trends that contribute to the problem.

One is the widespread availability of guns and explosives. It is much easier for a single individual or small group to perpetrate deadly violence with a gun or bomb than it ever was with clubs, knives, or the bow and arrow. While better control over the availability of firearms is not the sole answer (even today the mayor of Nagasaki, Japan was critically shot and Japan has very strict gun control) it is part of the answer. In a Presbyterian News Service article about religious reactions to the Virginia Tech tragedy the following comments speak to this concern: In Geneva, the general secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Rev. Setri Nyomi said: “We pray to God that the families, friends and colleagues of the victims will some day find healing, ... We pray also for the United States of America and all nations as they struggle to overcome the temptation to rely on arms and as they work to find true security for all their peoples.”
In New York, National Council of Churches General Secretary Bob Edgar echoed Nyomi’s call for an end to violence. “The escalation of gun violence compels us to call for an end to the manufacture and easy distribution of such instruments of destruction,” he said.
“A faith that expresses compassion for all God’s children is opposed to violence in all forms,” Edgar continued, noting that numerous U.S. faith leaders “have spoken up continually about the epidemic of gun violence in our country. Despite repeated calls from faith and community leaders to Congress and presidents nothing ever seems to get done to stem the tide.”
A second cause of violence in our society is a whole culture that both glamorizes violence and promotes it as a viable solution to personal and political problems. From mainstream television and movies to video games and rap music the media glamorizes violence, makes it seem normative, and worst of all perpetuates the myth that it is an acceptable, even necessary way to solve problems. The wildly popular television series 24 (which I love as a drama and hate to miss, but at the same time I hate with a passion as a propaganda piece) is as guilty as is the president of our nation of perpetuating the myth that we can solve the world’s problems by resort to violence and warfare. If violence is the answer to terrorism, oppressive governments, and civil war then how can we tell individuals that it is not a legitimate way to deal with their personal problems?
Third, all the stress of living in a fast paced, urbanized, highly competitive and anonymous world increase the likelihood that individuals will loose hold of their sanity, their good sense, and their moral inhibitions.

Is it not the Church’s business to promote a counter culture of peace and reconciliation, love and understanding? This underlines the importance of the simple act of lighting a candle for peace to stand as a beacon of hope calling us and all the world from darkness to light, from violence to peace. It is our business to build community instead of anonymity, to teach people to live deeper than the stresses of the present moment, to get in touch with the basic values of life and with the one who brings meaning and value to all of our lives.

2007-04-14T20:05:00.000-04:00

Vestments as Costumes

This is me on Good Friday in the street procession. It was one cold and windy day. I usually wear a black cassock and the stole shown above for this event, but I felt I needed my winter coat and the Chasuble was the only vestment that would fit over my winter coat. Actually it did make a rather striking image accompanied by beret and earmuffs.

Seeing myself made me think of a Unitarian clergy friend who would never vest for services in the Church but who wears a Roman Collar and stole in peace protests. I asked her why she did this, since even more than Presbyterians Unitarians believe in the parity of clergy and laity. She said that street demonstrations were a form of theater, and costumes seemed legitimate in that context.

I do admit that sitting in the meeting of the Judiciary Committee on Thursday with my Equality sticker on I did think it would have been good to have on a Roman collar to be identifiable as clergy. [for out of state readers, the committee voted overwhelmingly to send a bill to the CT Legislature establishing same sex marriage. If passed we will be the first state to have marriage equality by action of the legislature. Mass had same sex marriage also, but it was mandated by the court system.) I have pretty much rejected wearing a clerical collar as making a distinction I do not want to preserve between clergy and lay people; but there are times when one legitimately wants to be recognized as clergy since society gives certain deference to clergy as opinion leaders.

Follow this link for more pictures from the Procession on Good Friday and services on Easter Sunday.

2007-04-11T10:14:00.000-04:00

This is the bread I baked for Easter. It is a Greek Easter Bread variously called Tsoureki or Lambropsomo. Literally translated Tsoureki means "braided; while Lambropsomo means "Easter Bread. I downloaded several recipes four years ago and amazingly this recipe is still on line at Fabulous Foods at the same URL as it was in April 03. The only variation I made in the recipe was to add 2 teaspoons of anise seeds from another recipe.

For dinner we ate a half a leg of lamb fixed Greek Style with lots of herbs and garlic, roasted potatoes, spring asparagus and a store bought pie. The pie did come from Trader Joe's, and their deserts are generally outstanding.

2007-04-09T13:16:00.000-04:00

What a great Holy Week and Easter. We had services with Westminster Presbyterian on Holy Thursday, Good Friday Center City Churches organized a processional on Main Street, praying at significant sites for Peace and justice, reconciliation and healing. Despite an overcast sky and bitter cold winds 65 people participated.

Easter at First Presbyterian Church was great, 125 people attended, the church was filled with Easter Lillies, we had great music on trumpet, organ and piano along with the choir and congregation singing. I had a good sermon, and it was short, less than ten minutes! Follow this link for pictures from Good Friday and Easter.

We had no guests for dinner, but Kathleen and I had a wonderful Easter Dinner, we roasted a half a leg of Lamb (with lots of Garlic and Herbs) and served with roasted potatoes and fresh Asparagus, and had an apple pie for desert. (I didn't make it, but Trader Joes sells great pies.)

2007-04-03T12:36:00.000-04:00

Hope For Spring

Despite the cold and a prediction of lows tonight in the upper 30s the first jonquils are blooming in the Church Garden. The sun is out today - on Sunday we celebrate the resurrection of the one we hail as the Hope of the World.

It seems nice to me that both the Western and Orthodox churches celebrate Easter on the same day this year, although a friend told me that his Orthodox friends were disappointed that they couldn't go and get their Easter Candy for half price on the Monday after Western Easter.

2007-03-28T13:20:00.000-04:00

PRAYING FOR JUSTICE ON THE STREET CORNERS
On Good Friday March 6, 2007 we hope to have hundreds of people take a walk on Hartford's Main St. to pray on the street corners, following Jesus' Cross, praying for justice, for peace for reconciliation and for healing for our city. Check out and feel free to circulate our flier. If you want to see the liturgy before participating check it out here.

I have emailed this information rather widely and one response I received was from a person who is part of the Connecticut Network of Spiritual Progressives. I followed her link to their website and was tremendously impressed. I certainly felt a spiritual link to the values and ideas expressed. You might be interested also.

2007-03-27T14:07:00.001-04:00

SAME SEX MARRIAGE
I listened yesterday to a part of the 12 hours of testimony for and against the bill before the Joint Judiciary Committee to authorize same sex marriage in Connecticut. I had testified two years ago, but did not this year, but as I listened I really wanted to say something. Again and again legislators seemed to be saying in one way or another that they didn't want to discriminate against gays and lesbians (no one mentioned bisexual or transgendered), but that the legislature had already given them all the rights of marriage through civil unions. Several of them kept on at Anne Stanback wanting to know why it was so important to call same sex relationships "marriages."

What this sounds like to me is the same old separate but equal argument that we rejected when it came to rights for African Americans. There were people in the 1950s who wanted to know why Rosa Parks was not satisfied to sit in the back of the bus. After all the back of the bus is going the same place as the front.

Why do LGBT people want marriages, civil unions get them the same rights.?

2007-03-20T15:11:00.000-04:00

I just revised yesterday's post. I was being frustrated yesterday because one link was disappearing when I published the blog. Only when I reread it today did I realize that more than that one link was missing, most of the first paragraph had disappeared. Since I didn't save my first draft I may not have put everything in that I had said yesterday, but I did restore some of it.

2007-03-19T11:38:00.000-04:00

Last night we saw the play Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. I laughed myself silly. Luis Alfaro has taken a hilarious look at some heavy subjects such as obesity and family/personal relationships. His dialog is excellent, at one and the same time it sounds like real people talking, and also like poetry. The play, with its all Latino cast of four excellent actors/actresses continues through April 1 at Hartford Stage.

A review in the Courant called the play a work in progress. I would agree with this. This is the first full scale production of the play, and the development director who came out and gave a pre-play talk said that is the course of rehearsals and even the preview performances that Alfaro continued to change lines, even some whole scenes were rewritten.

By the way, I really appreciate that a real person comes out on stage before the performance. This is live theater for crying out loud, it seems totally inappropriate that a disembodied voice does the opening announcements, even if those announcements are only reminders not to take pictures and to turn off your cell phones. Jon Jory, the long time director of Actors Theatre Louisville often did this opening monologue himself, at least on opening night. It is part of getting to know the people who ARE the theater, especially important in a residential theater.

The one disturbing thing was the very last scene, Minnie drifts away higher and higher, out of sight, then there is an explosion – debris like large confetti falls down on the stage and the stage goes dark. Kathleen didn’t like the ending because it wasn’t a neat or happy ending. I thought it was all right to end with the explosion like a giant balloon which Minnie had become by the end of the play. What bothered me was that for the curtain call Minnie (who just exploded) came drifting down from overhead, still of course in her fat suit. I would have liked to have her appear for curtain call either as herself without the fat suit, or at least reduced to the size she was when the play began.

2007-03-14T10:42:00.000-04:00

FEELING GOOD - DOING GOOD
These thoughts will be published as my Pastor's Column in the April issue of First Thoughts, the newsletter of First Presbyterian Church. www.firstpreshartford.org

Back in January Jeannette Brown, president of the Center City Churches Board, shared an article from the New York Times Magazine entitled Happiness 101. I just got around to reading it and found it most stimulating. Early in the article a professor teaching a positive psychology class at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA makes the distinction between feeling good and doing good. Doing pleasurable things that make a person feel good does not really lead to lasting happiness, rather it leads to greater appetite for pleasure. After giving students an assignment to do something that gave them pleasure, then they were asked to perform an act of selfless kindness.

In this exercise the students learned the difference between feeling good and doing good. Almost universally they reported that doing good gave them a greater sense of happiness and satisfaction than did the more self centered pleasures. They learned that doing good is good for you.

I think of how much emphasis this congregation puts on getting involved in helping others through supporting the Souper Bowl Sunday and the Walk Against Hunger, volunteering at MANNA Community Meals, the Senior Café, the MANNA Food Pantry and Habitat for Humanity. We just sponsored a Mission Trip to help with hurricane recovery, we support Covenant to Care as well as visiting, encouraging, praying for our own members who are sick or in need. We do all of these things because Jesus calls us to these acts of mercy and human kindness; because our Lord commands us to feed the hungry and house the homeless, but the article suggests that we do benefit our selves from what we do.

My own experience as a volunteer echoes the findings of the George Mason Professor, that doing good benefits the one who volunteers; other involved Church members express the same experience. The girl scout leaders who traveled with us to Mississippi were talking about the real satisfaction that they felt in mentoring these girls from the time they were little and seeing them grow into responsible adults.

People looking at our service from the outside often think of “do gooders” as being dedicated, driven by duty to sacrifice our own pleasure to serve others without understanding the real joy that we feel in service.

If you are not involved in making the world a better place I would invite you, I would challenge you, to get involved, not just because you should but because you can, and because of the great benefit you will derive, as well as the benefit that others will receive from your service.

2007-03-13T09:29:00.000-04:00

Sunday Hartford lost a great man, those of us who knew him lost a wonderful friend. John Hunt died on Sunday. John had volunteered at Sanchez elementary school for over 15 years, initially planning to do tutoring one afternoon a week, but ending up so in love with teaching that he was tutoring in the classroom four days a week, mentoring children, providing eye glasses for those who needed them, and promised three dozen students that he would pay for their college education. He has followed these kids through the years as a friend and mentor.

A front page article appeared in today's Hartford Courant and you will find links there to a previous story on John. His obituary also appeared in the paper today.

Also Saturday, March 17, 3:00-4:30 pm
Statewide rally to oppose the war
Old State House (800 Main Street, Hartford)
For details, see http://www.ctcow.org/.

2007-03-12T14:08:00.000-04:00

Here is an excellent opportunity to hear an outstanding author and scholar speak about homosexuality and the church. Former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly Jack Rogers will be speaking and signing his book Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality at First Presbyterian Church in New Haven, at 7:30 PM Thursday, March 15. For all the details follow this link.

First Presbyterian Church in Hartford (136 Capitol Ave., Hartford, CT) is in the midst of a study of his book and anyone would be welcome to join in the last sessions of this study. Adult Forum meets at 9:15 AM on Sundays, Remaining sessions are March 18 and 25. Click here for details.

2007-03-09T10:29:00.000-05:00

Follow this link for news coverage from the News conference I mentioned on Wednesday.

Yesterday we had a very interesting planning meeting for a Good Friday procession. This is the beginning of our planning. The procession will begin at noon on Good Friday, April 6, 2007 at South Congregational Church at Buckingham and Main Streets in Hartford. This is also the home for the Center City Churches MANNA food pantry; there we will read I THIRST. Our thoughts and prayers will focus on those who lack the basic necessities of life. A second stop will take us to Main and Park, an empty lot in view of two homeless shelters. There as we hear Jesus cry MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME we will focus on those who feel abandoned by God and by society. We will continue with stops at the Charter Oak Cultural Center and Betances Elementary, The Federal Building, City Hall, Central Baptist Church, and return to South Church.

All are welcome, signs and banners, vestments and costumes are all welcome.

Planners include Center City Churches Clergy, along with members of Plowshares Institute, and Episcopal Peace Fellowship.

2007-03-08T10:23:00.000-05:00

Our beautiful granddaughter Hannah Marie had her first birthday last month. If you would like to see more pictures you may follow This link

2007-03-07T09:00:00.000-05:00

I will be one of a number of clergy speaking at a press converence today in favor of a State Earned Income Tax Credit. This is what I will be saying:

My brothers and sisters, we have gathered here this morning as leaders of this State’s Mosques, Temples, Synagogues, Churches and other religious organizations to demand that our state do justice for the lowest paid working people of our state. We do not come here hat in hand begging the legislature to please throw some crumb to the poor, we come as a body united in demanding justice for the working poor.

One of the most basic and elementary principles of justice is that those who have been advantaged to have enough and more than enough of the material things of this life have a greater responsibility to provide for the common good of the community. In other words the burden of taxation should fall on the middle and upper class, not on the shoulders of the impoverished. Justice for the poor was written into the original fabric of our income tax system so that the more affluent pay a greater percentage of their income in taxation, and the less affluent pay a smaller percentage.

This system had become so riddled with loopholes that often the richest members of our society pay the smallest percentage of their income in income taxes, and without exception the affluent pay less of their income than do the poor for property taxes and sales taxes.

The Federal Earned Income Tax Credit is a basic first step to providing justice for the poor, it provides a tax credit for low income wage earners. It is not a benefit for those who do not work; it is a help to those who work hard to provide for their families, yet still earn low wages.

What we are asking, what we are demanding today is that our state do justice for the poor and enact a State Earned Income Tax Credit. Specifically we are demanding is a simple system that would provide that everyone eligible for the Federal Credit would also receive an additional one quarter of this amount as a State Earned Income Tax Credit. In a state where we are enjoying huge surpluses in the state budget, and where our rainy day fund is filled to overflowing this is not a budget breaker.

We are today calling on our legislators not to do something some day, but to do this one thing in this legislative session. Thank You.

2007-03-01T12:21:00.000-05:00

Our Adult Forum for March promises to be a very interesting study of a topic that is a hot button issue in many religious bodies, homosexuality. What does the Bible really teach? Should we ordain Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and transgender persons (LGBT) as officers, as clergy? Should the Church sanction, forbid or encourage same sex marriages?

Adult Forum takes place at 9:15 AM most Sundays from September through May. Each Sunday in March the Adult Forum will be studying Jack Rogers' book “Jesus, the Bible and Homosexuality: Explode the Myth and Heal the Church.” Jack Rogers is Professor Emeritus of Theology at San Francisco Theological Seminary and was moderator of the 213th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). more details Professor Rogers will be lecturing at First Presbyterian Church, New Haven on Thursday, March 15 at 7:30 PM. Lecture details

2007-02-28T16:16:00.000-05:00

I have two collections of photos from our mission trip; one is of the group at travel and at work, the other is from the two days we spent in New Orleans for Mardi Gras.
Link to work photos
Link to Mardi Gras Photos

2007-02-27T11:36:00.000-05:00

A week late, it is now time to update what happened the last three days of the Mision Trip. I have more pictures to post, and will do this later in the week and put the link in a subsequent entry at this location. Monday, February 19 was the last work day and for our crew it was a busy one. In the morning we went to the home of a client that I had never met and almost finished putting insulation in walls and ceilings. There was still a small portion of the ceiling that was not insulated, but we ran out of material and expected to complete the job after lunch. We also began hanging sheet rock, but made little progress because the drills we had with us were faulty. We were frustrated by the time we were set to leave for lunch, but expected to return with material and tools after lunch.

What happened instead was that several of the groups at the camp were scheduled to leave after lunch and almost everyone was reassigned. Our crew (which this afternoon was all people from First) stayed together wil Jim Bass as crew leader, but we went back to Isa's house where we had worked before. The task for the afternoon was to install cement board on Ida's floors in her sun room and a large hall way, another group at a later time would be installing ceramic tile over this sub floor. The work was very satisfying, particularly because in the course of the afternoon we were able to complete our task. Some sheets could go down intact, but the last pieces had to be cut to fit. We learned to measure very carefully to make these pieces fit, since the house was not exactly square. Keith proved himself quite talented with a skill saw, but the stars of the show were Stacy K and Sue C who had the task of nailing down the cement board with a nail gun. The two of them, the two smallest members of the team, were something else with a nail gun in their hands - BAMB - BAMB - BAMB. Stacy had at least seen her father use a nail gun while helping him remodel their home, but Sue was the most game to use a tool she had never experienced before. [I think both of them came to understand men's facination with power tools.]

I do want to say that we had a most impressive group. Every member of the team was a hard worker, and the teens were the hardest workers of all. There were other groups with teens in the camp with us who spent more time standing around (we saw a few adults with the same problem) than working. Every member of our group that I worked with was working hard, if someone was not busy it was because there were too many people for the job.

We came with different abilities, and many of us learned entirely new skills. Some of us used knowledge we thought we had forgotten; most of us knew our limits and followed the leaders' advice not to exceed our ability. I had to step aside one afternoon when the physical demands of carrying lumber caused me to be short of breath. One person seems to have exceeded his limits.

Sherry who I believe was our oldest team member found his place in the kitchen and his efforts were much appreciated by the cook as well as by all of us who ate at the camp. Those of us who want our coffee soon after rolling out of bed were most appreciative of his early rising to turn on the pots.

We all came to know one another much better for our week together, we learned who was a light sleeper and who was a loud snorer (guilty as charged, and I warned the light sleeper she was in too close proximity. I don't think she believed me, but during the night she picked up her bed and relocated.)

The last day we rose early and moved to New Orleans for Fat Tuesday, the last day of Mardi Gras. Several of us got to watch the Zulu parade, one of the largest and best with over 30 floats, others saw Rex and other of the finest Crewes. We continued to explore the french quarter, are wonderful food, and saw many amazing sights. Most of us were wise enough to get off the streets and into our hotels before things got their wildest in the last few hours before everything ends and lent begins at midnight.

We flew home virtually without incident and arrived at the airport at 3:05 PM, on schedule. We will not talk about who walked all over the third floor of the parking lot at Bradley airport before she found her car. Shirley and I were the only members of the mission trip to return to the Church for Ash Wednesday dinner and service; I probably would not have gone if I wasn't the pastor, and I think Shirley felt obligated since she invited Francis Acquah, our guest preacher.

When will be begin planning the next trip?

I do want to say that we are indebted to the youth of the Church who, along with their leaders, George and Carolyn Blick had worked at Camp Coast Care (http://www.campcoastcare.com/) last summer and challenged the adults to do a mission trip. We also owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to George Blick and other family members who made all the arrangements for travel and housing; all at very reasonable prices. We are thankful to the Presbytery of Southern New England (http://psne.org), the FPC Strawberry Festival, the girl scouts and others who contributed to make it possible for everyone who wanted to go to afford the trip.

2007-02-19T08:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a day of rest at Camp Coast Care so every one of the First Presbyterian/South Windsor Girl Scouts headed for New Orleans where Mardi Gras was going in full force. First thing we did was go to Café Du Monde
for coffee and beignets. After much waiting we saw the Okemos parade. We learned that all times are approximate. I lost track of how many floats were in that one, the theme was chilrden's stories and float after float went by (sometimes with large gaps in between). Interspersed were marching bands, high school dance teams, a mounted unit, Shriners and more. I think there were two or three more parades scheduled for Sunday, and of course more on Monday, and the biggest Krewes do their thing on Tuesday.

We all got so many beads thrown from parade floats and from balconies that we were weighted down. Both Carl and I bought Jester's hats, as well as getting Mardi Gras caps for donating to a charity for kids. We started out with Shirley and Carl and I, George and Carolyn and Sue C., and then the Dudley's and I split to do our own thing. We sat in Jackson Square and enjoyed the sun and the craziness, including a demonstration and street theater proclaiming that God was unfair, heard lots of preachers decrying the sins going on on the street (little wonder people have issues with the God they were proclaiming), lots of bands everywhere, some very good.

We had a great meal, I ate Gumbo, Shrimp Po Boy, and heped Carl with his 1/2 pound of boiled shrimp. They has Pecan Pie for desert. I was full at that point. We walked most of the length of Bourbon Street, and found out way back to the car about 10 minutes before we were schedued to leave, and 10 minutes after the other half of our crew got there. We saw many sights along the way, lots of partying, but unlike some other festivals I did not se people passed out or puking in the street. Of course we left at 7 PM, there was still plenty of time for that. (although I remember seeing that in Savanah well before afternoon was over.)

Some of the other groups got separated from one another by the parade and couldn't cross and join up for a while. They arrived after lights out at 10 PM.

Today is a work day, then off to New Orleans for a hotel stay on Fat Tuesday, fly home early on Wednesday.

2007-02-18T07:41:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we were one of two crews Willie was supervising. Now Willie is an interesting staff member. He grew up in Pas Christian and knows just about everyone in the community. Appearently the long timers are a tight community with many intermariages. Sedona, the lady whose's house we worked on much of the day, has a relative related to Willie. He first came to Camp Coast Care as a client, then when his house was repaired took a position helping others.

Unfortunately with two crews he was spread thin and we spent a long time waiting to get to the house we were working on, and then the cabnits we supposed to be installing were not ready to be installed. While he went to straighten that our we found our own work, there were doors that needed to be put on their hinges, miniblinds to be hung, and all the door hardware to be installed. George took on the miniblinds, but found it frustrating without a drill for pilot holes to put screws into the metal frames around the windows. He really got rolling on that task after lunch when we returned with the power tools we needed.

I had hung doors (pre hung doors, all that needed to be done was to line up the hinges and force in the pins) and installed hardware, so I got started on that and taught the rest of the crew how to handle that task. When we got finished Willie took several of us back to the first house and we learned a little and did some dry wall hanging and mudding. The girl scouts had been working on that project and made major progress and were really good at the task.

Last night we went to The Shed and listened to music and ate Barbecue at one of the 25 best barbecue restruants int he south. It was falling off the bone tender and tasty. A little more heat in the sauce would have been alright with me, but I am not complaining. Corrigan and I split a whole rack of Baby Back Ribs and a pint of slaw and were filled. Carl had a slab to himself and ate most of it.

They gave a shout out to all the volunteers who had come to help out Mississippi rebuild. The owners wife came and talked to us for a long time and again expressed appreciation, said Misissippi would be no better now than it was a year ago if it was not for the volunteers. It dows feel good to hear that kind of appreciation and realize what we are doing makes a difference in people's lives. She also talked about how many tons of meat they now sell every week, when they really did start a few years ago as a tiny take out shed.

2007-02-17T08:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday our crew worked on Ida's house. Sue and Sarah Labins and I, along with three women from Arlington, Va were a painting crew, between us we painted one small room with two coats of blue, and another larger room that was painted yesterday with a first coat got a second coat. Meanwhile Keith and Jim, our crew leader, were taking out windows and installing new windows.

Ida lives in a home that her father built, and Jim says he built it well, that is why it survived the flood. She was born in the house when it was smaller, as the family grew to five children her father added on to the house. Her father was bed ridden during Katrina and died last December 17. She said the house was all decorated for Christmas, but it wasn't a very happy time as the family gathered from all over for his funeral.

They were in the house when Katrina came, they were high enough that the flood waters stopped a few inches below the first floor, but the tin roof blew off and the water poured in through the ceiling.

She did inherit some money when her father died and invested in a down payment on an 18 wheeler she has out on the road making her money. She doesn't drive, but has a family member who is her driver. She is quite an entrepreneur!

Keith and Holly and I led worship last night. On Thursday when it was mostly us Presbyterians we did Compline from the Episcopal Prayer book, not the camp is full of Episcopalians we had more of a free church service.

I think they are calling for morning meeting so I need to go.

2007-02-16T08:45:00.000-05:00

Camp Coast Care, Long Beach, MS
Yesterday a crew of 11 of us from Hartford spent the morning doing finishing painting on Bernadet's house in Pas Christian which was totally flooded by Katrina. She and her children are living in a FEMA trailer on her property (I think there are 3 of them in 200 square feet.) Everything has been taken out of her home, walls, wiring, insulation, everything, including most of her personal belongings, totally ruined by the flood, mud and mold. After the house was down to the studs it was pressure washed, trated for mold, and then wiring, insulation, siding and dry wall goes back in. Finally done the house is being painted, baseboards and moulding are being put in (some of our people helped with that). She should be in the house soon. We met her very briefly.

Most of the group returned in the afternoon. Sue from P-town and I finished the bedroom we were painting (two coats) and were taken to a new home job site. This house will be 8 feet off the ground, the 8X8s had been set in cement. Willie took down the 2X4s that steadied the beams while the concrete set, and sue and I pulled out nails so the lumber coule be reused. Betwen us we cleaned 64 boards, she figured 400 construction nails.

Then we were joined by others from our group to unload a truck, carrying siding from the truck to the remains of another house on stilts that has been gutted, cleaned and is ready for construction to begin. A crew will put on the siding, we constructed the scaffolding and moved the siding. By the time that was done we were done for the day.

By the way, Bernadette's house was within a few blocks of the Roberts house in Pas Christian where Robin spent many summers. We were going to see that house and get pictures, but have not got a chance yet.

Another group arrived just as dinner was served last night, and a third group arrived after lights out. They were quiet, some people heard them, I never did. The camp is almost full, only a few of the 75 cots were unoccupied this morning.

If you are reading post your comments (just sign as an anoymous commenter) and keep us in your prayers. Include prayers for warmer weather.

2007-02-15T20:21:00.000-05:00

To see photos I took yesterday and today follow this link. Many of them are dark, sorry, it is a new camera. I have adjusted the exposure, hopefully others will be better. I will continue to post new Photos to this Album as often as I can so check back often. I will try to write about today either later tonight or tomorrow morning. We are about to watch a Katrina Video now, and I am rather tired.
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/album?c=revtdavis@sbcglobal.net&aid=576460762389858149&pid=&wtok=DERRdK5VYcv3swCgHESScg--&ts=1171588718&.src=ph

2007-02-15T09:03:00.000-05:00

Our mission trip got off to an inauspicious start when winter storm Agatha blew into the Northeast closing airports across the area. American Airlines kept saying our flight was on an on time status so 27 of us got checked in at Bradley Field, all without great hopes of leaving yesterday. Actually we were one of the few (someone said 5) flights that left Bradley. We boarded 1/2 hour late, then sat for another 90 minutes as the Pilot kept explaining the delay. He said that rain was OK, snow was OK, but the ice pellets that had been coming down off and on all day made take off impossible, he was hopeful that the weather would change soon, and finally it did, we got deiced once near the gate and again just before take off, and finally at 6 PM our 4:05 flight got into the air.

We arrived in Chicago just a few minutes before out flight to New Orleans was to leave, but it also was delayed (they said it landed at the same time as we did). We went from one end of the airport to the other (one of the group had to get wheelcahir transportation). They were already boarding, but this was a long line and several of us got McDonalds to take on the plane.

By the time we got our luggage (all of it arrived, suprisingly, they had told us they might leave some to catch up with up to reduce the load on the Hartford - Chicago flight), got into vans, and got to Camp Coast Care it was 1:15 AM this morning. There were only about three others here last night, others will be arriving today and tomorrow. They pushed wake up time until later (usually 6:30 AM and Breakfast is still to come at 8:30). New Orleans is on Central Time.

So we are here, we were all so tired we slept well on our camp cots, and are ready to go to work. Hopefully you will hear more from me tonight or tomorrow.

2007-02-13T11:20:00.000-05:00

On Valentines Day 27 members and friends of First Presbyterian Church will take off from Bradley Field to travel to New Orleans and then on to Camp Coast Care (http://www.campcoastcare.com/) located in Long Beach, Mississippi. While staying there we will be engaged in a variety of tasks to help nearby residents recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina nearly a year and a half ago.

I am part of this team, and if possible I will be providing daily updates from this camp, although there is some question about computer availability from this location.

We will be there through February 19, and on the 20th we will leave for New Orleans where we will be staying at a hotel near the French Quarter. The 20th, or course is Fat Tuesday, the last day of Mardi Gras. On Ash Wednesday early in the morning we will leave to return to Hartford, and some of us will be part of Ash Wednesday worship at First Presbyterian Church. (Service and dinner begin at 6:30 PM with a special message from Francis Acquah, a Methodist minister from Ghana.

Check back at this location for as many updates as I am able to post.

2007-01-24T11:12:00.000-05:00

Last night’s third annual public meeting of the Greater Hartford Interfaith Coalition for Equity and Justice (Why did we ever give ourselves such an unwieldy name? GHICEJ or even simpler ICEJ is our normal shorthand) was a powerful meeting to advance the cause of justice in the state of Connecticut. There were hundreds of people, perhaps as many as a thousand people, from thirty faith communities including Muslim, Unitarian-Universalist, Friends (Quakers), Jewish, Protestant and Roman Catholic, plus representatives from 20 allied organizations who cosponsored the meeting.

The most powerful thing about the meeting was that we were speaking directly to state legislators who were not only present, but who stood up one after another to pledge their support for the specific issue based goals that the coalition has set for this legislative session. State Senators Eric Coleman and Jonathan Harris pledged their support and leadership in the senate to pass a state Earned Income Tax Credit for the working poor in the state. Representative Andy Fleischmann who is co chair of the State Education Committee pledged to support the increases in the availability of free preschool education programs and the increased state funding for local education that the coalition is supporting. Maryann Handley, co chair of the Public Health Committee supported the goal of universal, high quality, affordable, healthcare for everyone in the state. The Immigration Task Force is seeking to grant young people who are state residents but undocumented immigrants with the same rate of tuition as other state residents pay at state Colleges and Universities. Currently the undocumented pay out of state tuition, a rate three times as high as instate tuition. Representative Filipe Reinoso from Bridgeport had a last minute conflict, but a staff member from the state commissioner on Latino affairs spoke on his behalf, pledging to introduce this bill in this session as he has in a previous legislative session.

Senator Don Williams, Jr. President Pro Tempore, Connecticut General Assembly spoke in support of all of the ICEJ initiatives and gave a rousing speech encouraging our emerging powerful justice movement.

We heard powerful and challenging words from ICEJ president, the Rev Jesse White, as well as pastors Ed Horstmann, Josh Pawelek, Damaris Whittaker and Edwin Ayala, and finally from Imam Abdul-Rahmann Muhammad. The evening ended on a high note with the introduction of a new justice song “It’s Time to Wake Up.”

The most disappointing thing about the evening was the total lack of coverage in the local press. The State of the Union address by our pitiful excuse for a president began as the ICEJ meeting was ending, and commandeered a huge number of column inches in the Hartford Courant.

It was particularly gratifying to have a block of 14 people from First Presbyterian Church, Hartford, the largest number ever to attend a single ICEJ event. I am particularly thankful to the following people who attended along with myself (and to any others from our community who attended whom I did not see): Edwin Carty, Carl & Shirley Dudley, Bob & Alice Evans, Sherwood and Kate Anderson, Sherry & Anita Marchant, Lois Maxwell, Dianne Ney, Ray & Flora Perleoni.

The meeting was held in the beautiful and new sanctuary of the House of Restoration on North Main Street. This is the largest Church sanctuary in the city of Hartford in terms of seating capacity (2000) and according to their pastor, Bishop Jeremiah Tores, the oldest Latino Church in the city.

2007-01-18T12:04:00.000-05:00

Has it been so long since I have written in this blog? Christmas and time with our family and friends, and then a catch up time, and of course sermons, meetings, a pastor’s column for the newsletter and much more have all seemed more important than writing for an imaginary audience, or does some one read my ramblings? Love to hear from readers if there are any!

The greatest thrill of vacation time (Christmas Day until January 6, the 12 days of Christmas) was being with our 10 month old granddaughter on Christmas Day.

Hannah is an absolute darling, was just beginning to walk a step or two when we were there. Her mother called the day after we left to tell us that she walked all the way down their hall without holding on to anything. If you would like to see more pictures and see for yourself how beautiful she is you can follow the link below.http://new.photos.yahoo.com/album?c=revtdavis@sbcglobal.net&aid=576460762384052456&pid=&wtok=uF71z1StFNPlSvQa.44mNA--&ts=1168530260&.src=ph

We also traveled to North Carolina to spend time with our friends Dennis and Cheryl and were glad to see some of their children and their grandchild who was born the same week as Hannah was along with Kentucky and North Carolina friends and neighbors. We again walked our home site where we will be living in just a little more than two years and walked on the sands of Holden Beach.

I reluctantly went with Kathleen to an outlets mall in Myrtle Beach, but when we got there I ended up buying more clothes for myself than she did.

Arriving back in time to preach and catch up with what is happening at the Church I discovered that in addition to celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day on the 14th we also were having a multicultural dinner. Kathleen contributed 28 barbecued chicken legs and a huge pan of Macaroni and cheese, which all of us enjoyed along with Jamaican meat patties, Scottish Shepherds pie and much more.

The Church is really looking forward to the mission trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to work on Hurricane recovery from Katrina. The youth shared their pictures and stories of how much more was still needed when they returned from their summer mission trip. We have 25 members and friends who will be traveling on Valentine’s day to Long Beach, Mississippi. We will spend Mardi Gras in New Orleans and then return to Hartford on Ash Wednesday.

I am going on the trip and the Bishop John Selders will be providing both the music and the message on Sunday, February 18. The Bishop has been with us as a musician before, but this is his first time in the pulpit. I am certain it will be a blessing for everyone; I wish I could be two places at once and be a part of this service to bring to an end the Epiphany season, and to be part of our celebration of Black History Month. Check out Bishop Selders’ biography at www.amistaducc.org/jsbio.htm .

2006-12-06T10:48:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday I preached on the end of the age based on the scriptures for the First Sunday in Advent. When I preached the sermon, in my effort to be brief and to the point, I omitted three paragraphs that I had written. They do make an important point, at least one important to me. Those paragraphs follow. If you would like to read the entire sermon you can go to www.firstpreshartford.org/12-03-06.htm

I am frankly more concerned about what we humans are doing to ourselves and to our planet than about what God might be doing with us. I have spent most of my life living in the nuclear age. The first Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima when I was 4 years old. I remember the Atomic Bomb drills when I was in elementary school, and I still remain frightened of the possibility of nuclear warfare. Although the cold war is supposedly over both this nation and the former Soviet Union still posses enough power to wipe out human life on earth many times over and more and more nations are trying to join the Atomic club. It may be that the clouds of the Apocalypse are the mushroom clouds of nuclear warfare.

Al Gore in his book and movie An Inconvenient Truth makes a convincing scientific argument that we have already set in motion forces of global warming that may not destroy human life, but certainly have cataclysmic effects on our civilization.

We are in the midst of a global pandemic caused by the HIV virus, one that is so severe in parts of the African continent that a population collapse is a very real possibility. Bird flu or other diseases spread accidentally or deliberately as part of biological war or terrorism could have a similar effect.

2006-11-27T21:19:00.000-05:00

Last week I suggested that we can promote an attitude of gratitude by writing a letter to God about what we are thankful for. Here is my letter:

This thanksgiving I am most thankful for our family. Kathleen and I have been married for 37 years and are still in love, still planning on spending a lifetime together. We share values, and are thoroughly in love with our daughter, Sabrena, her husband, Arthie, and our granddaughter, Hannah Marie. They were here for Thanksgiving and it was so good to see all of them, but particularly to spend time with Hannah. She is a beautiful child, good disposition, and more and more sociable, vocalizing and calling attention to herself.

On Sunday the kids met with our Church session and the session approved Hannah’s Baptism. It was 25 years ago we brought Sabrena to Baptism and accepted God’s claim on her life. She has been away from the Church for most of the past ten years, but now she and Arthie have found the Presbyterian Church in Cherry Hill, NJ, joined the Church and are attending every Sunday. For all of this we are most grateful to God.

2006-11-06T13:14:00.000-05:00

Yesterday should have been a great day of celebration at First Presbyterian Church, and in many ways it was, but it was difficult to completely enjoy the celebration when the Veterans Day Parade assembling outside our doors made it so difficult for members to park. The Bushnell had an event at 12:30 and at 9 AM had already set guards over the entrances to parking lots where our members usually park. People trying to approach the Church coming east on Capitol Ave. near to 10:30 found the street barricaded at Trinity and were diverted down Trinity Street. We could not linger over the silver tea reception for Founder's Day since street closings at 12:30 PM threatened to trap those late leaving until the parade ended at 4 PM or later. Simultaneous with my standing up to deliver the morning sermon a fife and drum unit began playing right outside of the Sanctuary on Clinton Street.

None of this is to disrespect the Veterans Day parade, it is a wonderful event honoring all our service men and women who have served this nation with honor, dedication and courage. The problem is with the planning. A few years ago it was moved from Saturday to Sunday to accommodate the Jewish War Veterans who could not march in the parade without violating their Sabbath rest. It was a wonderful gesture of respect; the only problem has been that respect for this one group has failed to respect the fact that most Christians worship on Sunday and seven Churches are either on the parade route or within a block of the parade route. When the change was first made we begged the planners to start later than 1 PM to allow our people the opportunity to come and leave in peace before the parade begins. The only accommodation that was made for our needs was to have the parade assemble on Buckingham street instead of on Capitol Ave. We were promised that the police would accommodate our members coming and going, but this has not been the case. We have no idea how many people decided not to attend Founders Day worship because of the difficulty of parking, or even who came and went home because they could not find a place to park. My wife said that she would have turned around and gone home when she encountered the obstacles except that I had asked her to bring some candles I needed for the service and had left at home.

We believe that Veterans Day should be celebrated on Veterans Day, the parade should step off on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year at the 11 o'clock hour. All of the state, Federal and City employees are off for the day, along with huge numbers of people working for non-governmental businesses. The state parking areas would be empty and available for assembly and to accommodate the thousands of spectators the parade draws.

It still was a joy to celebrate 155 years of service here in the City of Hartford. We recognized one addition to the list of members who have been part of the Church for over fifty years, Maude Morrison who joined the congregation on May 27, 1956. We have 13 members total who have been part of the Church 50 years or longer, six of them were here in person. The most senior of the group is John Brash who joined in 1937. We believe that John represents the third generation of his family who have been a part of First Presbyterian Church.

We also remembered three members who have died in the past year, two of whom were fifty year plus members, Robert Davidson who joined the Church in 1936 and Evelyn Parkins who joined in 1928. We are saddened by their passing, but rejoice that they have joined the great company of the members of the Church Triumphant who sing eternal praise to the one who is king of kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ our Lord.

2006-10-31T11:39:00.000-05:00

Election Day is just one week away! I see this year’s election as being a crucial one for the future of our Country. George Bush and the Republican Majority in congress have led our country far away from our American Ideas. Our continued involvement in Iraq is only making conditions more and more grim for the people of Iraq and for the United States as well. October has set a record for the most US military personnel to die in one month since the start of this futile war; we have passed the one hundred service people dead. Estimates vary from ten to one hundred times as many non-Americans who die from the insurgency as well as in clashes with our forces. There is no functioning government in most of the country, and our presence is only fanning the fires of insurgency and instability.

These last six years have seen a great assault on human rights in this country; the president has led us into invading the privacy of our own citizens, overturning constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure, limiting access to habeas corpus for non citizen detainees, and overturning of the Geneva Conventions against torture of those who we hold as prisoner. The founders of this country would shudder to see what has happened to the Bill Of Rights in the past six years, particularly since September 2001. None of this has made us any more safe from terrorists; our policies have only bred more terrorism in the world, and created more enemies for the United States.

It is time to throw out all of the scoundrels in Washington! I know we run the risk of electing new scoundrels who also become captive to the same special interests as the old ones, but in the short run at least a vote for Democrats is a vote for change. Here in Connecticut Joe Lieberman has got to go. He is not the same Democrat that Connecticut first elected in 1988. He could not carry the Democratic primary, but is still running as an independent candidate and polling indicates that too many Republicans and independent voters are planning to elect him. Ned Lamont may not be the best that this state has to offer, but he is far and above the others on the ballot. A vote for Lamont is a clear vote for change in our Iraq policy; it is a clear vote for restoring civil rights, and probably a reasonable vote for those concerned about a better health care system.

There is no explaining why incumbent Governor Jodie Rell is holding onto her lead in the governor’s race. I haven’t understood how the citizens of this state can elect an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature and then consistently elect Republican governors. Rell was part of the Rowland administration, she either is incredibly stupid not to have know what was going on, or willingly turned a blind eye to the corruption in Rowland’s government. The fiasco of hiring a contractor who got paid millions and millions of dollars to do defective work on I-84, and then hiring inspectors who couldn’t see the defectiveness while they collected their millions of dollars in contract money from the state proves she should be turned out of office at once. Mayor John DeStefano would be a breath or fresh air in the governor’s office, and would bring new and creative ideas and a commitment to bettering the lives of the working class and the impoverished and oppressed.

VOTE THE REPUBLICANS OUT! I am Terry Davis and I wrote and approved this message; no one else has approved, endorsed or paid for it!

2006-10-18T12:31:00.000-04:00

A much happier note than the angry one I just posted. We visited our daughter and her family last week and took some darling pictures of our now eight month old Granddaughter. If you would like to see some of them click on this link http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/revtdavis@sbcglobal.net/album?.dir=/11c4re2&.src=ph&.tok=phTPkqFBNaIZzuxI

2006-10-18T12:04:00.000-04:00

Reading the front section of the Hartford Courant this morning was a particularly painful experience. It seems that Americans have no regard for the rights of individuals; that we allow the president and the congress to take away these rights without protest. The president just signed the law that he had proposed essentially taking away every right that non citizen detainees might have under common law, under the Geneva Convention, or under any basic standards of human dignity. Every member of congress who voted to allow such an egregious attack of human freedom should be voted out of office. The principle of Habeas Corpus has been an established part of British law since 1215 (remember the Magna Carta from your civics class) and is guaranteed in the US Constitution, but is now denied to non US citizens, while torture is allowed.

A second headline caught my eye and made me sick. Former Rep. Gerry Studds who died recently left behind a spouse who is ineligible to receive his rather substantial death benefit. The former congressman was legally married in the state of Massachusetts, but his spouse was of the same sex as the former congressman and thus ineligible to receive his benefits under federal law.

One of the cars which is regularly parked in the Church parking lot (not mine) has a bumper sticker saying "Worst US President Ever" a sentiment with which a majority of us seem to agree (a recent poll showed that a majority of those polled thought the present president was the worst in their lifetime). But what of the congress that passed this idiotic Defense of Marriage Act? Another reason to vote against the whole bunch of scoundrels except for the minority who have bravely stood up for human rights in the face of both opposition to or indifference concerning such rights. Shame on us who have tolerated this assault on our freedom.

The founders of this country rose up against King George and his minions, it is time we did the same against President George and all those who support his dangerous policies!

2006-10-09T11:45:00.000-04:00

I had two impresive evenings last week. On Wednesday Kathleen and I were invited to an interfaith Iftar. For Muslims the Iftar is the daily meal breaking the fast during Ramadan. The event was held in the Legislative Office Building and we were a few minutes late. When we came in on the third floor we could hear the chanting of the Koran echoing through the five story open atrium in the LOB. We had addresses by the president of the Harmony Foundation, a Muslim group dedicated to interfaith understanding and by Dr. Reza Monsor. They and everyone who spoke were intent on explaining that they represented the mainstream of Islam, that the terrorists and insurgents were not representative of what Islam stands for. There were prayers by Jewish and Christian leaders from Hartford Seminary as well as Muslim prayers. As the sun was setting we saw people placing table cloths and prayer rugs on the floor behind the speakers and near the food buffet that was being set out. Kathleen at first thought we were going to eat picnic style on the floor, and then we realized that they were for the traditional prayers for breaking the fast and all the Muslims assembled in this area for the prayers, then delicious Turkish food was served.

I certainly learned more about Islam, and Remadam in particular. They had some beautiful slides of Islamic architecture, mostly Mosques, as well as people at prayer in some of the holy places. It seems traditional during Ramadan for Muslims to often have the Iftar as a communal meal rather than to break the fast family by family at their homes. We also discovered that there were many more to which non Muslims were being invited as well; and that different groups sponsored these meals each featuring different cusine, while we ate Turkish food another would feature African food, another Asian.

The second event was the big ICEJ event promoting a state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). There were hundreds of people assembled at the First Church of the Living God. We heard moving testimonies from Luz Santana, Yairaliz Arroyo and Dorothy DelValle about how the federal EITC has made their lives easier and why taking the next step to enact a state EITC will continue to uplift the working poor.

Ned Lamont, Mary Glassman and Mayor Perez added their voices of support for a state EITC. But the highlight of the evening was the very spirited and passionate address by Rev. James B. Walker who brought the audience to their feet.

We collected hundreds of signatures on our petition and forged relationships with our many co-sponsors. It was probably the most inspiring meeting that ICEJ has sponsored in its history.

On Thursday we are traveling to Mount Laurel, NJ to see Sabrena and Arthie and our now 8 month old granddaughter Hannah.

2006-09-28T09:46:00.000-04:00

Right now my mind is very much occupied with thoughts about the need for peacemaking in a world where so much violence and injustice goes on daily. We heard this morning about a gunman in a Colorado school who yesterday killed a teen age girl, shot a police officer and killed himself.

Too many Americans, too many members of the human race, seem to believe that they can personally do nothing to be effective peacemakers, but opportunities abound for anyone who is willing to take a stand. No one of us can change the world but together the collective impact of our actions for peace can and will make a difference.

Last week I was part of a group of religious leaders who held a press conference in support of the National Campaign Against Torture. I am proud that there were at least four Presbyterian Clergy that were part of this group including the Rev. Bob Evans from Plowshares Institute who spoke, and the Rev. Dana Lindsay, our Presbytery Executive. Also (although she did not proclaim it) Heidi Hadsell, President of Hartford Seminary, who also spoke on behalf of the campaign is also a Presbyterian.

John Humphries, who was also a part of this group, will be speaking on the campaign to our Adult Forum this Sunday October 1, 2006 at 9:15 AM. (First Presbyterian Church, 136 Capitol Ave. Hartford, CT)

This Sunday is World Communion Sunday, and we and many other Presbyterian Churches will receive an offering for Peacemaking this Sunday.

The bill that congress seemed poised to pass authorizing military commissions to try "enemy combatants" is a terrible step backward on human rights and human decency. I just sent a FAX to Senator Lieberman urging the addition of the Specter amendment which would restore for these people the basic American right to habeas Corpus.

Finally I was proud to read that the most recently retired moderator of the Presbyterian Church, was arrested, along with a number of other Presbyterian Clergy, in protests against the war in Iraq earlier this week. You can read the story at http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2006/06489.htm.

2006-08-31T10:09:00.000-04:00

A key to the theology of Walter Wink seems to be the contrast between the Babylonian creation myth and the Hebrew creation story. The Babylonian story is a world created as a result of family conflict and murder, in other words a world with its very roots in violence, while the Hebrew picture of a world created by the command of a unitary benevolent God. Each myth fosters a different culture and religion with a different attitude toward violence.

Since I have been preaching from the Exodus throughout the summer I have been thinking about the different pictures of God which emerge within our Scriptures. Let me assure any heresy hunters that I affirm that the God of Abraham is the same God as the God of Moses and the same God revealed in Jesus Christ. Still it is hard to deny that there are fundamental differences in the various revelations of God’s nature and personality. I wonder how the culture of the people in these three eras of history has effected human perception of God and how the various perceptions of God have effected culture.

The God of Genesis, especially the God of Abraham is a relatively benevolent God whose primary interaction with people is to reveal his love and his promises to Abraham and his descendants. God reveals God’s self through dreams in the night or through personal encounters with those who appear to be human beings. There are no violent epiphanies nor are there deliverances of laws and commandments. The manifestations of a violent nature to God are limited to God bringing the flood (but afterwards God promises never again to destroy the world by flood), and God destroying the city of Sodom. There are a few references to the patriarchs building altars and even fewer references to sacrifices. The glaring exception to this pastoral picture of God is the near sacrifice of Abraham’s son Isaac. What kind of benevolent God asks parents to sacrifice their children? Many scholars believe this story has been preserved for the very purpose of repudiating child sacrifice, note God’s voice says “do not lay a hand on the child.” This primarily non violent picture of God is matched by a society with little warfare or violence. Abraham seeks to live at peace with the other people, when Abraham and Lot have a disagreement they go their separate ways instead of waging war against one another.

Quite in contrast Moses (a murderer himself) worships a God revealed in storm, earthquake, wind and fire. God’s epiphany at Sinai is much like a cataclysmic volcanic eruption. The Lord travels with the people as a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. The God of Moses is a God of stern laws who prescribes capital punishment for a variety of offenses. This God destroys enemies by drowning, plagues, fiery serpents, and by making the earth split open and swallow offenders. Moses repeatedly pleads with the Lord not to totally destroy this people who Moses brought out of Egyptian slavery. The God of Moses sometimes seems violent and dangerous, even irrational. What kind of God is the Lord who calls Moses to go to Pharaoh and free the people and then tries to kill Moses one night on the way (Exodus 4:24)?

The subsequent history of the people who come to occupy the promised land is a history of warfare and violence. From the conquest and occupation of Canaan through the periods of the Judges and Kings the story of God’s people is a story of warfare and violence. Although the violence is often against external enemies it also involves enmity between tribes and families, and even within families. David, the most dominating figure in the period of the kings was a man of warfare and violence, he single-handedly conquered Goliath, killed Bathsheba’s husband, and waged war on his own rebellious children as well as on all the enemies of Israel.

The God revealed in the life of Jesus appears to have more in common with the God of Abraham than the God revealed to Moses and the people at Sinai. Jesus taught about a forgiving and loving God and taught a thoroughgoing ethic of love and non-violence. It seems unclear to what extent Jesus regarded his death as martyrdom or as an end to the sacrificial system by offering himself as the one sufficient sacrifice. What is clear is that there is no record of his participating in the sacrificial cult beyond eating the Passover. It is also evident that any participation of his followers in bloody sacrifice ended with the separation of the Jesus movement from the Jewish religion.

The question obviously arises then: Why has this view of God as a loving father had so little effect on the societies which claim to accept this religious orientation. To the extend that the Western World has been influenced by Jesus one should expect the history of the past two millennia to be quite different from the reality of warfare and violence. Are we finally at a point in history when we must rethink our God and our behavior?