Singing before time

I was thinking this week about Mary's trip to Bethlehem. Not the one she made with Joseph in order to get enrolled or taxed or whatever the reason. I was thinking about that long journey she made from her home in Nazareth to see her relative (cousin? aunt?) Elizabeth. What was she thinking?

She was just a teenager, pregnant, no husband — yet; traveling alone nearly the length of Israel. Didn't she know she was risking everything God had planned? What if she fell, what if she got sick on bad water or spoiled food? Didn't she know that life is very fragile — especially new life?

Was Nazareth too hard a place to be for her? Did she have something to say that she couldn't say at home to her own mother that she needed to say to Elizabeth? Had the whispers become too loud, the glances too sharp? Did she just need some place to go where she would be welcomed, to find someone who would listen to her, to perhaps hold her close and tell her that she is brave.

As her son would be driven to the wilderness after his baptism, Mary was driven into the wilderness to sing her song.

Barbara Brown Taylor points out that Mary's song is sung past tense and that prophets always get their verb tenses mixed up because for them God's actions are always happening ahead of time. There is no distinction between then, now, and tomorrow.

All Mary had was the promise and the song that God had done great things for her, that God wanted her to be part of what is yet to come.

Those Little Advent Candles

There is not one of us, I imagine, that is not profoundly moved and deeply sorrowful over the murders of the children and teachers in Newtown, Connecticut. And for that tragedy to happen at this time of year — Christmas and Hanukah — makes it even harder to comprehend and to understand.

Rachel Held Evans began her blog post on Sunday (Dec. 16) this way:

"Those little Advent candles sure have a lot of darkness to overcome this year… Their stubborn flames represent the divine promise that even the smallest light can chase away the shadows lurking in this world, that even in the darkest places, God can’t be kept out."

She is right. We need to keep those little Advent candles and those little Hanukah candles burning well past their seasons. There is "a lot of darkness to overcome this year."

Shining the light of Advent and Christmas into dark places is what Christians should be doing, especially now. Christmas is not about us, it is about God and God’s actions. Advent and Christmas prepare us to face the real challenges that lie before us. They center our lives on what God is doing for his children.

The coming of Jesus is the end of the rule of the powerful, an end to the damning Law of value and worth that we impose on each other. Jesus is a threat to the way things are now and stands as a beacon to the way things will be.

The beacon of good news that shines from Advent to Christmas and into Epiphany is that God is with us, God is for us. It is the good news that makes us brave and gives us the confidence to say, "God bless the little children and the poor. God bless the weak and the outsider. God bless the lonely, the sick, and the disturbed. God comfort those who mourn."

It will take a long time for the wounds of Newtown, Red Lake, Columbine, and the wounds of poverty, war, and hatred to heal. It will take a long time for the soul of this country, and of we its people, to repent of our lust for money and our trust in violence and power.

Yet for me, the center of this season and my faith is this: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth (John 1). And I have faith, as Rachel Held Evans said, "that even the smallest light can chase away the shadows lurking in this world, that even in the darkest places, God can’t be kept out."

Telling the Truth III: Facebook Time with Pete

The following exchange was a "chat" I had with my son, Pete Hanson, on Facebook on Sunday, August 7.
Pete Hanson
Question. how would you respond to this comment then?
“Jesus IS pure myth...you are absolutely correct and bolstered by the FACT that there is no historical account or records (and there are many that exist today from this time) from the purportedtime of Jesus that mentions, Jesus, his family and family business, the apostles, any of the miracles or any births or deaths regarding all these people. Not to mention, No business licenses, No travel permits, No tax records, No homes of record, No birth certificat­es, No death certificat­es, no newspaper accounts, No accounts by popular journalist­s (scribes) of the time...jus­t No No No No No. NOTHING”


Pete Hanson
just a question
it wasnt my response, but someone elses


Thomas Hanson
Nope. None. No paperwork. I guess I must be totally stupid and have wasted my life because we can't find Jesus' birth certificate--Obama's either, I hear. Thanks for setting me straight and putting me back into reality. Again, I'll ask you to consider the lives of people you know, Jon Bean, Bill Sanden, Andrew, Bishop Mark Hanson. Maybe you could look into their lives to see Jesus rather than musty old government records. Just askin'.


Pete Hanson
if youre writing a book email to me.
wow


Thomas Hanson
No book. Just a post card. Books won't convince you but maybe the lives of others will.


Pete Hanson
im having a simple debate.


Thomas Hanson
Me, too.


Pete Hanson
but youre obviously taking it way to personal.
you believe what you want. im not knocking it. im just stating what i believe.


Thomas Hanson
Then why be so harsh on those who express their faith in ways that are loving and caring? Go ahead, rant and rave against the fundamentalist haters who warp the gospel, but consider the benefits brought by those I have mentioned. They deserve no anger from you.


Pete Hanson
there never has been any anger from my end.
im just stating what i believe.
and on michaels post he's asking a question and i answered how i believe.


Thomas Hanson
Rather than demand that faith play by modern, secularist philosophy, let's try to have a discussion starting from faith's perspective that without a saving God, we're in one hell of a mess. What if you give me three legitimate PROOFS for God's presence? I understand your perspective pretty well. Maybe its time for you to see things from my perspective for a little while.


Pete Hanson
I did look at your prospective for the last 25 years
and im not just talking about christianity, im talking about religion as a whole


Thomas Hanson
No, you fought it. But what I'm asking is that you "walk a mile in my shoes" first, understand the argument from my side. That's always a good place to begin in any discussion.
I don't believe in "religion." It's too self-centered and destructive. All I know about is the loving, forgiving faith I have tried to express in my preaching and life. I can't debate from "RELIGION'S" perspective.


Pete Hanson
i do understand your argument. religion gives you a purpose. you dont need to be religious to be a good person. and i think you know that. being religious, doesnt define you as a human. you, yourself define you as a person. no god, religion or anything but yourself
i dont need to believe in a god to be loving, faithfull or forgiving. thats who i am as a person.


Thomas Hanson
Yes, you are right. You don't need religion to be a good person. All I am saying is that I have found purpose and meaning in my life through Hebrew/Christian scripture and the faith traditions that have grown up around them and their central story. I know I can never argue anyone into believing. I can give no proof or evidence. All I can say is "It works for me," and I think it might give you the same purpose, meaning, and peace that it has given me. I am just a witness to my faith, not its guardian. My faith pulls me out of myself and points me toward others who need they help and care I can give and I do that not to earn God's favor but because I want to follow the lead of Jesus, who is God with us. (Sorry, I started preaching there.)


Pete Hanson
im totally fine with that, that it gives you purpose. but for me, im the complete opposite. and like you said, i fought it pretty much my whole life because i probably never did truly believe. heck, i remember getting basically bribed into getting comformed. i think thats how you spell it. but anyways. im gonna head to bed. i had a long day of walking around minneapolis between art fairs


Thomas Hanson
I have to go to bed. I am indoctrinating 7 kids this week in Vacation Bible School. Maybe the problem is that you thought you were getting conformed and not that you were confirming your faith. It makes a big difference. When you are conformed you are pushed into a mold. When you confirm your faith, it is something you do. G'night. Thanks for the chat.-- but you still owe me three "proofs" for God or faith in God. Love ya.


Pete Hanson
three proofs?
there are no proofs.
whatever
good night


Thomas Hanson
No! I want you to think about what might be three proofs from my perspective. You can't just stand there and say No. You have to explore all perspectives. Okay. on the count of three, both of us are going to sleep. I will say, One, Two, and you say...


Pete Hanson
good night

Telling the Truth II: Truth and Fact

From my son Pete Hanson's Facebook wall:

Paul Berczyk responded (8/4/11) to my comment about the Bible's contradictions: "Hmm, I dont think you can get any truer than facts. I mean, facts are facts. The bible used to be looked at as an encyclopedia or a textbook. As people became more educated with modern science they started questioning it. Answers like the one you just gave explained nothing except that you don't have an answer for the questions. The Christian religion wasn't taught the way you are talking until people started questioning. In fact it still isn't. No matter what our beliefs are the more educated society gets Christianity needs to come up with some better answers than that to exist."

I wrote: "You can get truer than fact. To think otherwise, means you have let the fundamentalists set the agenda. The "facts" of the Bible, however they are presented, are the "stage" on which humanity's relationship with God happens, not the relationship itself. As in human relationships, the God/Human relationship cannot be quantified and squeezed into "facts" --whatever they are. Faith is more like poetry or a symphony. Both are often truer than the reality they describe. So, the "more educated society gets" the better it should be able to see truth in that relationship, and not be bound to the single level of the so-called "modern" interpretation of what is fact and what is truth." (115 words)

Telling the Truth I: The Bible's Contradictions

I wrote the following on my son’s Facebook wall in response to a Bill Maher video in which Maher makes fun of Christianity by asking questions to (stupid) fundamentalist/rightist Christians, who are not "conservative" but reactionary.

I am tired with the so-called "Christian" Right setting the agenda and definitions for what it is to be a Christian. I posted the following on my son Pete Hanson's Wall in response to a Bill Maher video: "I am willing to give honest answers to anything about the Christian faith from the perspective of a progressive, non-judgmental Christian. I'll do it clearly in no more than 80 words. (I'm Pete's dad)

Pete Hanson wrote: "I'd be willing to say that he (Maher) could pick the Bible apart, with all it's contradictions. Are you saying there aren’t any contradictions?"

Sure, there are tons of contradictions. The Bible is a collection of human experiences with God over 3,000 years. It's written by hundreds of writers expressing their own understandings and insights. They, like most ancient writers, were after the deeper truth and meaning behind their encounter with God. The Bible is not an encyclopedia or textbook. The sun did not stop nor did a whale swallow Jonah; but if you're smart, you will discover that truth is truer than facts. (80 words)

Getting Ready

I think it may be time to restart this blog. I'll think about it during my upcoming vacation back to Minnesota.

Everyone Who Left Us

I clipped and saved this poem from The Atlantic Monthly in April, 2000 and have moved it from notebook to notebook. Over the years, I have returned to it several times. I find it’s message very powerful and moving. I am also fascinated by the line-rhyming technique the poet used in constructing it. The verse rhythm works so well with the mood of the poem and is technically incredible. I hope you will find as much in it as I have.

EVERYONE WHO LEFT US

Everyone who left us we find everywhere.
It’s easier now to look them in the eyes —
A gravesites, in bed, when the phone rings.
Of course, we wonder if they think of us.

It’s easier now to look them in the eyes,
Imagine touching a hand, listening to them talk.
Of course, we wonder if they think of us
When nights, like tonight, turn salty, warm.

Imagine touching a hand, listening to them talk—
Hard to believe they’re capable of such coldness.
When nights, like tonight, turn salty, warm,
We think of calling them, leaving messages.

Hard to believe they’re capable of such coldness—
No color, no pulse, not even a nerve reaction.
We think of calling them, leaving them messages
Vivid with news we’re sure they’d want to know.

No color, no pulse, not even a nerve reaction:
We close our eyes in order not to see them.
Vivid with news we’re sure they’d want to know
We don’t blame them, really. They weren’t cruel.

We close our eyes in order not to see them
Reading, making love, or falling asleep.
We don’t blame them. Really, they weren’t cruel,
Though it hurts every time we think of them

Reading, making love, or falling asleep,
Enjoying the usual pleasures and boredoms,
Though it hurts every time we think of them
Like a taste we can’t swallow. Their names stay,

Enjoying the usual pleasures and boredoms,
Then they leave us the look of their faces
Like a taste we can’t swallow. Their names stay,
Diminishing our own, getting in the way

At gravesites, in bed, when the phone rings.
Everyone who left us we find everywhere,
Then they leave us, the look of their faces
Diminishing, our own getting in the way.

— Steven Cramer

(The Atlantic Monthly, April 2000, p. 108.)

A wrong right is always left behind

A friend of mine recently sent me an e-mail telling me she had taken a comment I had made off her "Facebook" page. The comment was about Norm Coleman and the GOP hijacking democracy in the Minnesota senatorial race with Al Franken. It wasn't dirty or nasty or anything like that. It seems to me that Norm Coleman is trying to make the argument for dragging this thing out by saying that he's "trying to protect the vote of the little guy." It's all about the "little guy." The GOP? Norm Coleman? When has that ever happened? I found her action very surprising since she is such a strong Democrat and is not shy about that.

Anyway, she took it off her page because she has some relatives who are staunch "GOPers," as she calls them, who might get upset about my comment. She said, "I have to sort of do that delicate dance!" Now, by no means am I upset with her. (Who could be? She's a really great person). I'm just sad about the fear that is running over our society and smudging the face of honest discourse.

Below is most of my response to her:

Dear ...

I understand what you are saying about having to do a "delicate dance." It must be difficult for you to have to protect one group of friends from the thoughts and ideas of another group of friends.

That's a big job these days for anyone and it takes a lot of psychic energy. It's too bad your "GOPers" are unable to differentiate between the reasoned thoughts of one of your friends as distinct from your own thoughts. I believe that inability may be part of the birth defect they all seem to suffer.

Or maybe that's the way it is with those on the right — they think their political designation as "right" also applies to their political philosophies, which means that if they are "right" (in this black and white world of theirs), then the rest of us (those on "the left") must be wrong. After all, haven't left-handed people always been suspect?

If I were you, I'd give up the "dancing" with GOPers, but only after I told them that I don't have the power or energy to protect them any more.

Don't worry. I'm not upset with you at all. But on a national scale, I am just amazed and worried about the frightened and confusing spirits that have overtaken so many people on "the right" since the election. (And by "spirits" I do mean "spirits"--something outside of the visible world that is causing all the frantic lashing out and crazy thoughts.) We can talk more about that when I come home in July.

I never thought I'd find myself longing for the likes of Arnie Carlson, Al Quie, Dave Durenberger, Elmer L. Anderson, and other real Republicans. And in the same way, I also long for some rock-ribbed Democrats like Humphrey and Mondale who were not afraid to stand up and defend the progressive cause.

But you know that I am almost a socialist (ala the Danish variety). I hope that won't freak out some of your friends. But then, maybe that's okay. They may come to see that all socialists don't have fangs and want to take all your money.

Enough.

Peace,

Tom

Remember: Wilbur Wright did not have a pilot's license.

Rescue Us, Father

What follows is a Father's Day poem I wrote in the spring of 2003. In March, the U.S. had invaded Iraq and my son Peter was at the point of the invasion with the 3/7 Marines. We only knew of his location by reading the reports online from the "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" who had a reporter and a photographer embedded with the 3rd Marines.

At the same time as the invasion, I was in the middle of writing a series of daily devotions for Christ In Our Home and the text for the day was Isaiah 43:

But now thus says the LORD,
he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

Rescue Us
We await the homecoming of our son from war. He is a Marine,
Weapons company, boots on the ground, tip of the spear, target.
Forty nights and days and more from March through April and into May
We heard no word, no delay of distant voice, no letters, no sound.
Was he brave? Was he lost in the fog of war, frightened?
Was he the reason or comforter of the dying
    whose faces we did not see.
What we knew we gleaned only from electronic images,
   sleepless dreams,
And each day’s sad hope sustained from no somber Marine at our door.

Isaiah sang his song to his people exiled in that far country—
   exotic and prodigal.
He sang his promises to a people
    terrified by the same inflamed spirits—
Hot winds from sacred fires threatening to consume
    the air they breathed,
Hardened metals hurled like lightning through swirling red sand skies,
Dervishes, spinning, exploding up from hidden places none could see,
All threatening to conceal with soot and blood the very face of God.

On many days during the waiting, I read aloud Isaiah’s spirit song.
I read it for myself. I read it for my son and those who fought.
I read it for all caught in the cross-fire of our precision terror. Then,
Tears dropped on the page as witnesses to a father’s heartache.
God’s heart aches for the homecoming of his children. Now,
I know in such times there is nothing a father hopes for more.
They will come. They will come home singing. Redeemed.

My heart still aches for the 4,500 who have not yet come home and the fathers who still wait for their children.

A Choice of Crosses

This is a continuation of “God Abandoned by God” below.

SOME WILL SAY that a theology of the cross is just another choice among many. 

I suppose you could have a Christ who is a Moses, Elijah, or one of the prophets and have a perfectly respectable religion that fulfills all the requirements of religion in society. The same with Christ who is John the Baptist redux. Even Peter's “You are the Christ-Christ” is perfectly suitable to the moods and needs of many in the world.

As long as Christ is seen as a continuation or even a projection of the past, any Christ will do and will attract the hearts and minds of the people. It is simply a matter of personal choice or personal relevance. And a choice of one is always relative to the choices of others, all are of equal value, and each has an equal claim on truth that cannot be debated because one's truth is as valid as the truth of the other.

Jesus said, “The Son of man must suffer many things, be rejected, and be killed and on the third day rise.” There is a finality there, a contingency that cuts off any discussion of choice or relevance of one's truth. “The Son of man must suffer” declares that the choices have already been made. Jesus becomes the end of choice, the end of preference, the end of religion.

Remain with your favorite brand of Christ and you will die with him. “Take up your cross” and follow him and you will follow him all the way through the suffering and death to the third day. Ultimately, one's belief is not a choice, nor does it belong solely to the individual. To take up the cross and follow, is to place all choices and faith in one who is more than anyone's faith and is more than the sum of everyone's experience or faith.

At the cross, God not only abandoned Jesus, all of humanity's religious choices were also abandoned; all the hopes and dreams of religious humans were crushed.

God Abandoned by God

Jesus cried from the cross, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?")

I've struggled with God's abandonment of Jesus on the cross for most of my ministry. Last week, while rereading Jurgen Moltmann's great book, The Crucified Messiah, an idea struck me and I wrote it down on the back endpapers. What follows is nearly verbatim and is very much a work in progress.

---

THE ABANDONMENT OF JESUS on the cross is God's abandonment of his former self, the god of religion. God rejects the god of religion by actively participating in his own death (remember: "the Son of Man must suffer, be rejected, and be killed"), only to be raised up by the new God of grace and hope on the third day.

In the Flood, God promised Noah he would never again seek to destroy the world by water. Indeed, God made water a sign of redemption by saving the world through the water of Baptism. Once again, God is at work in opposites. But God never promised never to destroy himself — or at least the god of religion as claimed by humanity.

At the cross, God confronted the "powers and principalities" of religion (c.f. Walter Wink). Both the Jews who demanded Jesus' death and the Romans (the world) who carried out the death sentence were hyper-religious cultures. Both claimed to know who God is and how God would act, thereby thinking to control God. But in his abandonment and in the death of the righteous Jesus on the cross, God slipped away from the grasp of both the Romans and the Jews.

The Jews thought they knew God and that they were in control of the terms of being righteous. They thought God would consistently reward the righteous and punish the wicked. At the cross, they jeered Jesus, saying, "If you are the Son of God come down from the cross. If you are righteous, won't God come to save you?" But God was silent. "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?!" Jesus cried. God abandoned Jesus and he died with those painful words on his lips. God slipped away from the religious. Jesus was righteous, but God punished him as the worst kind of criminal. Jesus was the true Bar Mitzvah (son of the law) and Barabbas (son of the Father) — true Son of God and true son of man, yet God abandoned him.

The Romans, too, were a culture wrapped in religion, although theirs was a religion of the state and the religion of power and authority. The Roman Caesars had claimed divinity and ultimate power for themselves and the state, which was merely an extension of Caesar himself. Rome thought it had the power to define righteousness. Rome claimed it had absolute control over life and death of the millions under its control from Scotland to the gates of India. This was a control over life and death that extended even to the how of one's death, the circumstances, the amount of pain and suffering the criminal would endure. Their power even extended to defining the meaning of one's death. One could die as a noble hero of the state, thereby building the power of the state religion, or one could die a horrible death as an example for those who would oppose the power of the state (i.e. beheading, the stake, the cross, etc.).

But again, God slipped though their fingers. Jesus died too quickly. ("Is he already dead?" they asked.) He hadn't suffered enough to be a good "example" of Rome's religious authority over death and life.

In the end, Jesus died as a victim of the powers of Religion and the State. Jesus died to the powers of ethical religion (righteousness, obedience, compliance, law). His death proved the Jews right (or at least that is how they saw it). God punished the wicked and those who would upset Religion. 

Jesus died as a victim of the powers of the State. His death proved that Rome could do as it pleased, exercising full control over life and death and its meaning.

In the end, however, neither were able to control Jesus' (God's) destiny. He died to Religion of both kinds. He died under the sign, "King of the Jews," crowned by thorns, robed in slashes. He was enthroned on the cross, surrounded by his court — two thieves, and a group of women, the men having fled. Put on the cross by the State, he died as the state's victim (scapegoat) and as the state's vassal. But he died before Rome could exercise its full power (days on the cross serving as a lesson to those who oppose Rome).

God abandoned Religion's blasphemer and Religion's insurrectionist. God abandoned humanity's God.

For God to make a new creation (Paul), God had to ("must") begin with himself by putting an end to the false God of Religion and raising up a new God of grace and mercy, not righteousness and authority.

Thus, so far... (continued at A Choice of Crosses)

The Uneasy Balance

My father died Friday afternoon, March 20.

In the moment of time it takes to hear that sentence, life and death changed forever. The uneasy balances in all human relations, especially those between father and son, shifted suddenly, like the giant jigsaw plates that give shape to this earth.

“He died unexpectedly,” we said; as if any death is truly expected; or even if expected, is ever as casual as an unexpected guest; or as if by somehow anticipating it, we can alleviate the loneliness and abandonment that surrounds us upon hearing those words.

For me and my father, there was no time for either expectation or anticipation. We had only a then and a changed now with no transition. Then just became the reality — the message relayed on cell phones over 1500 miles to a son and a daughter here and a father dying there without a last “I love you.”

“Now what?” my sister and I asked each other as we snapped closed the cell phone.

“Now what?” is the only question that makes any sense to me. Why is answered only by silence. Where and when tell only of place and time. And how? How is too painful, too real to consider at such a distance. “Now what?” is the question best asked at the moment when we are between — between Florida and Minnesota, between then and now, between reason and disbelief. Suspended.

So now, two days later, I am driving somewhere in the center of this broad country without the answers and usual defenses of religion or professional jargon. I am trying to find again that balance point between death and life.

Jesus died on a Friday. And in the moment it takes to hear that sentence, life and death changed forever. The earth shook, the graves were opened, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and that always uneasy balance between son and father shifted. Jesus died with the painful question of why and God’s response was silence. But on the third day, God asked the question himself, “Now what?” and raised Jesus from the dead.

There are no simple answers when it comes to questions of death and life, no approved or assured responses that will stop the pain or keep the world from shaking itself apart. But if this ancient tragedy of a father and a son is to create a new balance between death and life, it must be this: That in death, as in sorrow and grief, guilt and shame, abandonment and hopelessness, all of us die first. When the darknesses overtake us, all the answers we thought we had fail, and we are as good as dead, unable to move between here and there, now and then. We are between. Suspended.

The uneasy balance that marks human relationships, human life, is created new when the father asks, “Now what?” and creates a universe or raises his son from the grave. Only from the grave and gate of death does God answer his own question with his affirmative now. It is into God's Now that all of us are pulled — the living and the dead — into the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sin, and life everlasting.

In the Gardens of Earthly Delights

Yesterday, Friday (6/19), I took my first field trip into central Florida. After morning coffee at 7-11 with Marge (the day-time clerk), I headed west on Old Dixie Road, under I95, and on until it crossed US Hwy 1. I headed north on Hwy 1 toward St. Augustine. I’ve been traveling between my home and work in Palm Coast by I95 most of the time. The traffic on that road just makes you want to push the speed limit and just“get there.” Hwy 1, while a major highway, says, “Take a look around. Enjoy the scenery as you travel.”
Other than a few small farms and small homes in the woods there is nothing of great tourist wonder to see people living their lives. This is such a change from the Florida we knew when we had only visited Orlando—the land of concrete and faux-elegance.

The distance to St. Augustine is about 40 miles, a nice drive. About 8 miles south of St. Augustine I passed “Lambert’s Nursery.” I did a quick (and probably illegal) u-turn and stopped in the middle of the nursery. I was immediately welcomed by a pod of calico cats and an old black lab, all of whom soon scattered to the shade again.

Around me were plants I had only seen in the “Indoor Plants” areas of Minnesota nurseries but here there were pots and pots of them just sitting around outside. And many were HUGE. I rambled through the shade-covered flats and around the 3-gallon bush area, then it hit me. I felt like a kid in a candy store but one filled with candy I had never, ever tasted. I hope the pictures I’ve posted here will give you some idea of Lambert’s and the wonders of Florida horticulture.

I soon got to St Augustine, the oldest continually inhabited “European” city in the western hemisphere (1565). They had to add “European” because Mexico City and other Central American cities are older.

My first taste of St. Augustine was at the San Sebastian winery. There, you get to see a 20 minute movie about the company and wine-making, a quick tour of a small bottling area, and then the real reason for the stop—wine tasting. The tour group tasted six or 7 wines, with suggestions for parings with food and such. I learned that Florida wines mostly come from a native grape that has been domesticated and in some cases crossed with other varieties. For the most part, the wines are on the sweet side but are not like Concord grapes.

The historic part of the city is really quite interesting. It’s history starts from the 1560s of course, but there are some interesting buildings from the late 1800s when Flagler (the Florida version of James J. Hill) built his railway into Florida. I walked the “old-town” shopping district that was a good blend of real historic value and pure American commercialism. I walked around the famous fort that dates from the early Spanish times and was used by the US Army until 1900.

From the fort, I meandered through an old neighborhood that stretched north between Hwy 1 and the ocean. In many ways, the house reminded me of the garden district of New Orleans. There were some huge mansions surrounded by brick walls and garden and just a street over were some small, houses close together with porches and lots of old trees and vines growing everywhere. Both the mansions and the small houses seemed rooted, part of the land.

I drove Florida Hwy A1A south to get home. It winds its way along the shoreline and presents the whole range of housing—from gigantic houses on stilts to the shabby mom-and-pop motels to pristine, uninhabited costal landscape.

Serendipity is the Holy Spirit's Middle Name

Yikes! I like the Southeastern Minnesota Synod but who would have thought that my next interim church would be in the southeastern United States—Florida! I am being considered at Palm Coast, Florida, which is on the Atlantic Ocean, 30-some miles north of Daytona Beach.

Just over a week ago my sister Jill and her husband returned from visiting her nursing school (Mary and her husband Tom) in Palm Coast, FL. Mary told Jill that their church, St. Mark by the Sea, was looking for a full-time intentional interim pastor and Jill told me. I sent an e-mail with my resume and ELCA mobility papers to the Florida-Bahamas Synod Bishop on April 17 after I returned from a non-meeting in Rochester (MN).

After a long phone call this past Tuesday (4/22) and some back and forth e-mail messages, the bishop is recommending me as the sole candidate to St. Mark by the Sea Lutheran Church church council this Sunday.

The bishop’s assistant, Bob Schaefer, said they will probably fly me down for an interview next week just in case they might find me to be a real dork or something. He was amazed that I just dropped in on them and he kept talking about the Holy Spirit’s working in this. The synod has been looking for an experienced, full-time, intentional interim pastor for three months and then I appeared. Amazing.

This sure is much more exciting than the small rural congregations of Red Oak Grove (Blooming Prairie, MN) or Harmony, MN would have been as interim sites!

On top of all this, Mary and Tom have offered me their home for the first month this summer when they are in Minnesota. They have a very, very nice 2 bedroom home that is biking distance from the church AND THE BEACH. In that first month, I'll be able to find my own place.

Sue and I are talking about her coming down for most of the winter—after the heat. She can do her telephone coaching (2 days/week) from Florida as well as here.

Truly, "Serendipity" is the Holy Spirit's middle name.

The church has about 330 members (160 average worship attendance) and has experienced some pastoral leadership issues for the past six years—as well as a theological schism..

St. Mark by the Sea is a two-year term call with the possibility of it to becoming a regular call. And we are seriously thinking about making it a regular call until I retire in 8-10 years.

Rocks in the Font

This is an old article but since it summarizes my faith journey so well, I thought it would be a good introduction to my first blog.

There are rocks in the baptismal font! Not water but rocks! And so it shall be for a time.

It is Lent and the church is on a pilgrimage, a journey of faith. We have left the safety of our well-traveled roads and have been led off into the wilderness, the desert, to confront our own devils. The quiet pool in which we usually splash the heads of infants with clean, warm water has dried up and we all are dusty, our mouths are dry.

Generations and generations before Jesus, God’s people were led out into a wilderness wandering. Set free in the horrible night of first-born death, Moses led the people into the wilderness, the desert. There they confronted their own devils—their faithlessness, their constant complaints, their rebellion. For forty years they wandered from one dry wadi to another seeking water. But it was God who provided their water of life. Moses touched the rocks with his staff and fresh spring water flowed and the people were refreshed. Forty years of wilderness and desert and God to lead them into the Promised Land through the flowing waters of the Jordon River.

Generations and generations passed and a voice was heard again in the desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight. Make the rocky places smooth and the rough places a plain!” And John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, the desert, and all the people came out to face their devils — their faithlessness, their constant complaints, their rebellion. In the wilderness, in the desert, John preached repentance and judgment. And all were baptized by John in the Jordon, confessing their sin. Jesus was also baptized by John there in the wilderness, the desert.

When Jesus came up out of the water, immediately the heavens were torn apart and a voice from those ripped heavens spoke to him: “You are my Son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased” — the same thing any father would say to a favored son. Then the Spirit descended on Jesus. She was in the form of a dove but she sunk her talons into his head and still wet from his baptism, she drove him into the wilderness, the desert, to confront his own devils. For forty days and nights Jesus was in the wilderness, the desert, tempted by the devil.

Each Lent, still dripping wet from our own baptism, the Spirit drives us out into the wilderness, the desert. For forty days, from Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday, we confront our own devils in the desert—our faithlessness, our constant complaints, our rebellion. The safety and the security of the ever-flowing baptismal font is behind us, dried up. Our lips are parched, our spirits withered, and we know that the only way back is through Jerusalem, through the rocky Kidron Valley to the Rock, the Place of the Skull, the way of the Cross, through our own death with Christ.

Yes, there are rocks in the baptismal font. They will stay there for a time. We are still in the wilderness, the desert. We still have many of our own devils to confront — to repent, to be reconciled with God and one another, to be renewed, to be washed clean once again in the waters of Baptism to be raised again with Jesus on Easter morning.