Life Bridge Dialogues are intentional conversations between veterans and civilians focusing on the impact of war upon both groups. We come together in mutual support and respect to begin healing the soul wounds of war.

Our first dialogue is scheduled to coincide with the observance of Memorial Day. It’s one thing to thank a vet for their service and their sacrifice. It’s another thing to stay and listen to what that service meant.

We all have a part in the healing. Please click on the link below to register and add your voice to the conversation. We need to hear what you have to say. See you then.

http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=ncnmbvcab&oeidk=a07e5vk4n2obee0fa7f

As hard as it was for us, we had to recognize that this particular dog needed much more than we would be able to give. Where she was in foster care much better for her at this point on the journey she had to make.

As we drove home, still thinking it over and talking about it, I remembered my first dog. I was no more than eight or nine. Our family went up to Greenwood Lake in NY State where members of our church had a cottage. I was playing out in the woods where I found a little black and white stray dog. My father said it was a fox terrier mix. Probably more than that, but I never really inquired into her background any deeper than that. What’s it really matter between friends?

The dog was terribly shy and skittish but eventually she came to me, and then she wouldn’t leave me. Stuck with me like glue. I had been adopted. I brought her back to the cottage and announced to everyone that wanted to keep her. The adults all laughed and made comments about how bad she smelled and fleas, but then they went into their mysterious adult world for their discussions and I noted from my eight year old world that I hadn’t heard ‘no’, and that was good enough for me.

After dinner, my father went out with our friend to find the dog’s owner. If the dog had an owner they said, it would be this man. Not a pleasant man I sensed. But we had to ask. Half an hour later, they came back and my father paid the guy $5 and that was that.

This is the threshold that grace first entered in my life. An important bridge was crossed that night. Through this little dog, I began to know myself as one who could care and love, as well as one who was cared for and loved. Maybe that’s what pets do for us.

Someday, I have no doubt the right adoptable collie will come along, just like our little fox terrier, I named Spot. Clever right? I was only eight, give me a break.

I remember sitting with Spot, while we waited for my father to return. Spot was curled sleeping in my lap, farting up a storm. I held her afraid to move and disturb her sleep, my eyes watering, feeling like a king in a bountiful new land.

The Bible says that Jesus had the power to still to wind and the waves. Jesus could drive out demons, cure diseases, restore sight to the blind and even raise the dead. It’s only logical to believe that this power would be at Jesus disposal when Jesus needed it most…to save himself. On the order of things that Jesus had already done, coming down off the cross was pretty small potatoes. A no brainer really.

I remember sitting by the hospital bedside of an elderly woman once, who provided sole care for her learning disabled brother. Even though she herself got around with a walking frame. She’d been a widow for 18 years, never had children, and she and her brother were all the family they had left. She lay in the hospital bed physically exhausted, and worried sick. What would happen to her brother if she died now? He would not be able to stay on his own. All they had was each other. He would have to be put in a home and that would most certainly kill him. She couldn’t bear the thought.

No, she had to live and return home to care for him, but whether she lived, or died that very night, was beyond her control. She knew it. All she could do was cry some hard angry tears. That always struck me as a pretty good definition of being human.

Being human boils down to exercising control over everything except the things we need most. Being human means coming face to face with our ultimate vulnerability, our utter lack of power over anything and everything that really matters. Every Sunday we say that Jesus was fully human as well as being fully divine. Is humanity something you can step in and out of at will? Like a pair of slippers or something? I suppose we try often enough, in the little games we play, the schemes we hatch when we try to play God. But ultimately, being human comes down to this moment. Desperately needing what we are helpless to acquire for ourselves.

Oh, I’d like to think that Jesus had a “Get out of Jail” card in his back pocket, and that he could use it if things got too unbearable on that cross. I like to think I have one too. I suspect otherwise though, when I remember that woman staring at the ceiling, facing an unimaginable future for the brother she loved that she was powerless to control. Or, as I recall my own mother and all of our family gathered helplessly around my father’s dying bedside, being dragged into a future we prayed mightily to be spared.

I remember the woman recovered and returned home to her brother. How relieved she was when I drove her to their farmhouse. I left for a new church sometime after, and I never found out how it ultimately turned out for them. Maybe the brother died first and the woman’s unimaginable future became her own. I suspect they needed each other to survive, and neither of them could make it alone. Maybe they went together, or maybe they’re still in that farmhouse. I don’t know.

I do know that it’s been more than 10 years into that unimagined future after they unhooked my father from all the machines and monitors and we left the ICU for the last time under an incredibly starry night sky. The path we’ve walked since that night has been a well-travelled one. Full of heavy stones and lots of broken glass. I’ve met hundreds of others on it. It doesn’t lead to oblivion, or the realization of my worst fears, though at times it sure feels like it. But here’s the thing, just when it does, there’s this sharp bend at a blind curve that runs you right through Golgotha. That’s where Jesus is waiting for you. He’s rolled some heavy stones out of the way to get there. Not to worry though, it’s all in the wrists.

For about a week, I’ve been thinking about an article I read that talked about getting pastors out of their offices and into the community. One even went so far as to say that the pastor shouldn’t come back to the church until the next Sunday worship.

The article made a lot of sense. Too much sense. I knew I should give it a try, but that immediately put me smack up against my naturally introverted personality. You see, I’m a quiet, shy sort. It’s true. I don’t like calling attention to myself. Lots of clergy are like that I’ve found. Like I said, you have to wonder about God sometimes.

When I go to a public place, I like to slip in anonymously. I like to observe, reflect and contemplate; take notes. The last thing I want to do is to be noticed. That being said, the idea wouldn’t let me go. I thought I could wait it out. Let it die of apathy or neglect, like my Christmas poinsettias. No such luck. After ten days of working up the courage, I decided to give it a try. I put on my collar, pack up my laptop and a fist full of business cards. Off to Starbucks.

This is where God gets a little heavy handed. Sometimes God is subtle and nuanced. Sometimes God swings a sledgehammer. This was definitely sledgehammer territory.

It was a beautiful spring morning. I parked the car and I thought I could maybe set up my mobile office outside where I’d be less likely to be noticed. Stick a toe in the water before jumping into the pool. I check the tables on the side of the building. A young woman is sitting at one of the tables, with her laptop set up. I recognized her when she looked up. It was Jessie, the editor of the online Patch newsletter. She shades her eyes and smiles.

“Oh hi Rev, office hours,” she points to her table and laughs. “Beautiful morning isn’t it?”

It is indeed, I agree, and I promise to send her another blog post soon (sooner than I thought) and tell her what a great job she’s doing with the Patch newsletter.

“Thanks,” she smiles and excuses herself when her cell phone rings.

OK God, you have my attention. It wasn’t exactly a burning bush, but close enough. But our Lord was just warming up.

I went inside and ordered a grande (why can’t Starbucks just say small medium and large like everybody else?) and a yogurt thing for lunch, and while I’m waiting to pick up my order, a woman who had just picked up her drink looks at me, sees the collar and asks, “You’re a priest? What church are you from?” I fumble in my bag for one of my cards I hadn’t even had a chance to get out yet, mumbling something about the Reformation and being Lutheran. The woman couldn’t care less. She continues with a sense of urgency, “What does God say about divorce?” “What are you supposed to do when someone rejects you?”

I could see the pain in her eyes, as I handed her my card and tried to think what to say…I was kind of drawing a blank. The espresso machine was hissing steamed milk behind me. Steely Dan was playing something I remembered from high school on the speaker. It was a stupid song then, and the years haven’t improved it. What words of wisdom do you come up with waiting for a grande?

Suddenly God took me back to my own divorce many years ago. What a terrible time in my life. The isolation I felt. The sense of abandonment, even by God. God held it up to me in an instant. What would I have needed to hear then? I recognized the woman’s look. And I also remembered the beginnings of new birth that were stirring, though I couldn’t see it then. If only I could have seen it then. Maybe it wasn’t the right time. There’s a time for planting and a time for the harvest. God showed it all to me in a second.

“That’s a really hard situation,” I said finally. “All you can do is the best you can. Just know that God hasn’t rejected you.”

A jolt, like an electric shock charges the air between us.  The woman takes my card and suddenly seems self-conscious. She thanks me, head down, picks up her coffee and moves quickly for the door. We’re strangers after all. A brief window of grace has opened and then it closes.

In last week’s Gospel, Jesus told Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it will. You hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it’s going. So it is with the Spirit.”

I suppose you never really know if what you say makes a difference. In the end, you can only hope. Nor can you ever know how God will lead you across the borders of social convention to touch a life and in turn, to be touched. Sometimes though, you just open a window and the wind takes your breath away.

You really have to wonder about God sometimes.  Guess I’ll have to learn to say ‘grande’ and get used to Steely Dan all over again.

The chaplain took a seat at the front of the room and was asked a simple question by the workshop facilitator. “Is there anything you would like to share with me about your military experience?”

The chaplain sat thoughtfully for a moment and then shared an incident that took place in Iraq in 2003. He began as you might expect a workshop demonstration to begin. Skimming along the surface of a story worn smooth by many tellings. But, a few minutes into the story, a transformation took place. The things he was sharing took on immediacy and a sense of urgency. This wasn’t workshop boilerplate anymore. This was real. The events he shared with us still held a tremendous amount of power for him, and there was almost a sense of sacredness that fell over the room as he spoke.

He told us of standing over the charred body of a young soldier, brought in with dozens of other wounded soldiers, and a young nurse working among the litters. She recognized him as a chaplain and said, “Where is God?”

He said that time slowed. Seconds seemed like an eternity. A rocket exploded in the night and the light from the explosion illumined the nurse’s face, imploring him for an answer that he as the chaplain, should be able to provide. But, he didn’t have one. All he had was his own fear. All he had was the urge to run. And he had no idea how long it was before he gave an answer that surprised even him. “God is here,” he said, “in your hands that want to heal and make whole and in your heart filled with pity and love.”

He said the nurse suddenly looked at him gratefully and continued tending to the wounded. His answer had provided her (and him) the strength to go on, at least for that night.

Hearing that story told was a remarkable experience. It drove home the healing power of sharing our stories. It was plain to everyone that this courageous chaplain, in sharing his story with such honesty, took another step toward his own healing and that we, in hearing his story, were privileged to take that step with him. But, that was only part of the story. The other part of the story is that we each took a step toward our own healing as well. A journey we weren’t completely aware we even needed to make.

This experience is one of the reasons we are starting a new program called IN OUR OWN WORDS: making meaning of our lives. IN OUR OWN WORDS is a series of writing workshops designed for veterans, military families, and civilians whose lives have been impacted by war. Through active reflection, feedback and support, participants craft their story that they may choose to share at a public reading before family and friends and the community. To learn more about this program, and to register for a workshop, visit www.in-our-own-words.com. Workshops are currently forming for mid April.

The journey toward healing may take us by surprise, but one thing is sure. It’s a journey we never make alone.

At our Bible study on Tuesday night, we looked at the Mark’s story of Jesus healing the leper, and this text has been playing in the background of the debate on the news and in print for me like a song that gets stuck in your head.

To be correct, this has been building for awhile. This latest episode, with the US Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops and contraception is just the latest installment. It turned up the volume.

But before that, there was a Supreme Court decision about religious liberty, or separation of church and state, involving Hosanna-Tabor Lutheran Church, a congregation of the Missouri Synod.

The congregation ran a parochial school and one of the teachers developed a physical disability. She began experiencing narcoleptic episodes. She would frequently lose consciousness. Falling asleep involuntarily is a dangerous thing if you’re a teacher in front of a class. Now, students may suffer narcolepsy, I know I had a severe case in history class. I was always falling asleep. Thankfully, the end of the semester was all it took to cure me. It’s a little different when you’re the teacher.

It took a leave of absence for the teacher to get treatment and after treatment, she looked to get her job back. The congregation said, “uh, not so fast,” and long story short, the teacher sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The congregation fought her on the grounds that the case did not belong in a court, as they were a religious institution. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which unanimously sided with the congregation.

Because it was a religious school, separation of church and state exempted the congregation from the standards of protection, fairness and justice that the ADA provided.

It’s hard to really applaud a decision which basically states, in so many words, that basic standards of fairness, justice and protection have no place in a religious institution. But, maybe that’s just me. The ads for Hebrew National hot dogs, and answering to a higher authority, come to mind.

Then, this past week, the US Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops, raised a tremendous outcry, against being required to provide access to contraception to employees in Roman Catholic sponsored institutions, hospitals and universities for example. The bishops cited Roman Catholic teaching that artificial contraception is immoral and they should not be required to pay for something they object to.

And I wondered how the Quakers felt about having their tax dollars going to fund our ongoing wars. Or, the Mennonites. Or, even how I feel about that. Just how do you go about getting one of these exemption things anyway?

In the background of this is Jesus healing a leper. A truly remarkable story. You know about the lot of a leper in the time of Jesus, right? Lepers lived as outcasts. They were forbidden to enter a city, or a village, or to have any sort of physical contact with a clean person, whatsoever. In fact, if they happened upon anyone they had to shout a warning.

Now, there is an indisputable logic to this. Leprosy was highly contagious. And the community, in order to protect itself isolates the leper and demands strict compliance. We can understand the rationale behind the practice, and truth be told, agree with it for the most part. The health and safety of the community must come first.

So, when the leper comes to Jesus, he crosses a tremendous divide. A divide that is not unfamiliar to us either. The huge gap between clean and unclean; acceptable and unacceptable; approved social practice and taboo—life and death.

The leper marches right up to Jesus, ignoring all the good and sound barriers that separate him for the good of the health and safety of the community and pleads with Jesus, “If you choose, you could make me well.”

Do you hear the risk the leper is taking? Socially prescribed behavior demanded Jesus turn his back on the leper. Take down his license plate and turn him into the Temple DMV. No ifs, ands, or buts.

But instead, Mark records the most utterly remarkable, astounding words in this entire text. The words that have been looping through my head all this week like a catchy tune while the courts, and the bishops, and the politicians do their strange, peculiar American dance.

Mark writes that Jesus was “moved with pity.” Three simple words. Of all the things Jesus could have said…should have said… he says, “I do choose. Be made clean.”

And, not only does he say it, he reaches across the barriers, the walls, the impassable divides that separate peoples, and communities, and ideologies, and he touches the man. Physical contact with a leper…the ultimate taboo.

Pity, compassion moves Jesus. Pity and compassion is the fuel in the engine of faith. It compels us from the safe, secure confines of legal doctrines and moral teachings, stifling air of dogmatic authorities, and drives us into the presence of God himself.

We believe that morality is primarily about following the rules. Adhering to certain doctrines, practices and teachings. This entire week’s debate about contraception and religious liberty has been a perfect illustration of that. That and the underlying issue of authority that always drives these debates.

As Lutherans, we don’t need to look outside of ourselves for examples of this debate. Our own debates about sexuality fall into that category too.

“What does the Bible say?”
“What does our doctrine allow?”
“What about tradition?”

The sides line up. People start staking out turf, claiming authority for themselves

For Jesus though, morality was not about doctrines, or dogmas, or teachings, or even about authority. For Jesus, morality begins with pity. Compassion. Addressing the needs of another and the rules don’t even enter into it.

Moved with pity…in spite of it all…Jesus reaches out his hand in the most basic and human of all gestures. He touches another at the point of his deepest need, despite everything that said Jesus shouldn’t, and makes him clean.

I wonder where pity and compassion might have moved the people of Hosanna-Tabor Lutheran Church? Where pity and compassion might move the US Conference of Roman Catholic bishops?

Where will we allow pity and compassion to move us?

When I learned about it from a friend I was intrigued by the possibilities it seemed to offer for us as a model for the healing ministry we have been working on here at Epiphany. Our next workshop is coming up on February 12th by the way….

Some background. Intersections International is an agency founded by the Marble Collegiate Church, dedicated to peace making and community building. Intersections International brings disparate groups of people together for dialogue and conversation, to foster greater understanding, which is the foundation for a more peaceful world. The Veteran/Civilian Dialogue is part of that mission.

The dialogue I attended had more than 70 participants. The participants were roughly divided between veterans and civilians. I met Vietnam vets, Iraq and Afghanistan vets, Korean vets and people like me, with no military experience. For many of us, it was our first dialogue. For a surprising number of participants, it was their second, third, even fourth dialogue. Clearly, for them, this was a powerfully healing experience that had them coming back for more. As the evening went on, I could see why that might be.

Each dialogue runs about 3 hours. The focus is on how war has affected our lives, both veterans and civilians. The conversation was interspersed with music and original performance pieces by a vets writing group. The level of sharing moved me and I came away with a deeper understanding and appreciation of our inter-dependence. In short, there was a palpable sense, in the midst of the brokenness expressed and experienced, of the Holy Spirit working. And that was exciting.

After attending the session in New York, I was more convinced than ever that this program would be a great model for our ministry. And the ball is rolling. I’ll be meeting with Synod and conference leaders to explore this model in more detail in the coming weeks. I hope we can hold our first dialogue at the end of April.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Please keep this initiative in your prayers. Sign up for the workshops on the 12th and March 4th . I’ll be happy to meet with interested folks after the service on the 5th and the 12th to answer questions and get your suggestions for this ministry. Let’s keep the conversation going. See you in church

Many well meaning people want to say yes to the first part of the question and leave it at that. Yes, the Bible is true! Anything else?

Now I like simplicity as much as the next person, but here’s the problem with that approach. It focuses attention on the Bible and and reduces truth to mere fact. If a fact is the highest form of truth, faithful living is nothing more than a series of True / False propositions. The Bible; well that’s the grading template. Let’s try a few shall we?

Slavery; True or False?
Homosexuality, True or False?
Evolution, True or False?

You see what I mean? Not always very helpful,is it? This approach to the Bible has led us down an infinite number of dead ends and caused a tremendous amount of human suffering. Going all the way back to Jesus on the cross. This was the Pharisees approach to scripture after all.

Messiah, True or False?

But, what if I say that the Bible tells the truth? Well, for one thing, it frees the Bible from merely being a set of Divine By-Laws. It conveys a truth about living beyond a True/False Quiz. It frees me too. My vocation as a Christian becomes less a lawyer, combing the fine print and searching for loopholes and more a poet explorer, uncovering mystery and wonder. The Biblical narrative becomes a means for me to engage my world. To understand my life story in the context of the story of God.

The Bible tells the Truth, in that the Bible tells the story of God’s relationship with the world. Truth is less fact now and more poetry. Less data and more wisdom. God’s Story is still unfolding in me and around me. It’s not finished yet.

Making birth control readily available has made a positive impact. In one village the average family has less than 4 children, down from 12 before birth control was available.

In this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, the RC Church is pursuing a “scorched earth” policy opposing artificial birth control. The bishop emeritus of the Philippines, which has threatened ex-communication to the President and others who have chosen a different path, says that “if there are more mouths to feed, then produce more food, don’t reduce the number of mouths.”

I can’t remember the last time I’ve been more disgusted with a response from a religious leader. Birth control is God’s gracious gift to us. A blessing that is too often turned to a curse by the self interested edicts of those who fear losing power and authority.

Will we in the Church ever learn? Doctrine, especially Christian doctrine, is worthless except as the towel to gird the waist of those who are kneeling to wash dirty feet.

They file in slowly from the shadows along the path from the fellowship hall where they dressed. As they make their way to the lit manger, you can hear the tittering laughter as neighbors, wives, husbands, even grandparents are recognized and exposed for who they are.

‘Look at you!”
“Oh man, I just gotta get a picture of this.”

As they step into the light though, something happens. The transformation is remarkable. That’s Mary, cradling the baby followed by Joseph, carefully stepping through the straw, gently guiding Mary by her elbow to her seat on a hay bale. The little angels are exactly that, hovering close to Mary, intensely interested in the baby, whose bright eyes peer out from the blankets with an irresistible beneficence.

There is something like silence that runs through the onlookers like electricity. I lower my camera for a moment, captured by the scene and startled at the tear the has come to my eye. No one around me says a word, as the characters settle in to their places and look out at us, beaming.

I think it was the vulnerability of the moment that was suddenly heartrending. Familiar people just like us standing there in outlandish costumes proclaiming the presence of God, in all the places where the world is not quite right. Where life has been pieced together from left over parts and has not turned out the way we planned. God standing with people who carry on the best they can in circumstances not of their choosing.

This is what that holy night was all about all along. It wasn’t about the people who sat comfortably in the inn, eating and drinking in front of a roaring fire. It wasn’t about those who had their life together, captains of their own destiny who cavalierly shape the world and the people in it according to their own whims and desires to this very day.

It was about those who are mostly forgotten and overlooked. Who pass through this world invisibly and who bear the world’s grief. It was about those who will be alone, whose heart will ache, who have nowhere else to be on a dark night but out in the barn. Who travel great distances chasing the star of their dreams only to arrive at a stable.

It was about how God continues to enter our lives from the shadows of vulnerabilities and disappointments. Calls us to stand in a little circle of light in the midst of a vast darkness, dressed in a bath towel and carrying a stick we found in the woods, to say that God is still here, where God has always been. Standing with us In the broken places of our lives. In the very places where we need God the most.