Connections to the Divine and our Souls

A Reflection for I Christmas    All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Southern Shores, NC December 29, 2013     Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 61:10-62:3 Galatians 3:23-25;4:4-7 John 1:1-18 Psalm 147:13-21

Welcome to the 5^th day of these 12 days of Christmas. I have been reading a lot of explanations for the symbols for the 12 days of Christmas and you pays your money and you take your choice. So many ways to explain things which we experience each day!
 

The Jesus movement tried to figure out what happened when they looked back at their experience. 

This Jesus was fully human who walked, talked, worked, sweated, belched, and bled like them, 

but there was something special about him, almost like a connection to God as if God were living 

inside him. He was indeed different when, on the third day after he died, he showed up in the space

 between them, nail holes and all.  How does anyone explain that? Sometimes when you can’t 

explain things with regular words, you use poetry and images. John tried that tack in the preface of 

his Gospel when he started off with these images:
 
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 

He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and 

without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life,

 and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness

 did not overcome it. . . . 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, and we 

have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. From his 

fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; 

grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, 

who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known. 

 John sees his experience with Jesus as if he is entering a new creation, using echoes of the creation 

story in Genesis where God speaks and there is light - the beginning of creation in that explosion of 

sound. John echoes that the Spirit of Christ is what God spoke and became flesh as Jesus and became 

light for all people.
  
I love those images, but I also have this other side of my brain that likes things to have some sort of 

logical pattern. Through those images and what I know about science, I am drawn to the Big Bang 

theory of creation - almost 14 Billion years ago, the explosion of the will of God to create a thing of 

joy, this universe of which we are a part. In this explosion, a tightly coiled ball of energy containing

 the core of all matter and spirit is unleashed to be what it is created to be. Galaxies, planets, rocks, 

gases, light, dark, animals, plants all evolve out of these building blocks. One human person's  DNA

 is 7% similar to bacteria, 15% to mustard greens, 36% to a fruit fly, 50% to bananas, 85% to a Zebra

 Fish, 98% similar to Chimpanzees, 99+% with other humans. Doesn't that explode your mind? 

We are so connected, one to another, at the basic level and to the world, the universe, the dream 

of God, in which we live and move and have our being.

We spend so much of our time trying to find the differences between people - things like color, religion,

 national origin, social and economic status - but God sees us all connected. I think what God does in 

the incarnation is to show us how interconnected we are with the rest of the creation. The divine comes

 and lives with us.  John uses the Greek word  SKENOO which means literally “Cast his tent among us”

. 


Here John is echoing the idea of the Hebrew Testament  image of the “Tent of Meeting” the 

Tabernacle, where God lives with us in the Exodus of our lives. Imagine that God lives with us in the 

sacred space between us.

Do you remember what it was like when we first started to host “Room at the Inn” for the homeless 

 at our church? Some people were scared, but when we sat down together across a table for dinner or

 breakfast, we found people just like us.  They may have had more bad luck or made some bad 

decisions, but we were connected as fellow journeyers on our shared Exodus.


One time I was talking with a friend in jail,  and he said that he never thought that he would end up 

with people like those with whom he was sharing cells. He told me that he had come to see them as 

people to watch out for, but they were full human beings, and he was learning what it meant to love 

the enemy as yourself. If you see the fact that God loves the other as God loves you, then it seems 

appropriate to see them as connected to you. This is true on the level of depth psychology. We reach 

healing when we understand that everything we find difficult in others exists within our very selves. 

The more passion with which we “dislike”, the greater we are trying to distance ourselves from the 

thing we want to deny in us. When we deny the wholeness of who we are, the good and the bad, the 

light and the shadow, then we stop fully living and we just go about existing.   

In my Dream Group Training, we have been reading a lot of books.  Last month's book was by C. G.

 Jung, Memories, Dreams and Reflections. Jung was a Protestant Pastor's son and, for that reason, he 

saw more than enough of the shallowness of religion,  and one quote from the book stands out: “As 

far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the 

darkness of mere being.” Jesus  showed us what it is to fully live a human life and, as John says he 

was the light which the darkness could not overcome.

But Jesus did not just come to connect us to each other; his ministry is connect us to the divine, the

 numinous, that which is beyond our ability to define.  It is not our creeds (which divide us) that save

 us; it is the relationship to the mystery which Jesus lived into which he called us to follow. Again to 

steal from Jung, (actually from James Hollis' quote from Jung):
The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling 

question of his life. Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we 

avoid fixing our interest upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real 

importance… The more a man lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity he has 

for what is essential, the less satisfying is his life. … If we understand and feel that here in this

 life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change. In the final analysis, 

we count for something only because of the essential we embody, and if we do not embody 

that, life is wasted…. 

 This Christmas Season, let us go beyond the story of the baby in the manger and start living into a 

world in which we are interconnected to the infinite and the finite in ourselves and in others, and 

the Other.

---

Hope of Wonder: Christmas 2013

A Reflection for Christmas Day 2013

All Saints’, Southern Shores

Thomas Wilson

Isaiah 62:6-12        Luke 2:8-20

Hope of Wonder

On this Christmas Morning we hear the Gospel lesson of Mary, Joseph, Jesus and the shepherds, where Mary takes all these things in her heart and ponders them. Let us follow her example and take all this into our hearts and see if we can see with the eyes of each person here in this tableau.

What does Jesus see? I remember when I saw my grandchildren for the first time and their eyes grew wide as they tried to take it all in, but it is wonder and beyond taking in. How wonderful it would be if we could hold on to that sense of wonder. I am reminded of William Butler Yeats and this poem, Among School Children, where he, in his sixties, walks through a classroom and wonders about the children and how:

… the children's eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.

I think Jesus saw all things through the eyes of wonder all of his life. He did not dismiss people into categories but saw in each person the presence of the Divine, as he himself was fully human and fully Divine. This is the secret of life - when we know that every stranger we see is full of mystery, every person we think we know has greater dimensions, everyone we love is full of surprise as we go deeper in relationship. To see all the earth as a precious gift is to walk on holy ground and make all things sacred. This is a Holiday when we focus on the things we received this day. Maybe we can really make it a Holy Day when we can see all that we have overlooked and see those things again with the eyes of wonder and thanksgiving.

I see myself reflected in the old Shepherd who comes to worship the Christ child. Part of me wants to say “I have seen it all before.” After all, I go through this every year and, to use Yeats’ phrase in the same poem, I have “sixty and more winters on [my] head.” Yet can I step away from the pose of knowing it all and enter into the hope that I am still trying to go deeper in the meaning of this event? Even if I had “sixty and more winters” still to go, would I ever understand the depth of mystery of how God loves me – and you - so much that God comes under our roofs and lives with us.

I see Mary looking at me, wondering if her son will turn out like me, this old shepherd. Again back to Yeats’ poem, and in stanza 5 he writes:

What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap
Honey of generation had betrayed,
And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape
As recollection or the drug decide,
Would think her son, did she but see that shape
With sixty or more winters on its head,
A compensation for the pang of his birth,
Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?

Does Mary have dreams about her son and does she wonder about how he will turn out? The world can be an unfriendly place and every parent wants to protect their children from all the things that go bump in the night. Every pain and injury inflicted on my child by others I feel and wonder why I was not able to keep it from happening. Yet even in the blessing of birth there is pain; so it is in every day of life there will be opportunities to encounter the shadow and grow through it. We pray that each assault to our child’s psyche will heal and that they will be stronger for it. Here is Mary and her son is born in a stable, far from home, and laid in a manger, in an occupied country run by a tyrant. The cards seem stacked against him, and yet there is hope.

Finally there is Joseph, the one who is absolutely clueless, and yet he shows up and does the decent things, taking on burdens that are not his. Why does he do it? He does it because, clueless or not, he knows how to love and, if Woody Allen is correct and “80% of success in life is showing up”, then Joseph is a success because he shows up.

The message I get from my meditation on the Christmas tableau is to show up, love fiercely, protect the vulnerable, and look in wonder at all things.

May you Bless and be blessed this day and every day.

Telling Stories

A Sermon for Christmas Eve 2013 

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Southern Shores, NC                

Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 9:2-7                         Titus 2:11-14                       Luke 2:1-14

Telling Stories

“In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.” So begins the Gospel lesson for tonight which Luke wrote to give a history of the Jesus movement. History is not lists of chronological events with people, places and things, but the meaning of the events.

A couple months ago the Don and Catherine Bryan Cultural Arts Series sponsored a visit and lecture by David McCullough - author, historian, narrator, two time Pulitzer Prize winner, winner of the National Book Award, Recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom - and one of my favorite authors. He was here also to research the Outer Banks and the work of the Wright Brothers for a book which will be published next year about the quest of fulfilling the dream of manned flight.  I like the way McCullough does history for, while the facts provide the skeleton, he also searches for the stories that people remember which provide the meat and sinews of the body of the work. Stories may or may not be factually correct, but they are the contemporary participants’ and observers’ attempts to find truth and meaning. 

Tonight we tell the old, old, story of Jesus and his birth. It is a story which we learned when we were children passed on to us over the years through the Gospel of Luke. It is a true story; the surface facts might be debatable, but it covers the deeper truth. The editor of the book of Luke takes the skeleton of facts and adds the memories and remembrances of people 80 years after the event of the birth of a son to a homeless couple In Bethlehem. First of all, the family told the story, Mary and Joseph to their children, nieces and nephews, who re-told them to the later generations of family, and not just blood family but the followers of Jesus who had joined the family. They passed it on through Luke, and it is passed on to us, told and re-told for 2000+ years to us members of the extended family.  Can you remember the facts of events 80 years before, or does memory and imagination combine to fill in the details. How about less than 80 years?

Let me tell you of something that happened 65 years and ten days ago, December 14, 1948, “when Truman was President of the United States and 

 

Salvador Castaneda Castro was el Presidente of El Salvador, on a coffee finca owned by the United Fruit Company on hills overlooking the Capital City of San Salvador in that Central American country.” How is that for a beginning of a story? Like the Luke story it lists the leaders of the countries involved but they were far away from where the story begins. We had just moved there a few months before and were waiting for our house in the city to be finished. Castenada Castro was a thug who had come to power when he helped organize a coup d’état 

against the previous fascist El Presidente from 1931-1944, Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, under whom he had served as head of his secret police. After three years, a group of young army officers returned the favor and threw Casteneda Castro out with a coup. My parents’ family photo album has a snapshot of people at the finca looking down on puffs of smoke from one fortress firing cannons against another one in the city. There were many times when I was growing up when we would look at the album of life in Salvador and stories would be told about how the cannons mainly killed innocent civilians, and it was one of the reasons we were safely at the finca.  The story continues that my brother, Paul, who was almost three, was thrilled to see the sights and sounds of warfare, and my sister, Anne, who was four months old, was held by my father, or mother, or maid (depending on by who and when the story was told) - but I, almost two, slept through the entire revolution. “Sleeping through the revolution” became a line my brother would use to imply that I was clueless about something or another. “Excitement for noise and carnage” was a line I would throw at my brother. However, the reason the story would be told was to share a deeper truth that my parents wanted to pass on to us. That deeper truth was the fervent hope that, while the world may fall apart, as long as we were there for each other, we could get through anything. That, at times, fragile truth, not always upheld by surface facts, helped form our lives.  It was the Wilson myth; myths are not things that are not true, but stories, not always dependent on surface facts, which are used to explain a deeper reality. That theme runs through our understanding of ourselves in so many other stories the Wilsons would tell. It is also a theme that keeps coming forth in my dreams. Jung has said that “Myths are public dreams and dreams are private myths.”

The birth of Jesus is a fact, Caesar Augustus is a fact, Quirinius is a fact, Bethlehem is a fact; all are facts of where, when, and who, but details were added and expanded by generations of story tellers as they tried to give the event a meaning within the community of faith. Hear how Luke gives the facts, and then listen to the old, old story again and listen to the deeper truth that God is present in all the God-forsaken places of the world, even in human hearts. Listen to the truth that God keeps sending messages of love to all people. Hear the truth that time is not only measured in hours and minutes but in God’s time. Then tonight go home and, in your prayers, ask for help to listen to the truth that God is sending to your dreams. Tomorrow gather with the family and listen for the deeper meaning behind the stories that you will tell and have heard and live into that deeper truth. On Sunday come back to participate and become part of the story that God is telling at this place, this family, this church to fulfill God’s dream.

Merry Christmas, and tell the story by living into it.

Joseph of Nazareth: A Poem of his Reflection

This is a poem I wrote as this sermon and if you wish- you can hear me read it on You Tube     

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwFcupzhsX8&feature=youtu.be

A Reflection for IV Advent                                           All Saints Episcopal Church, Southern Shores, NC December 22, 2013                                                       Thomas E. Wilson Rector

Isaiah 7:10-16                     Romans 1:1-7                     Matthew 1:18-25

Joseph of Nazareth

A Poem of His Reflection

Facing my death giving thanks for life with you

Once all planned, and almost not to be in view.

Now remembering day your father my workshop came

Dragging you behind him, face full fury and yet shame.

“Joseph”, said he, “I speak with scattered pride to you

Of promises not honored which were meant to be true.

This worthless one’s mother news to me this day impart

Words that singed the proud peacock feathers of my heart.

She, this one, her mother says has missed two of monthly wound,

Red tent free, breaking the cleansing ancient compact with moon.

She, this one, stands before you splitting my trust from source

So now I ask if in kindness for me, not for her, you give divorce.”

And you cried, “Joseph it is not for lack of love for you.

But angel came and gave gift from the One who is true.”

“Silence”, your father thundered, “do not with blasphemy sin.

Blessed be he whose name cannot be said out loud or within

Your mad fantasies, soiled one. To distant cousin you shall go

Until confinement, so shame this family will not more undergo.”

Shaken to my core, images flooding eyes so that I burst out weeping,

Seeing my precious, my beloved one, in the arms of another sleeping.

To stop the clatter of demons of hurt, I screwed my courage and said

“Divorce I will grant for the one I love in quiet gentle way and she dead

To heart shall be, with deepest sadness dismantle I our marriage bed.”

You cried out, “Joseph never doubt my love for you is true.

I will to end of life be faithful to the NAME, our son and you.”

For weeks after you father dragging weeping and to cousin sent

I stuffed down all daylight thoughts, but nightly dreams present

Of mercy to be showed of which ignored I for months of three

Putting off decree decision; blaming withered fondness for see

each other not. Finally that night came when Mary’s Angel to bed

Visited, filling room and resident with dreaming of fearing dread.

This was no kindly shade of a domestic children’s sport

But the energy fullness of the unspoken NAME’s retort,

Lover spurned who wished to whisper reconciliation in my ear

But chose visions, tardy unearthly creatures to fill unbidden fear.

“Wake up! Arise! To the hill country go and there on bended knee

Ask forgiveness of a heart so filled with self pity pride, banning glee.

Beg her to return so that you might join in the NAME’s simple plan

To be a guide whose loving hand will help the infant child to stand,

To stand not only on his own feet but to stand under the glorious light

And be the light as each day with powers we summon strength to fight

The Demons of our own short comings, when lacking courage to love

We wrap ourselves in being right, how well I know, wrapped in glove,

So heavy we cannot feel the loss of being human love in this world

When in chaos all around us in faux righteousness we are whirled.

Oh, my wife, how humbled am I that you take me to husband back

When the Intimate Blessed One shown through you forgiving the lack

Of kindly love and then through that love shared we to make three

Outward and visible signs of the presence of the Holy purpose shone

As we combined our strengths to guide our son to be man full grown.

As with all of life, mine I do not understand but give love returned

Full measure and more in thanks for real chance to have life turned.

My beloved wife, bless me as I die as the NAME has blessed me all days

And nights and see me as in long ago safely in that old star’s blessed rays.

There will be another morning many years from now when rise the sun

Will shine on us again; you and me and the product of our love, our Son.

Magnificat and red boxers

A Reflection for III Advent All Saints’ Episcopal, Southern Shores, N.C. December 15, 2013 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 35:1-10 Canticle 15 (Magnificat) James 5:7-10 Matthew 11:2-11

Today we sang the Magnificat, the Song of Mary, who sings a song of thanksgiving, magnifying the Lord, after an Angel speaks to her and tells her of God’s plan for her. The song she sings is not really her own, but it is her version of an ancient song called the Song of Hannah found in the book of Samuel. It is sung by an old woman with thanksgiving when she is told by a priest during a worship service that God would answer her prayers and she would become pregnant. Two different women - one old who feels as if life has passed her by and the other who has just gotten engaged and is full of hope for the future. For Hannah, the good news will be an answer to years of prayer, and for Mary, the news will be troubling since she is not yet married. They are divided in time by 1000 years of history, divided and yet united in the song they sing. The uniting theme is that they are both loved, and they are asked to bring the spirit of God into themselves and, out of that willing love, bring forth love, bring forth hope, bring forth joy, bring forth justice, bring forth peace. Hannah’s son will be Samuel, who is the one who will anoint David as the King, and Mary’s son will be Jesus, who will be called the King of the Jews. 

 

When Scripture tells us stories of the past, those stories speak to God’s people. The point of these stories is not to give history lessons or to be collectors of trivia or adiaphora – matters of indifference, to stay on the literal level, to stay on the surface - but the point of faith is to look deeper, to go to the core. In the Magnificat, when we look at the core, we find the symbolic center which sings that God rejoices, has joy, in us, and we rejoice, have joy, in God, and in this relationship the world is made a better place. Messages from the Divine are not meant to be stored in one’s own private treasure chest of memory to be hoarded for private spirituality but to be used to change the world.

When Luke remembers this story, the editor is asking the listener to take the song into her or his heart and ask “How can I open myself to the Divine message and give hope, joy, justice and peace?”. Each of us is invited to sing, “The Lord has shown favor on me, I have been blessed beyond all that I deserve; therefore how can I bring forth blessings.” 

 

Divine messages are communicated in many ways - in nature, in the holy space between people, in liturgy, in direct spiritual experiences of visions, in the study of other people’s experiences and dreams as in the Bible, and in thousands of years of other experiences. Divine messages come in so many ways. The word Angel means “messenger” and is one way that messages are delivered. 

 

Most of you know I was gone last week as Pat and I were at the Kanuga Conference Center attending our second of six Intensive Training sessions for becoming Dream Group Leaders. We believe that dreams are one of the ways that the Divine speaks to us through symbols. Dreams have many details and sometimes you want to find out what the details mean, to do analysis of each thing, but the problem is that keeps us in our head and on the surface. What we are learning is that, when we gather in a Dream Group, we are not asked to show how bright we are and interpret every little facet of someone else’s dream, but to look deeper and to take the dream upon ourselves and find how it speaks to our souls, our deep spirits.

Let me give you an example of a dream I had that the group worked with me on and took into themselves. I call it “Red Boxers”

and I dreamed it as we were into the stewardship campaign, which is a stress-filled time for clergy, and getting ready for the dream training, and looking at 5 years from now when I will have to retire. All of these issues are anxiety producers, and we believe that dreams are meant for our health and healing:

I am in Western North Carolina doing a tour of streams and rivers on which to canoe, and this is against the backdrop of the Election of a Bishop, so there is lots of buzzing about the election ( there is no election in Western North Carolina- but I am on the search committee for a new Bishop in East Carolina). The bus that we are on is driving around mountains with lots of beautiful views. We get out and wade in the waters. We stop and get out to pick up some treats made out of honey. The scene shifts, and I find myself entering a church because I am subbing for a priest in a communion service. I look down and see that I am dressed in red - bright red - boxer shorts. Did I feel so comfortable that in the wading I stripped down to boxers? I don’t know and I feel a bit confused, but no one seems to comment. I go into the chapel and find that it has not been set up. There is no chasuble, so I am helped into a small woman’s or child’s poncho with only a small opening. I am not sure that my head can fit through, and it barely makes it. There is no stole, but they take a lace table cloth and gather it together, and it is bulky and clumsy. As I move around with it I am knocking some things over. People come in but not to attend the service - they are coming in to have lunch around tables, and there are waiters taking orders and customers talking and laughing with each other, and I am doing the service. There is no bread and no wine – so we use some coke and maple sugar candy figures.

I wake up.

On the surface we can look at water, which is a symbol for the unconscious, and going to Western North Carolina to go deeper into the unconscious. I was fed honey like John the Baptist in the Wilderness. Stripping down to boxers can mean getting rid of all I hide behind, being vulnerable. In the personal unconscious, the color red can mean passion, love, or danger for, since red is the color of blood, it can mean something that will cost dearly, a sacrifice. Yet in the collective unconscious, red is a color of happiness. That is why Chinese restaurants use so much red in their decorations. In the dream, I am still a Priest and I do the service, but I can no longer fit my very self, my theology, my understanding into the narrow confines of standard worship. I am clumsy and silly looking; can they really afford me, do I really belong?

Dreams don’t come to tell us what we already know but to tell us what we need to know and to give clues to find the way for healing and wholeness. If that is so, then the deeper message for me in this dream is that I am too worried about the church, for the community has gathered together and is being fed despite me. I am not the church; to the contrary, it will continue without me. It is God who feeds me and feeds the congregation. My actions seem to be like those of a woman beginning the second trimester of a pregnancy, when clothes no longer fit and she feels clumsy. What is it that I have inside me that the Divine has planted that I need to carry, nurture, and bring forth? What I am called to do in the meantime is to be faithful and point to the work we are called to do and to the source of all of our blessings. Like Mary, I am to go deeply into myself and give what the Divine has given to me. The deeper message is to sing the Magnificat; 

 

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; *
    for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed: *
    the Almighty has done great things for me,
    and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him *
    in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm, *
    he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *
    and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, *
    and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel, *
    for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers, *
    to Abraham and his children for ever.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: *
    as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

 

That is one of my dreams; take it and make it yours. Take Mary’s and Hannah’s visits with the Divine and make them yours. How are you blessed, having your pride scattered? How are you feeding the hungry with Good things, sharing mercy, hope, justice and love? How are you magnifying, praising, rejoicing? Are you open to hearing God, taking the Divine inside yourself, and then ready to give out of yourself in joy?

Thanksgiving for Don Bryan

A Reflection for Thanksgiving Day All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC November 28, 2013 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Psalm 100 Philippians 4:4-9 John 6:25-35

Today’s Epistle lesson is taken from Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi and urges them to couch everything in thanksgiving. This is the holiday called Thanksgiving Day; so what are you thankful for? Well, let’s start off with Paul’s advice on what to think about in thanksgiving:

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Are there people or things that come to mind? This coming Sunday, December 1, we have a concert coming up by the Simon String Quartet.

This sanctuary has the best acoustics for music, and I am thankful for hearing beautiful music wonderfully played. Yet I cannot just give thanks for the music concert alone. I have to think of the person who made this music program

possible - Don Bryan. Don died this last week, and he heads my list of people I am thankful for this year. Don knew how to love, which is an art not a science. The concert is sponsored by the Don and Catherine Bryan Cultural Series, which Don set up in thankfulness for the joy of the creative arts that he and Kay shared. Don lived his life not just feeling or talking about love but by doing love.

Don knew how to love. He loved his country, and when Pearl Harbor hit, he enlisted in the Army and ended up in the Army Air Corps in World War II where he was put to work as a gunner on a B-17. It was a new kind of war, and the America Air Corps had a lot to learn about strategic bombers. When Don started doing the daylight bombing of Germany, crews stood a less than even chance of returning. Much later as the tactics changed and longer range fighter escorts were developed, the odds improved, but it is estimated that over one third of the flight crews of B-17s did not survive the war.

Don was an artist, and there is this painting he did of a gunner looking out at the viewer, and you can see the apprehension in his eyes which show above the oxygen mask as the B-17 is being attacked. It was a memory self-portrait looking into his soul and the soul of every veteran, full of the horror of war. Don was not a war lover, yet because he loved his country, he did the full tour. However, he said that the next time would not be in such a vulnerable position, and so he qualified as a fighter pilot and served in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, retiring as a full Colonel. Don was not “a summer soldier or sunshine patriot”, rather he loved the only way he could, by doing.

Forty years ago, after his 30 year hitch was up, he retired to a place he loved, Nags Head, where he and Kay would be able to slow down and he could paint. Nags Head was really a rugged place where people went to get away from it all. As the saying went, “It was not the end of the world but you could see it from there.” He loved Nags Head and he did not just feel or talk about that love, he worked to make it a place of honor. He served on many state and county commissions and committees of governance and served as Mayor of Nags Head for 13 years. The joke Don told was that the hardest part of moving into Spring Arbor was that he had to change his zip code from his beloved Nags Head to Kill Devil Hills. 

 

He moved into Spring Arbor because Don loved Catherine, his wife; it was a love not just of feeling or words but of actions. As Kay got more and more ill, Don changed his life by taking care of her. The hardest part of Don’s last illness was that he was physically separated from her and could not be there for her because, for Don, love was what you do.

Don loved art, the creative process, and did not waste time feeling or talking, but he set up the foundation as an outward and visible sign of his and Kay’s love for each other, in thanksgiving for their life together on these Outer Banks, and to encourage all sorts of arts. The foundation’s inaugural performance was a breathtaking piano concert. Subsequent events have included a performance of “An Evening with Thomas Jefferson”,

a lecture by the Historian David McCullough who was here researching his next book on the Wright Brothers and the beginnings of manned flight,

a workshop for veterans on writing as a means of healing the wounds of war led by the Poet Laureate of North Carolina,

now the Simon Quartet, and later a retrospective of Don’s paintings. Next year’s plans were being put together when Don died and will continue because of Don and Kay love for each other and their beloved Outer Banks. Love does not die, people do, but love continues.

There will be a service for Don on December 8^th and I have to be out of town, but he and Kay will be in my prayers. If you want to remember Don, make a donation to the Don & Catherine Bryan Cultural Series or the USO and share in Don’s love. If you really want to give thanks, then follow his example and love. Don’t just say it or just feel it, but do it.

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

... and do it.

Being a "see-er"

A Reflection for I Advent All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC December 1, 2013 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 2:1-5 Romans 13:11-14 Matthew 24:36-44 Psalm 122

I have returned to my winter habit and have grown a beard. I first grew a beard so I would look older when I was 17 and a college freshman at Chapel Hill. If the sun hit it just right, you might be able to see some fuzz. The next year, when I got a summer job at an Outdoor Drama in Florida, I was cast as a Spanish Conquistador and I was able to grow a full red beard. It indeed made me look older, but dang!! - a beard can be hot in Florida summers. So I decided that I would only grow one during the winter. The problem now is that the red is gone from my hair and beard and they are both snow white. I went to visit a parishioner last week who had a toddler grandson visiting, and when I rang the doorbell, he came to the door, his eyes full of astonishment, and he cried out “Santa Claus is at the door!” Our parishioner grew in the estimation of his grandson who believed that his grandfather was close friends with Santa Claus. I tried to dissuade him, but he stubbornly held on to the illusion. However, as he grows up, he will realize that I am not Santa Claus, and he will see the truth that I am a friend of his grandfather and then grow into his own dreams. That is what life is about - getting rid of illusions by seeing the truth and then living into one’s dreams.

The Hebrew Testament lesson is from the 2^nd chapter of the Book of the prophet Isaiah. A prophet is a “seer”- one who sees things and tells the truth about them, and then sees the dreams God has and point us in the direction of the fulfillment of those dreams. The first thing Isaiah does is to strip away the illusions and speak the truth as God sees things, and he starts chapter one of the Book by pointing out to the people the truth behind their facades when they come to worship. Listen to how the translation of The Message reflects what Isaiah says that God sees:

“Quit your worship charades.
    I can’t stand your trivial religious games:
Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings—
    meetings, meetings, meetings—I can’t stand one more!
Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them!
    You’ve worn me out!
I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion,
    while you go right on sinning.
When you put on your next prayer-performance,
    I’ll be looking the other way.
No matter how long or loud or often you pray,
    I’ll not be listening.
And do you know why? Because you’ve been tearing
    people to pieces, and your hands are bloody.
Go home and wash up.
    Clean up your act (12-17). . . . (and)

Oh! Can you believe it? The chaste city
    has become a whore!
She was once all justice,
    everyone living as good neighbors,
And now they’re all
    at one another’s throats.
Your coins are all counterfeits.
    Your wine is watered down.
Your leaders are turncoats
    who keep company with crooks.
They sell themselves to the highest bidder
    and grab anything not nailed down.
They never stand up for the homeless,
    never stick up for the defenseless. (21-23)

Any of that vision of the truth sounds familiar to you? Isaiah is speaking the truth in the 8^th Century BC, and here we are in the 21^st Century and it sure sounds like the here and now with our love of violence as we tear people apart with words or weapons, our inequality of wealth brought about by greed and the exploitation of the poor and marginalized, and the sale of our leaders to the highest bidders.

The second job of the prophet after stripping us of our illusions is to paint a vision of how God would like to see us, and here in the second chapter we see those who follow God beating swords into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks, and people no longer studying war. The prophet is a see-er who sees the truth behind the lies we live and also sees the dreams God has for us. Two weeks ago I woke up from a dream with an old 1950’s song written by Ed McCurdy rattling around in my head, and I realized why this week when I looked at the lessons. You may have heard the song (we used to sing it in peace demonstrations back when I had a red beard) “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream”:

Last night I had the strangest dream
I ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war
I dreamed I saw a mighty room
The room was filled with men
And the paper they were signing said
They'd never fight again

And when the papers all were signed
And a million copies made
They all joined hands and bowed their heads
And grateful prayers were prayed
And the people in the streets below
Were dancing round and round
And guns and swords and uniforms
Were scattered on the ground

Last night I had the strangest dream
I ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed 
To put an end to war

Pete Seegar singing song- I heard him sing it in 1965

How many lies we tell ourselves and others to justify war. Wars end when we rid ourselves of our greed to possess what our neighbor has. The beginning of the end of war is me renouncing greed on a daily basis. Wars end when we stop glorifying violence. The beginning of the end of war is me renouncing violence on a daily basis. How many hours are we watching movies, television, and playing video games which teach us the joy of killing people for our own advantage? The beginning of the end of war is me renouncing the learning of war on a daily basis. How much money do we spend on weapons both as a nation and as individuals? In two weeks we remember the one-year anniversary of a disturbed young man, who spent hours on end playing violence-glorifying games, arming himself with weapons of mass destruction and going forth to live into his fantasy by slaughtering little children. We were appalled - and then we lost our nerve for we did not want to divorce ourselves from violence and weapons. Wars end when we give up our love affair with weapons. The beginning of the end of war is me renouncing weapons on a daily basis. How many times do we brood about revenge? Wars end when we rid ourselves of the desire to get even. The beginning of the end of war is me renouncing revenge on a daily basis.

The means for achieving turning swords into plowshares is simple, not easy but simple; we just lack the will to try to live into God’s dream for us. Living into the peace of God which was proclaimed was not attempted and found impossible; it was just found difficult and not attempted. Every week we proclaim in the Creed that we expect the return of Christ. This Advent I invite you to be a see-er and ask for the Risen Christ to return and give us the will to do what he asks. As the Gospel reminds us: “Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."