Missing A Day

A Reflection for I Advent                                                      All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, N.C. December 3, 2017                                                                Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 64:1-9               1 Corinthians 1:3-9                 Mark 13:24-37            Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18

Missing A Day

Well, it has happened again; another year and yet another missed opportunity to get a Lego Star Wars themed Advent calendar. They get sold out fast and I have absolutely no reason to get one. When my daughter was younger, we used to get an Advent calendar for her every year.  Some had candy or a little toy behind each day. We had to teach her to uncover only one day at a time, instead of going through all 30-24 days at a time.  This exercise was to try to teach her to live into, savor, and appreciate fully each day, one day at a time, instead of rushing through life grabbing all you can get. It was a little bit like when I would put her to bed each night reading her a chapter of a book, like Charlotte's Web, The Secret Garden, Treasure Island,  Grimm's Fairy Tales, The Jungle Book, Peter Rabbit, Black Beauty, the Pooh Books, and so many others. We would read them one chapter at a time, to relish each event, hear new words, imagine every scene, and stay awake joyfully to treasure those fleeting moments. As she got older, she wanted to go on to another chapter and finally she dismissed me and ended reading the whole book for herself because she could no longer stand to wait. She became an English major and ended up assigning bunches of books for colleges students to read and write about before the end of the semester. One of the things she used to complain to me about was the students rushing through the books or taking short cuts that they don't fully appreciate what is going on.

Advent is a time to be present, to see what is going on, but most of us want to rush through it to get to the end. Jesus, in today’s lesson from Mark, advises his followers about the end time and to “keep alert”, “keep awake”, to be present to what God is doing in this chapter of their lives. Trust that there is an end to this volume, but be present to the depth of each chapter.

Today we lit the Prophet's Candle of the Advent Wreath as the symbol of Hope. The thing that we don't fully understand is that the Prophets were not fortune tellers to predict the future, but they wanted us to pay attention to the way the world operates here and now so that we could avoid the future that is the logical consequence of us not being present.

Of all the books that I read to my daughter, the one that comes to my mind right now is The Secret Garden. It is a wonderful Advent story of a spoiled little girl and a sickly boy who find healing in paying attention to the neglected garden that gives their souls meaning. That is what Advent is about - paying attention to each daily gift that we are given instead of mourning a dead past or rushing off to an impossible future. “Keep awake”.  Keep Alert”. “Be Present”.

Over Thanksgiving I did the usual and worked a lot without slowing down to “Pay Attention!” I ended up visiting my Doctor who gave me drugs and some with codeine. I wrote a poem about my experience:

Missing A Day

The Doctor gave me something to keep

me from coughing. Made me feel as if

fingers had gloves on, clumsy and stiff,

but it had an effect of sending me sleep.

In those moments before the sleep came

I wondered if what the difference was

between time as if seeing through gauze

and usual looking as it were all the same,

was not all that much? Like a thick mist

of an everyday that we don't see through

blocking out wonder, being without clue

of the holy moments and people missed.

Open my eyes Lord Jesus that I see you

at work in me to make your dreams true.

Last Sunday's paper had a wonderful article by Roy Germano of the Los Angeles Times who found that his pocket had been picked and his smartphone had been stolen from him. At first he went through the withdrawal of having to check his phone each moment, to waste his time and escape focus on what is going around him. He got himself a flip-phone for the important calls and started being present. He no longer had to spend his life tethered to “reading outrage inducing clickbait or emails that can wait until morning.” He could focus in on his “daughter and what she has to say rather than what for-profit tech company want me to think about.” He found himself blessed by the thieves because, while he lost his smartphone, he rediscovered the deeper chapter of his story.

Today at the 10:30 service we will have a moment to slow down with a baptism. We will remember what the promises made on our behalf were when we were baptized, that we would slow down enough to recognize that there is a deeper reality in this life, that there is a holy space between us and our neighbor, that God's love is the bond that ties us together, and that we are called here to work for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every living creature. We will promise to make it a priority to bear witness by word and deed to Kade of a life centered on a power greater than ourselves and of the strength available even when, not if, we louse up and need forgiveness. We will demonstrate that even if this life does have an end, love does not. We promise that we will be there to live into each chapter together with him and to be Present with him, each other, Creation and with the Creator of all life.

Keeping the Systems Running: Reflection and Poem for Feast of Christ the King

A Reflection for Feast of Christ the King All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC November 26, 2017 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 Ephesians 1:15-23 Matthew 25:31-46

Keeping the System Running

Before I went to seminary I was a social worker, and I taught social work. There was a story that I stole from someone - and I cannot remember who - and it goes like this: A social worker was walking through the woods one day and came across a waterfall and was alarmed that people were being swept over the waterfall. He dove into the river and swam to one and then another, pulling them onto the shore and safety. He kept diving back in, but as soon as he pulled one out, another would be swept over the falls and into the pool of water. Another person came by on the walk and the social worker pleaded, “Help me, these people are drowning.” The other person said, “You bet!” But he started to climb up the embankment on the side of the falls. The social worker called out, “Wait, the people are in trouble down here!' The other person said, “You do your work down here! I'm going upstream to stop the one who is throwing . . . them into the water.” Before I was ordained I used a lot more colorful language.

What I was trying to teach them is that helping people in trouble has the allure of heroism, of being a savior, but the deeper problem is the root causes of people's troubles. We tend to use pity as a motivation for helping, but I was trying to tell them that we’re needed to a rage against business as usual which causes the victims’ troubles. Systems need to change so that people are not treated as things but as full humans, images of God.

The challenging of systems of business as usual was the consistent message of the prophets in ancient Israel. The Temple clique tended to bless whatever was the vogue with whoever King was in power, but the prophets kept holding up a vision of the Kingdom of God. During the time of the Babylonian exile, we see the prophet Ezekiel in today's lesson casting a vision that, in the longed for restored kingdom after the exile, there would be one King, the Shepherd. Ezekiel hears God saying that, in this new restored Kingdom, the Shepherd would make sure the poor do not get exploited and there would be justice for all: “I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.”

This vision is repeated in the story that Matthew remembers about how the Kingdom of the Heavens under the Resurrected Lord will stand in solidarity with each person, and every citizen will be counted on to care for one another. There will no longer be business as usual with disposable people, for we are all fellow sons and daughters of God, children of the Most High. The editor of the Matthew Gospel sets this last story as the last public teaching before Jesus is betrayed, arrested, tried, and executed. Jesus speaks about the Kingdom of God and in a few days after this teaching, the Kingdoms of this world, personified by the figures of King Herod and Pontius Pilate, will do business as usual to get rid of the troublemakers. Then just when they think they have won, the resurrection makes them question the limits of their Kingdoms. 

 

Today is the last Sunday before Advent, and in the older Prayer Books up through the 1928 Prayer Book in which I was raised, it was unofficially called “Stir up Sunday”, because the Collect, the Prayer for the Day, started with the petition “Stir up, we beseech ye, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people . . .”. When I heard those words, I knew that all around the world in Anglican and Episcopal churches the Sunday school lesson, and probably the Sermon, was going to have a bit about the need to stir up the Christmas pudding. In the English tradition, this was the time to begin making the yearly Christmas pudding and adding the fruit and liquor to the recipe, a process that would be repeated for the five weeks before it was ready to be served on Christmas Day.

When the Book of Common Prayer was revised in 1979, the “stir up” Collect was moved to the third Sunday of Advent in an ecumenical gesture to coincide with the Roman Catholic Solemnity of the Feast of Christ the King. Christ the King is a relatively new celebration in the liturgical calendar; it was promulgated in 1925 under Pope Pius XI. Pius had seen many of the kings of this world crumble during World War I as Kaisers, Emperors, Czars and Sultans, the protectors of official religions were consigned to the past and shaky republics were experimenting with increasing secularization of the culture. Business as usual had destroyed the old order and now Pius hoped for a new kind of Kingdom. Pius wanted to underline that the whole world was under the Kingship of Christ and there would be a judgement of all that world when Christ returns. He called for each person to remember that Chirst was to reigh in our hearts, minds, bodies and our social interactions to be aware that we were instruments of Christ's justice in this world.

Pius, as the modern day heir to the Prophetic Office, was wary of the rising tide of secularism which suggested that humans had been abandoned by God and we were left to our own devices. He warned against growing anti-Semitism in Germany, France, Croatia, Hungary, Poland and America, for this Jesus had been Jewish. He was nervous about the rise of Socialism and the spread of Communism from the new Soviet Union. He was bothered by the continuing dehumanization of workers being exploited by rampant capitalism and totalitarian regimes. Pius spent the rest of his life to 1939, on the eve of the 2^nd World War, trying to come to terms with a changing world and praying for the best. Pius was a prophet, but unfortunately was also a priest like in the old Temple. He negotiated agreements with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Spain - which seemed to give the bullies some legitimacy - in order to save what remained of Roman Catholic Church property and prestige in those areas and, in this way, preserve business as usual.

After the the next World War, looking at all the rubble and damage, there was a felt need to have judgment on how we, by our inaction as part of business as usual, had so enabled our addiction to violence and later embraced the carnage with millions dead as we stood looking on. There were trials of war criminals by the victors, but the churches realized there was, in Seward’s words before the American Civil War, “A higher law than the Constitution and a greater judge than the Supreme Court.”

The question for your meditation for today was: ‘If Jesus were on the ballot for King, would you vote for him?” To have Jesus as our King does not mean a change in secular governments, but a change in each one of us who are governed. If Christ is our King, does that mean that we will no longer allow our representatives in office to be sold to the highest bidder? Does it mean a change that we will no longer turn a blind eye to exploitation? Does it mean we will no longer tolerate the bullying tactics of the fat sheep and the portraying of the poor as inadequate persons? Does it mean we will no longer just sigh when we hear of how people work hard all day and do not have a living wage? Does it mean we will no longer see a sick person and ask if they have enough money for treatment, but will be willing to reach deeply into our combined treasures and pay for it? Does it mean we will no longer use our jails, courts, and laws as a means of social control of minorities? Does it mean we will no longer support the easy access to violence to solve relationship difficulties between persons of nations? Does it mean we will no longer see elections as a spectator sport, but as an obligation to claim our informed citizenship with our precious vote?

If Christ is our King, what does it mean?

Keeping the System Running

Denying the injustice Pilate washed his hands

feeling sorry; but said heck what could he do?

Not holding status quo will lose place in queue

of an advancement furthering his career plans.

He thought it is best to avoid rocking the boat.

After showing some mercy, how would it stop?

Next thing, paying living wage up would pop

which would threaten his bank balance bloat.

“I know what I will do, I will send some aid

to his family to make it through the Passover,

maybe some beans to help sorrow's hangover,

contribute bit to help a temple service's paid.”

Things haven't changed much over the years

as the fearful bullies still cry crocodile tears.

Thanksgiving Day 2017

A Reflection for Thanksgiving                                   All Saints’ Episcopal, Southern Shores, N.C.

November 23, 2017                                                    Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Deuteronomy 8:7-18               Luke 17:11-19

Thanksgiving Day 2017

My father had been a major in the Marine Corps during World War II. He and his fellow officers used to joke that they were made an Officer and a Gentleman by an act of Congress. He used to remind his children that, while he was no longer an officer, he took the title of gentleman seriously, and he expected his sons to be, or act like, gentlemen.

Today is a Day of Thanksgiving by an act of Congress and by the Proclamation of the President of the United States. Under the 1662 Prayer Book of the Church of England there were services that could be used when the Civil Authority (Parliament or King) of the nation called for a Day of Thanksgiving. The Second Continental Congress in 1777 declared the first National day of Thanksgiving on December 17 for victory of the American Forces after the Battle of Saratoga in October that year. The Prayer Book of 1789 of the newly-formed American Episcopal Church followed the Church of England’s practice of waiting for the civil authorities to call for a Day of Thanksgiving, which George Washington did at the request of Congress in 1789. Other Presidents would do so sporadically until President Abraham Lincoln, in the middle of the Civil War, set a date that continued until1941 when President Franklin Roosevelt, at the urging of congress, changed the date to help the economy by adding more shopping days before Christmas.

The Book of Deuteronomy is a series of addresses the re-interprets the law based on the experience of the people in the Promised Land. The story is this book was discovered when the Temple was being cleaned out during a period of reform under King Josiah. This Book so fit the program for reform that it was immediately published as a “lost” or misplaced Book of Moses, as a companion to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers.

The setting of this book is that the people of the Exodus have now arrived at the Jordan River and will cross it to enter the Promised Land, the end of the journey in the Wilderness and a revisit to why they started this journey 40 years before - to remind them of how God was with them on their journey and to give God thanks. Moses is not going into the land and he begins the addresses knowing that his life has been devoted to getting them to this point. He had been with them when they challenged the power of the Pharaoh. He had been with them when God had delivered them from their enemy at the Red Sea. He had been with them when he realized that the job was too great and he brought in helpers from among the people to share the leadership role, sort of a modern day Vestry or Cabinet. He had been with them when it looked like they would disintegrate as a people and called them back to unity. He had been with them when they wanted to return to Egypt out of nostalgia for the time of bondage when they had no responsibility for being the people of God. He had been with them when they tried to embrace other gods such as the Golden Calf. He had been with them when they wanted to sell themselves out to other nations along the path. He underlines that God is here with them, and they are to remember with thanksgiving that God was the one who made their lives matter. Moses gives them his blessing as a way to hope that they will be made whole. Thanksgiving for them was a way to underline their faith and to enter the future of promise.

In the lesson from the Gospel of Luke for today, Jesus is stopping on his way to Jerusalem where he will end his ministry. The cries come out from the side of the road from a group of lepers. They have decided to risk getting close enough to ask for help from the Jesus whom they had heard had compassion and healing as part of his ministry. The rules were strict.  They, as lepers, were never to presume to ask for help or even approach a person who was healthy. Jesus does no mumbo jumbo or ritual; he simply speaks and tells them to go to the priests to get the certificate that they are cured. They rush off to the Priests, but one of them notices that the lesions on his arms, face, and body are no longer there. He knows he has been healed and while all the others want to get on with their lives and return to the life they had before the disease hit them, he stops and decides that life as usual cannot happen until he gives thanks. He returns to Jesus and enters into thanksgiving as a way to underline his faith and to enter the future of promise. Jesus gives him his blessing in the light that his faith has made him whole.

When I was a lay person, I found it quite helpful to go to church, even if I wasn’t paid to show up. Even now, when I am on vacation, I find it helpful to go to church because it is a time for me to give thanks for God being with me on my journey and to underline my faith and to enter the next week of promise. I go to receive a blessing in the light that my faith can make me whole.

Each day at the morning and at the end of the day, I stop to give thanks to God for being with me on my journey of life that day. I stop to underline my faith and to ask for a blessing on the day or night ahead.

Today is Thanksgiving Day by an act of Congress, but every day is a day of thanksgiving by the loving acts of God and the responses by faithful people.

Thanksgiving 2017

Paid work done doesn't need a thank you

but opportunity and skill to work does,

praying thanks for chance given there is

and gifted times to develop skill through.

Thanksgiving is time accounting of gifts

around we as, fellow gifts are counting,

beyond number, growing and mounting,

unencumbered by worth; beyond us shifts

to giving of gifts as deep purpose of breath.

Knowing we lose everything as time ends

we practice giving ourselves away as friends

to the one who gives us both birth and death.

The outward forms of gifts will fade thereof,

but behind all the gifts, undying lives a love.

Community Thanksgiving 2017

A Reflection for the Community Thanksgiving Service at Outer Banks Presbyterian Church

November 19, 2017                                                                Thomas E. Wilson, Preacher

Deuteronomy 8:7-18               Psalm 104        Matthew 25: 31-40

Like many of us in America, I grew up with Thanksgiving as a part of my life and understood it through the eyes of a child, a view I maintained long after I supposedly grew up.

Through those eyes of youthful nostalgia, there were pageants in elementary school before the vacation where we dressed up as Indians and Pilgrims and had turkey in the school cafeteria that day. The ladies of the churches would put together Thanksgiving baskets for some of the poor in the community and the young people would deliver them. On Thanksgiving Day families would gather and watch television on the big black and white to see the parades pushing the opening of shopping season for Christmas, watch a football game usually with the Detroit Lions playing the Green Bay Packers, eat an unholy amount of food, and congratulate ourselves on the blessed lives we were living because we worked hard and went by all the rules.

Through the eyes of youthful nostalgia, we would eat the foods that we did not usually eat, like a big turkey - and the more it looked like a Norman Rockwell illustration the better. It was an outward and visible sign that we had more than enough to eat, and the gathered together families’ tables would groan with all the special stuff we got to eat. But it was a special day, unlike any other day in the year, like something the adults called “dressing”, but we children called  “stuffing”. It was an appropriate name for what we were doing was stuffing ourselves with food and drink, stuffing ourselves with conversations and the gossip of cousins and families’ triumphs and trials of the past year, stuffing our eyes with spectacles on television, stuffing our ears with the noise of multiple conversations all at once, stuffing our time with games and activities, and stuffing ourselves with visions of early shopping.

In essence we had an arrangement with God - God did his work and we did ours, and as long as he stayed on his side of the street, we co-existed nicely. We had a lot in common with the people the writer of the Hebrew Testament lesson from Deuteronomy cite who declare, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.”

Yet, there are moments when I look at Thanksgiving without the handicap of nostalgia. I see with the eyes of faith, and I see it all as grace. I remember all the people I have had Thanksgiving with over my seventy years of life, and I thank God that God allowed me to live in places and at times in which I got to know these people before they died; they now feast at another table. The eyes of faith see the gift of time when we move from chatter to sharing things of deep importance so that we enter into Holy Time and the space between us is sacred space and we are walking on Holy Ground.

The eyes of faith see that that there are people who are not at our table who are hungry and I did not feed them, naked and I did not clothe them, sick and I did not minister to them, in prison and I did not visit them, vulnerable and I did not stand by their side and work for justice with them. At the same time, the eyes of faith see the hungry that I with others did feed, the naked that I with others did clothe, the sick that I and others did minister to, those in prison that I with others did visit, the vulnerable that I and others did stand with. The eyes of faith listen to the story that Jesus tells about the sheep and the goats and see that I am both a sheep and a goat.

The eyes of faith tell me that I and others are called to live into being members of God’s family, and I and so many others are blessed with caring for others in that family. The eyes of faith tell me that I and others have fallen short of that invitation to love. The eyes of faith tell me that I and so many others are loved by the God of mercy. The eyes of faith tell me that Thanksgiving is an opportunity for us to see all that God is doing in our lives. The eyes of faith tell me that this is a good time to give thanks for all the gifts we have received and had the opportunity to give. The eyes of faith tell me that it is the love in, under, over, and through all of the gifts for which we truly give thanks.

Thanksgiving 2017

Paid work done doesn't need a thank you

but opportunity and skill to work does,

praying thanks for chance given there is

and gifted times to develop skill through.

Thanksgiving is time accounting of gifts

around we as, fellow gifts are counting,

beyond number, growing and mounting,

unencumbered by worth; beyond us shifts

to giving of gifts as deep purpose of breath.

Knowing we lose everything as time ends

we practice giving ourselves away as friends

to the one who gives us both birth and death.

The outward forms of gifts will fade thereof,

but behind all the gifts, undying lives a love.

Returning the Favor Meeting

A Reflection for XXIV Pentecost (proper 28)                       All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC November 19, 2017                                                                Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Judges 4:1-7        Psalm 123    1 Thessalonians 5:1-11            Matthew 25:14-30

Returning the Favor Meeting

“Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” says Jesus twice in the Gospel lesson from Matthew for today, sometimes called the Parable of  the Talents.

As I have explained before, Matthew doesn't usually remember Jesus' stories as parables but as allegories. Remember that parables are stories that are about God's Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, and usually God’s reactions in the story are surprises that call upon us to open our eyes. An allegory is a literary device used to teach the lessons of the larger community and put it into religious terms. If this was an allegory, then the point of the story would be that you have been given a gift by God and you need to make it grow to make God happy enough to give you a reward. In this fashion is teaching the outlines of what we will later call entrepreneurial capitalism where we are called to risk. The first two servants, or slaves (the Greek word “doulos” can be translated as either), risked and are rewarded lavishly.  For most of the history of Christianity, “being rewarded” meant getting a free card to get out of hell and into heaven or, in this last century with the “Prosperity Gospel” routine, getting rich here on earth as an outward and visible sign of God's favor. The poor slob who tried to bury the talent is sent to weep and wail and gnash teeth in outer darkness.

For those who like this story as an allegory of reward and punishment, it presents an understanding of the nature of God as the tough parent who rewards and punishes extravagantly with Heaven and Hell in the afterlife or in this life. Mark Twain said;  "God created man in his own image and man, being a gentleman, returned the favor"

What I want to do is to ask you, “Are you returning the favor and creating God in your own image?”

As we take a look at next year's budget, part of me starts to like the idea of preaching on a God who shakes people down for their money, and I start wondering if I pushed up the fear meter a bit could I get people to dedicate more talent, time, and treasure compared to what they have already been given. In the money system of the Roman Empire, a talent was equal to the accumulated wages of an ordinary laborer for fifteen years. Just think about what I could do if I could get each of you to devote your life savings to me! This part of me is what the third servant calls “a harsh man” who looks at people and asks, “How can I use this person or relationship for my advantage?” The third servant lives in fear of this harsh man and the harsh man lives in fear of never having enough. This is his view of God, the God who he creates in his own image.

God as the “Harsh Man” creates fear in his wake. We seem to live in a lot of fear as people try to take advantage of each other. Last week our President said that he would not blame a nation that would take advantage of another nation in order to benefit its own people. He was expressing the dominant view articulated by Thomas Hobbes that the natural world is a place of conflict between violent, self-interested brutes divided into two camps - the winners and the losers. Our fear therefore means that we discipline ourselves  not to be losers and try with all of our might to be winners. Most of the preaching on this Gospel that I heard growing up was the encouragement of listeners to make a profit for God with the talents given to us and not to be the loser who weeps, fails, and gnashes his teeth. It is not an accident that, in American culture after spending Sunday morning at church where we say we are created in the image of God, we spend Sunday afternoon cheering on winners, “the harsh men” who we identify with ourselves, and displaying fearful anger when our team loses and we search for someone to blame for our loss.

It is not a surprise that, in our fear of being losers, we are reminded daily of little men in positions of great power who exploit women sexually as a way of being in control - winners/losers, taking advantage out of fear.

Paul in his letters to the Thessalonian community urges them avoid falling into fear and says that the purpose of the community is to “encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing”. When Paul writes to the Corinthians he says, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”  We become what we behold, we become the image of God.

Jesus has one commandment he repeats over and over again - “Don't be afraid!” In the Gospel story, the first two servants see their master as one without fear, and they live their lives as if there need be no fear. In this view they see their master not as a harsh man but as a joyful man who opens himself up in love. This is their God, the God that they create in their own image.

In my saner moments, this is the God in which I place my trust. This is the God that doesn't go away on long journeys, waiting for a settling of accounts on the final hour of my life. This is the God who is with each of us, walking on the path with us through this broken world. This is the God that I look to for strength when I, in the words of the Psalmist for today, “have had more than enough of contempt, too much of the scorn of the indolent rich, and of the derision of the proud.” This is the God that sees that part of me that is the harsh man doling out contempt, scorn, and derision but laughs and says , “You can do better than that. Come enter into the joy of your master.” This is the God that is much bigger than my returned favor of creation of God.

To which God are you returning the favor?

Returning The Favor Meeting

The prodigal's father lovingly wrapped his arms

around the ragged dirty neck of his faithless son,

as a hard master's slave hands back a dug up one

talent and he's slapped into jail to do him harms.

It is rumored that father is also same hard master,

but apparently we are never sure who's on duty

any particular day; will it be cutie or is it snooty

that will greet us upon our failures as our pastor?

It all depends on how Twain's “gentleman's favor”

is returned to a God we've created in our image,

as we shop around for a theological scrimmage,

to either taste sweet grace or lick revenge's savor.

Today, aware of many failings and outright sins

are my baggage in this meeting; hope grace wins.