Lost Way of Life

A Reflection and Poem for XV Pentecost  C Proper 20        St. Andrew’s Church, Nags Head September 22, 2019                                                               Thomas E Wilson, Supply Clergy

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1       Psalm 79:1-9        1 Timothy 2:1-7        Luke 16:1-13

Lost Way of Life

Last week we had some Parables of Jesus about “Lost Things”, the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin, the third Parable in that chapter, the “Lost Son” you heard during Lent. As we continue in the Gospel of Luke, we have Jesus tell us a story of the “Lost Way of Life”.

Remember a definition of a Parable: it is a made-up story, a lie, told to reveal a deeper truth. We are more accustomed to Fable which is a made-up story to push a moral point. Think of the Tortoise and the Hare, a fable about the need to keep at your job. Jesus did not seem too interested in pushing a Moral Agenda to get people to adjust to a corrupt system; he left that job to the Pharisees and Scribes who were only too eager to point out other people’s sins. Jesus would say to them that they were so busy pointing out the spot of dust in someone else’s eye than do anything about the log in their own eye. Jesus understood, as Scott Peck used to say, “Life is difficult”, and we have to make daily choices on how to live a life of integrity.

Jesus was also a thorough going Eschatologist. The Greek word “escxaton” meant “Last” and “logist” meant “someone who studies and pays attention to”. Jesus believed that he was living in the Last Days and his stories were about how do we live as if our way of life was about to end. How do we pay attention to this moment, being able to not be afraid of the future nor burdened by the past? How can we creatively adjust to the changes and losses in our lives so that we can grow deeper into God's spirit?

Jesus had left his home town of Nazareth and was on his way to Jerusalem. He could see the writing on the wall. He knows he is entering his own last days. The Religious, Economic and Political Elites would not let him continue his work of getting people to pay attention to a deeper relationship with God. The official Religion was constructed as a private affair of sin as a moral matter where people needed help to get God off their backs by ritual.  The Political Elites thought their whole purpose was to allow law to be used so that people of the Economic elites could prosper and exploit the poor and vulnerable who would be controlled by the fear of legal force by the armies of the Puppet Ruler Herod or the Roman Occupiers. Life in Roman Occupied Judea for most of its citizens was, to use Thomas Hobbes term, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”.

Jesus’ ministry was about getting people to “repent”. The Greek word for the English “repent” is “metanoia”. Repent does not mean feeling guilt and sorry but to re=again, pent=think, meta= consciously be aware, “noia”= way of looking,  think again, pay attention and change from a life of what Hobbes called “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”, into a way of living in a cooperative community of faith based on love of God and neighbor.

Cooperative community did not mean that they would all think alike. Jesus in his selection of disciples included Mathew, the former Tax Collector who had worked hand in glove with the Roman occupiers, and Simon the Zealot, who had actively engaged in guerrilla activity against the Romans. They were able to work and live together not because they ignored the differences between them but because they were aware they were living and working together on something more important than their differences; they were members of a family who could fight but chose not to, because time was too short to waste not having respect for each other.

Each of the disciples knew what it was like to lose a way of living and adjust to whole new way of looking at life. They knew, like Jeremiah in the Hebrew Testament lesson for today, that no magic cure to fix the situation, no balm in Gilead, no physician that could restore the old way of life.

The story that Jesus tells about the “Lost Way of Living” has been difficult to look at.  We don’t know what to even call it. Some call it the Parable of “the Dishonest Manager”, to tell you that they are uncomfortable with a thief and swindler as a hero. That did not bother Jesus, because in other stories he will use the metaphor for the Spirit of God being a burglar breaking in a house or a corrupt Judge.

The editors for the Gospel of Luke, over the years before it was included in a Bible, had put four different conclusions on this story; as you can see in the last paragraph. It is a little like an old Warner Brothers Cartoon I remember when Porky Pig is about to say “Th-th-th-the- that’s all folks!”, and Daffy Duck keeps interrupting him in order to get his last word in.  

That difficulty in finding an ending is an apt metaphor of what it is like to let go of the past and move into a whole new way of living. Most of you know what that is about. I remember times when I had to let go. One was fifty-three years ago. My parents had gone to Florida to take a vacation and also to visit my mother’s parents. One night my father collapsed with a burst aneurysm in his brain and was taken to ICU unit where they put him on life support and the family was called in. I was a student at Chapel Hill, my older brother was an enlisted man in the Marine Corps, my younger sister was college in Virginia, and my little brother was in high school staying with a friend back in New York State. There was no Balm in Gilead to fix this, and for more than a week my older brother, my sister, my Mother and I camped out in my Grandfather’s house and in the ICU waiting room as my Father did not get better. I was annoyed with God and began my vacation away from God. My brother and I chose to spend time together arguing about the Vietnam War. We could not stand to “pay attention” to the present because we were mourning the past and were afraid of the future. We made life miserable for my mother, and when Paul’s leave was up, and Anne and I were getting further and further behind in school, we were all shipped back. A week later he died, and I did not know how to get on with the future. So, I got really busy doing a lot of stuff as a way of not paying attention in a new way of living. It would take me years before I would be ready to accept going through the grief process; for grief is not something you get over but what you go through.

When I graduated from college, I was unprepared to do anything, but I found a series of jobs in helping professions. I dealt with people going through changes in their lives; like kids dropping out of school, parents trying to learn how to no longer abuse or neglect their children, people dealing with mental health problems, marriages reaching crisis situations, college students getting an education to learn how to help others. For the people I worked with, their “Ways of Life” were changing and I learned to listen and pay attention. That was a change of a way of living for me; for when I began I was used to my mind staying busy even when I was talking with someone. I should have been paying attention.

Some of things I had to do was to lose the old ways of looking at people. I was used to placing people into categories which told me what I thought I knew. In my way of living growing up, people of color were one dimensional and their race told me all I needed to know about them, and if they were not around, I could use ugly language to reduce them to a thing and not a person. I did the same thing with people with whom I disagreed, with people of different sexual orientation, of people differing mental health diagnosis, of people who had previous or current trouble with the justice system. In my old way of life, I could slap labels with the best of them. I grew up with a self-centered swaggering arrogance about people different than me. Except, when I listened and paid attention. When I saw that the other person and I were shaped in a similar image of God, I began to lose the old way of life. The English writer L.P. Hartley had a first line in his novel, “The Go Between”; “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

Yet, before I went to seminary I had thirteen years of getting into a habit of treating the people I worked with as “Clients”. I was the Professional who kept a professional distance. I was courteous when they were in my office or classroom, but if I saw them on the street in public, I would only respond if they talked to me first. MY personal and professional life were separate and were meant to stay that way. That is how I was when I finished Seminary, by keeping the wall as a “Way of Life.” The beginning of my ordained ministry I was a Helping person who was also a religious functionary, courteous but with a proper professional distance. In a way it was part of my understanding of God; concerned but always keeping a distance.

Let me tell you the moment that changed. My daughter was going off to college and my marriage fell apart. The Bishop told me that what he knew of that church in which I was serving, meant that the parishioners would not accept that situation. So, I submitted my resignation, but to my surprise –  the vestry refused to accept it. They were accepting me as a complicated person not a paragon.

Two years later, Pat comes onto the scene. entering into the life of the church, and loosened me up. Pat's Priest, Deborah, did our pre-marriage counseling and gave the Bishop her approval. The Bishop came to the church on a late Sunday afternoon, the day before Labor Day, to preside at our wedding. Deborah preached and my daughter, in her bare feet, read the first lesson. Deborah and the Bishop gave the bread out. Pat and I gave out the wine to the people who had promised to help support us in the vows we had made. One of the people coming to the rail was Arthur Brown, a wonderful retired Priest who was also hard of hearing. When Pat gave him the wine, Arthur exclaimed in a voice that could be heard outside the city limits, “THANK YOU MRS WILSON!!!” The Bishop blessed us and to the accompaniment of the Hymn, “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” we went down the aisle together.

I was the Rector of the church; the Title comes from the Latin for “Ruler”, but The Way of Life of my being only a Professional Religious Functionary, a Prancer around Altars and Professional Counselor, was now lost and I added a new ministry of being what Urban T. Holmes (Terry) defined as a “Parson”, the old 13^th Century English word for the weird person of the community with whom  you could talk about God in real life, and you knew the Parson would offer your concerns in his or her private conversations with God. I learned how to love as a member of a community as a way of life.  One title, “Rector,” the Bishop confers and the Vestry approves; the other designation, “Parson,” is what is given as a gift by the community and accepted with fear and trembling, needing God's help. Terry Holmes wrote, "Our goal is the Kingdom, the completion of God's creative vision, and we are God's hands in bringing that vision to pass." My vision of Heaven is not up there somewhere, but God dwells in that space between, and in, us and is closer than our breath. When your search committee finds the new Rector, you need to show her or him that surely the Presence of the Lord is in this place and work to help him or her to become your parson.

When I became a Parson I was able to sit and hold hands with people I loved; paying attention to what was happening in change. I remember one time, when a fellow Priest was dying. He and I never really agreed on anything. We had moments of resentment towards each other for having stances on some issues, as if that ever should make a difference. One day, I reminded myself life was too short. I decided that I should pay a pastoral visit and not let death have the last word. Acutely aware of the Losses in our lives, for the first time we really talked and listened to our dreams and hopes of what being a Priest meant, what was a purpose of life and our hopes and fears about death. There was no Balm in Gilead that would change the course of his dying, but there were moments of God’s healing grace in the Holy Space between us. The Divine Physician brought us both into new life. His earthly life ended and I lost the old way of living with resentment and entered a new way of living without carrying that resentment.

In the 19th Century a Swiss Philosopher, named Henri-Frédéric Amiel, wrote: “Life is short, and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind!” I stole and adapted that quote and say it out loud five or six times a week and silently to myself at least 50 times that amount. My brothers and sisters; pay attention for “Life is short and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us. So, be swift to love and make haste to be kind.”

Lost Way of Living

There had been so many times of loss,

some necessary, some beyond control

which felt then like stepping in a hole,

painful, finding that he wasn't a boss.

Realizing it was a way of living to be lost,

he paid attention to what was going on

inside each moment of resentment gone

as in spanning the river and gulf crossed.

Now holding hand of other, walking,

as if thru a parted Red Sea of love,

rising up, then covering as a glove,

claiming, joined in a deeper talking.

Being lost; beginning of being found,

then standing, claiming Holy Ground.

Lost Things

Reflection/ Poem for XIV Pentecost C Proper 19             St. Andrew's Episcopal, Nags Head, NC

September 15, 2019                                                            Thomas E Wilson, Supply Clergy

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28                     Psalm 14                     Luke 15:1-10

Lost Things

We had a hurricane come through here and we were advised by the authorities to be careful. This year I followed that advice and stayed hunkered down. When I was much younger, almost a half century ago, living in Wrightsville Beach, I went out on to a pier in the middle of a storm as I was trying to make sense of my life. I screamed out a speech that Shakespeare's King Lear gives on the heath in Act Three which begins: “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!” 


You know, it just is not all that bright to do that. What was I thinking?


The Gospel lesson for today has two parables. Jesus is back at it again and telling stories that get him into trouble with the Scribes and Pharisees who are grumbling up a storm about why Jesus continues to hang around with tax collectors and sinners. After all it is just common sense to stay away bad folk because everybody knows you will be judged by the company you keep. The scribes and Pharisees would have cherry picked from the lessons from Jeremiah and the Psalm for today pointing out sinners deserve punishment and removal of love. Jesus goes out on a metaphorical pier in a storm and tells stories, which Luke calls “Parables”; parables are made up stories that lie in order to reveal a deeper truth. The first thing we must know about Parables is that they don’t make sense to the casual human way of thinking.


David Foster Wallace, writer and English professor, who died about 13 years ago, in a commencement address at Kenyon College, Ohio gave an example of a parable:

“There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, 'Morning, boys, how's the water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, 'What the hell is water?' . . .
(Parables are) about simple awareness--awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: 'This is water, this is water.'”

This week this Chapter in Luke is divided to tell a series of three made up stories to give us an awareness of what is real and essential using lost things Today we are looking at the stories of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. In Lent earlier this year you would have heard the third part of this collection of the “Lost Parables” with the story of the Prodigal Son.


Lets go through these two stories for this week. The first one is about Sheep in first century Palestine. Here are some of the points where the audience would would have had a hard time keeping from laughing.

        Number of shepherds: In this case is only one.  There are limits of how many sheep can be led to pasture by one shepherd. Maybe he had a couple of herding dogs that Jesus didn’t get around to mentioning. A Shepherd taking a herd of sheep out by him or herself is just asking for trouble. To go out alone he or she would have to take only about 25 at the most. Usually shepherds had a family to go with him or her. There must be someone else to share the load if he or she are going to have some rest or eat or sleep.

        Number of sheep: In this story there are a hundred sheep. This is one dumb shepherd. There is no way he or she can look after this many.  He or she must expect to lose more than a couple each day. Right now I want you to imagine St. Andrew’s Preschool having one teacher and a hundred children. State law would not allow it and common-sense rebels considering.

        Place of pasture: In this story it is the Wilderness. If any of you have ever been to the Holy Land you will know that its biggest crop in the wilderness is rocks. Very little grows out there. Here we are; one shepherd, a hundred sheep and very little to feed them; it is a waste of time and energy. If this is the way he or she runs their business, they will be broke in less than a year.

        Action of shepherd: This shepherd misses one sheep. Big surprise! He or she deserves to lose a whole lot more for their poor planning. He or she leaves them in the wilderness, and he leaves the ninety and nine in the wilderness, where there are wolves running around, where there is no one else to help. This is not new math; one does not equal 99. Then when he finds the sheep and returns home, he calls his or her friends and holds a party to celebrate finding the one no-good sheep. If the shepherd is a Metaphor for God would you hire this God  as the head of your religion for your nation or family?

        Action of sheep: The sheep did not ask for help and deserved to be lost since he or she did not follow the rules. Surely one has to be responsible for their actions that put everybody at risk and the reward of a party just encourages further bad behavior. On top of that, this sheep was not in the slightest repentant. He should have at least said he was sorry.


Next we go to Lost Coin.  Let’s see what is wrong with this story. The coin is one of 10 drachmas. A drachma is the equivalent of a half a shekel, or half a day’s wage. She spends the entire day looking and then lights her lamp, burning up at least that amount of oil to look for it. As far as we can tell the coin is not in the slightest repentant, but she holds a party any way because love is more important than being right.


These stories do not make a lick of sense if we look at them from a point of view of economics, political policy or moral rules of society. Jesus was not nailed to a cross because he told stories about being nice to one another, the authorities preferred the people to stay on script of how the world worked instead of being awakened to a deeper reality. Jesus told disturbing stories about God and they did not want to hear about that God, they had their own. 

It reminds me of what one of the bright young boys in the Pentagon said during one of the wars we were in at the time. He said, “Well, it is not the army we wanted, but it is the army we got.” Jesus is saying to the Scribes, Pharisees, Religious and political leaders of his time and place; “Well. This might not be the God your egos wanted but it is the God we got." And they crucified him because he told the truth in his stories and life, and death.


For Jesus the water of life is love, the kind of love that goes beyond self interest itself.  The parables remind us that the center of the universe is not about control or approval or fear or advantage but about love. 


We began with Act 3, scene 2 of King Lear, basically the whole play is an extended parable; let us go backward to Act 1, Scene1 where old Lear is trying to control his three daughters into taking care of him, to get them to do something to earn a reward. For Lear love is conditional. His third daughter Cordelia refuses to play that game and sell her love when it is already freely given without hope of a reward or punishment. The King of France sees what she is doing and remarks: “Love is not love/ When it is mingled with regards that stand/ Aloof from the entire point”


Lost Things

During the storm the foolish Lear screamed

for cataracts and hurricanoes to really spout

providing backdrop of what this life's about

that love's not chasing after desires dreamed.

Jesus on lonely hill was killed and crucified

because he just wouldn't listen to good sense

that point of life is caring for dollars or cents

while setting of a world's mores as our guide.

Yet, tis fine madness to go to heath or hill

to pose questions how to live another way

not centering on how we'd in comfort stay

by ignoring lost others and eat our full fill.

What if love's about hands being held

allowing outward differences to meld.

allowing outward differences to meld.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

A Reflection and Poem for XIII Pentecost, C, Proper 18              St Andrew's Church, Nags Head, NC

September 7, 2019                                                                              Thomas E Wilson, Supply Clergy

Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17        Philemon 1-21          Luke 14:25-33

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

From the Book of Common Prayer Psalm 139:14 appointed for today: “I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.”



Today is the Sunday after the Labor Day weekend, so the summer season is officially over and the massive number of visitors will go down, a bit. The people came here because they envy us who live at the edge of the earth with the sea at our feet which gives us here moments of awe and wonder. Many have come to the Outer Banks for Spiritual Healing from busy lives, a few will come to church but most come to worship at nature's throne. Wendell Berry in his Art of the Commonplace, a series of Agrarian Essays, wrote:

We must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.

We also had a hurricane come to town  this week and the call went out for visitors to evacuate because what is awesome before a hurricane can be awful during one. We are lucky in that we live here and can re-enter easily, with a lot less driving, into awe and majesty when we have a chance and we clean up and rebuild. Yet, no one has to clean up or rebuild or go far to be in awe; as St. Augustine in his Confessions pointed out:

Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.

I think Augustine is saying that opportunities for humility and reverence are as much more numerous and closer than we think. When I was growing up my life was full of things that I saw and was impressed by. Since I was so self-centered, usually I would just say something like: “That is nice”, and I might stay for a moment to let it soak in, congratulate myself on how much taste I have. I may take a picture or buy a souvenir, but I go on my way unchanged. I tried to remember my first experience of abandoning arrogance and being in awe with a sense of my life was changing because of being in awe.



That experience was when I was walking back and forth holding my newborn daughter and looking at her on her first night home from the hospital. The words of the Psalm for today came back to me from the King James Version: “I will praise thee; for she is fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.”



To be in wonder! Except, I did not attribute anything credit to God. At that time in my life I was on a sort of vacation from God; paying my respects every once in a while, like a good guest is supposed to do, but did not expend any energy in a relationship with God. My energy was going into making MY money which I made from working at MY job, in order to buy MY house where I could live MY life and paying I for MY clothes and food. It was all about ME and MY possessions. It was in that mindset that I was tempted to consider that little daughter as MY daughter to meet MY needs of having someone to make me feel better about myself. She was in danger of becoming one more of MY possessions. If that had happened, the awesome moment of awe and wonder could become the beginning of something awful.



That is what happens when you “Fall in love” with persons, places and things. “Falling in love” is different than loving wonder and awe. “Falling in love” is like a Psychiatric Illness where one projects all sorts of psychic energies onto a person, place or thing as a way of fulfilling one's own desires and easing one's own fears and one must possess that person place or thing in order to give an  internal equilibrium or other advantage. Freud defined Psychological projection as a defense mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others. For instance; if I have a hard time loving myself as I look at all my shortcomings then I will long for someone to love me unconditionally and when I meet a suitable candidate I begin to attribute to her or him the qualities of extreme patience and desperate need to be loved. I want to make him or her dependent on me to make me feel better about myself. The goal of “Falling In Love” is to possess for one's own benefit. Loving wonder and awe, on the other hand, is seeing the person place or thing as a gift from God to be appreciated and cared for, to be honored and not exploited, and finally to see the space between us as “Holy Space” where God's Shalom and Peace is to be honored. It is the difference between Possession and Stewardship. Possession says I want to own it and Stewardship says I want to honor as part of our shared relationship with a power greater than ourselves.



When Jesus tells us the Gospel lesson for today from Luke; “So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions." He is not talking about the amount of money you give to the church; he is talking about the way we look at the world we live in. In a Universe of Possession, where I am the center of the Universe dominated by a fear of scarcity, everything becomes a commodity to be used or abused for my own benefit. However, on the other hand, in a Universe of Awe and Wonder, where every person, place or thing becomes a a possibility of experiencing God's grace, we are called to walk as if we were living on Holy Ground by caring for the creation from which we all a part.



Thirteen point eight Billion years ago there was a tiny element in the hand of God and God spoke and the element exploded, expanding, constantly expanding into the universe of stars and planets and mountains and oceans and life; developing from the stardust from that explosion of the Big Bang. We are all collections of stardust, connected to each other and to all of God's creation.



We see an example of this in the lesson from the Letter of Paul to Philemon in today's lesson. Philemon had a slave who he possessed, a human being for his own benefit. He called him Onesimus, which in Greek means “Useful”, as an outward and visible sign of Onesimus’ purpose in life; which was to be “useful” to Philemon. However, Onesimus ran away from Philemon, in order to follow Paul in freedom. Paul writes that indeed Onesimus was “Useful” as he helped care for Paul in Paul's imprisonment. Onesimus gave time and energy to Paul out of love not out of obligation to an owner. Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon with a letter asking Philemon to change the way he treats Onesimus, not as a slave to a master but as a brother in Christ, seeing each other as a gift, walking together on Holy Ground.



Last week my wife, Pat, and I celebrated our 30^th Anniversary together. We “fell in” love but we were blessed as we moved from “Falling” in love to living in loving awe and wonder of the Holy Space between, and in, each of us. “Falling” in love always fades with time as it gradually occurs to the people that the projections are just their projections on each other rather than reality and the Prince or Princess move down more than a few notches on the nobility scale. We had to withdraw our mutual projections in order to return to sanity, away from an addiction to an object we worshiped for its imagined benefits and move to commitment to a relationship with a subject of love. It took us a while before we were able to be in awe and wonder of an ordinary human being who is a gift from the gracious God. That does not mean that we don't have more than a few minutes of being annoyed with each other or not approving of each other's actions. Even though I am difficult to live with, and she has her few moments, we continue to ask God's grace to see each other as gifts from a loving God for which we are stewards not owners.



Sometimes unconscious psychological projections are not only of love but of hate and fear as well. It is how we begin to have enemies when we refuse to face our own dark shadows and project them on to someone else, so I could be afraid of them instead of claiming that shadow within myself and bring it to consciousness so I can work on it. I had to learn that the people I projected as enemies had been taken by me as possessions in my psyche that could control my life. The withdrawal of projections of fear and hate  are accomplished by the spiritual practice of forgiveness and the commitment to love the enemy, to want the best for them, to see them as fearfully and wonderfully made brothers or sisters, fellow descendants of stardust from the original big bang of creation. I am free to love them; I may still have to have prayerful discussions with God about them, I may not like them, I may not agree with them, I still may, out of self-protection, be careful of my safety around them, but the fear and hate will not rule my life. 

In 1964 The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said:
“I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems, I’m not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love; I’m talking about a strong, demanding love. For I have seen too much hate. ... I have decided to love.”


My brothers and sisters remember please knowing you are fearfully and wonderfully made to love one another in a universe that is fearfully and wonderfully made. May our prayer be today: “We will thank you because we are marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and we know it well.”





Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Walking, one step in front of another and back again,

bouncing, hold her in fashion of a jerry-rigged womb,

bobbing up and down, his joy for her begins to bloom,

making promises to protect and keep from her all pain.

“Fearfully and wonderfully made”, softly whispering

over and over as kind of mantra reminding them both

that her father would strive to love and keep his oath,

specially in times of patience and approval flickering,

by seeing an image of God, sharing the DNA of stars

exploding in dance responding to first Divine Word,

and he'd pause to awe again when the echo is heard

as his once rationed love is unfurled to heal the scars

that he once so easily inflicted thoughtlessly on others

before he realized that we were all sisters and brothers.

Reflection and Poem on Joe Beckett (April 2, 1936 – August 19, 2019)

Reflection and Poem on Joe Beckett

(April 2, 1936 – August 19, 2019)

Ecclesiastes 3, 1-8^: To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Poet and writer X. J. Kennedy ( his real name was Joe Kennedy, but he got tired of being confused with the Ambassador to the Court of St. James, and father of a future President) wrote: "I like poems where you don't really know whether to laugh or cry when you read them."

As Kennedy feels about poems, that is how I feel about people; the people who don't know how to dissemble or otherwise hide themselves under “a shallow mask of manners”, to use Oscar Wilde's phrase. Joe Beckett was that kind of person. With Joe there was often laughter, sometimes profound, sometimes impish laughter, and more than a few times down right puerile, to which he would add with a mirthful twinkle in his eye “Oh, I guess I should say, 'Bless me Holy Father for I think I was close to sinning!” But even the impish laughter was as close as the tears as entrances into his soul. Over the years that I have known Joe, there were many opportunities to cry together and even more to laugh together, yet in sharing tears or laughter, God was always there in the sacred space between us.

Joe was a sailor who knew the sea and would entertain us with stories of finding his position anywhere on earth with the stars to guide him to find his way home. The image I had when he would tell those stories was of Joe as the dove that Noah sent out from the Ark to find evidence of a place to return to dry land. In that story the dove brought back an olive branch, a symbol of peace. Being with Joe was often like him bringing back coordinates to find peace.

The Bible tells us that we are all aliens and sojourners in this life and therefore we are to treat aliens and sojourners with respect and justice. I came here a stranger and Joe made me welcome. Joe was my first Senior Warden at All Saints and I grew to trust him on getting used to this new church with his wisdom on how the church worked, or not. He was a faithful partner in prayer for many years. He would tell stories about how this or that parishioner had faced difficulties and how other members of the parish had come to stand beside him or her. He had the eye and the inclination of looking and finding redemption. I grew to depend on him to give me coordinates so I could sail the seas of Southern Shores and for helping me find my way home here.

The Bible tells us that we are aliens and sojourners in this life for we know that life has limits and we will be returning at the end of our journey on this earth to the arms of the creator. We are to live as if we have one foot on earth and one foot in God's spirit. Joe demonstrated how to live fully in this life and in spirit claim being in the presence of the divine.

We give thanks to God for Joe showing us how to love our partners as he loved Mary Lou. Joe showed us how to extravagantly love children, starting with his own three girls (Jean, Jane, and Jennifer) and two grandchildren (Jacob and Antigone). His overflowing love did not stop at the family limits, and for those of us who were not blood family, he taught us how to gracefully receive love. Joe demonstrated with his life how to serve his country and how to work hard and faithfully at employment and in volunteer organizations. He showed us how to hold on to faith in the middle of horrible situations. The lessons he gave us live in us and give us strength to meet the days ahead.

Joe Beckett

There was a laugh at creation's beginning,

that sheer joyful hope of divine playing,

with stars, worlds and creatures praying

as Joe echoed first laugh by his grinning.

He also echoed the first sob of human fall

of reaching limits and wounds of loss

when our meager pride forgot who's boss

and love is the only medicine to give at all.

He would hold us in his arms, tears like rain

falling into the fertile soil of the holy ground

between us, while humming a hopeful sound

of consolation, 'fore words could begin again.

The sailor is home, reminding me of the dove's

return to Noah carrying signs of greater loves.

Thomas E Wilson

Chasing After Worthless Things

A Poem and Reflection for XII Pentecost, C, Proper 17      September 1, 2019

St. Andrew's Church, Nags Head, NC                                Thomas E. Wilson, Supply Clergy

Jeremiah 2:4-13 Psalm 81:1, 10-16 Luke 14:1, 7-14

Chasing After Worthless Things:          Inaugural Sermon at St. Andrew's

In 1971, a folksinger/ songwriter/actor, named Hoyt Axton. wrote a song which he was trying to sell to a group, Three Dog Night. The first verse and chorus went:

Jeremiah was a prophet
Was a good friend of mine
I never understood a single word he said
But I helped him a-drink his wine
And he always had some mighty fine wine

Singin'...
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls now
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me

Three Dog Night didn't like the “prophet” imagery for they were in the market for what they called “a silly song”, so Acton rewrote the song to be silly and “Prophet” became “Bullfrog”, and they sold a lot of records with it.

The first lesson for today is from Jeremiah, the Prophet not the Bullfrog, from the 6^th Century BC who had his ministry in the final years of the crumbling southern Kingdom of Judah based in Jerusalem. The rulers of the Kingdom and the religious establishment did understand every word that Jeremiah said when he condemned them for decades of corruption, cronyism, exploitation of the poor and vulnerable, mistreatment of aliens and following disastrous foreign and domestic policies based on greed and fear. They really did understand and they ignored his message and threw him in a pit for telling the truth. Jeremiah is called a “weeping Prophet” because he wept when the people wouldn't accept joy for the world or drink his wine, even if it was a mighty fine wine. Jeremiah's wine was not a liquid drink but a different kind of Spirit, the intoxicating Spirit of God which offered Joy to the World. Jeremiah sings God's weeping question: “What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?”

Jeremiah recounts the history where God has given them everything they needed, all they had to do was follow what God gave them the opportunity to do; as the prophet Micah had sung a couple centuries before “What does the LORD require of you, but to do Justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.” But they refused and went after all sorts of things for which they were willing to pay a tremendous price in time and energy, sacrificing their honor, community and neighbor to get all sorts of advantages for themselves but which had no real worth: “going after worthless things, and became worthless themselves.” They knew the cost of everything but the true value of none.

Jeremiah, the Prophet not the Bullfrog reminds me of my grandmother, although she did have a streak of Bulldog in her. When my parents would take a vacation from their children, Nana would take the train across state lines to do due diligence over us four children. There would be occasions when she would see that I would be going out and might be tempted to do things that violated what it meant to be a Wilson. Being a Wilson was important, there was an unwritten code about being a Wilson, passed on from generation to generation, about what was expected. The world may not care about what it meant to be a Wilson, but I was instructed to never forget. She would say to me: “Mister Tom, Remember who you are.”

That is what Jeremiah is saying to the country he lived in. “You have a heritage of being the beloved children of God. You are children of the dream to create a community of compassion not cliques of croneyism, of care of neighbor not exploitation of the vulnerable, of God's Shalom, peace, not swaggering aggression. You are better than that. Remember who you are.”

Centuries later, Jesus, the prophet continuing in that tradition, is attending the dinner of some Pharisees. The Pharisees strived to be the best of the best, they knew scripture backwards and forwards, they followed the religious practices and law scrupulously, they majored in the minors of what the Lord required of them, never quite getting around to doing justice, loving mercy or walking humbly, because their central God was their own ego. Jesus sees them creating cliques of influence and power, battling to meet their own ego needs to occupy places by the seat of honor. Jesus looks at them with sadness as they are “chasing after worthless things and becoming worthless themselves” Jesus will turn to his disciples to remind them who they are; servants not masters. They are not to parade their own blessedness but to empty themselves out so that God's blessings might pass on to others.

This is my first Sunday with you as part of my extended Supply for St. Andrew's until you are able to find the person God wants for you to have as your Rector. I am therefore, temporarily, to fill in at the seat of honor. Imagine my unease when the Gospel lesson for my first Sunday has Jesus warn those who follow him that if they have aspirations of taking the seat of honor, in my case the Rector's chair, that it will be just a matter of time until someone comes up, as in the story, and says: “Give this person your place.” I am to be here as God's servant not as this church's ruler. I come to be a servant of the heritage of St. Andrew's Church which has a history of being in the forefront to do justice, love mercy and walking humbly with our God.

When I write a reflection for Sundays it has been a practice of mine to write a poem to try to figure out how the lessons speak to me. As I reflected about coming here ,I became aware of my own ego and how I wanted to be impressive on my first Sunday here. A line came to me from a play I was in 54 years ago, Murder In the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot: “The last temptation is the greatest treason; to do the right deed for the wrong reason.”

I am going to ask a favor of you. During my time here, I am not your Rector, I am not even your Interim, that work has already begun and it is now up to you and the search committee to continue on the path instead of my taking it over. I am your extended supply, here to serve God, this church and you. It will be my job for me to say things like: “St. Andrew's: remember who you are!” Your job, when needed, is to say “Mr. Tom; remember who you are!”

Inaugural Sermon: Chasing After Worthless Things

Let me get up there and show'em how its done

with a resounding voice and perfect diction,

impress them all, like in a movie or fiction:

they'll be in awe of my power under the sun.

Weeping at my stories, gasping at insights,

breathless at my flights of fancy schemes,

taking them to places beyond their dreams,

the glory will be mine; for I've got the rights!

          Walking to the pulpit, check with ego to say

if I am merely posturing as a roadshow savant

or if I was baptized as a faithful God's servant,

to empty myself, to truly live as I would pray?

I hear seer's warning how chasing worthless things

ends up with worthless meaning to a life brings.

Light On Liberty: Poem, reflection and outline for 5th Pentecost

Reflection: Light On Liberty                    Thomas E Wilson

5^th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 10)

Lessons: Amos 7:7-17

8th Century Agricultural worker from the town of Tekoa in the Southern Kingdom of Judah feels called by God to go to a Religious and Patriotic Festival in the Northern Kingdom of Israel and speak truth to power to the ruling elite there about their exploitation of the poor. He is told to mind his own business and go home and keep his mouth shut: which he did not do.

Psalm 82

A Psalm which has the structure of God singing to to magistrates (the gods) of the community to do justice and not favor the rich in exploiting the poor.

Colossians 1:1-14

In this letter the author urges the people to understand that faith means the duty to make a difference in their community.

Luke 10:25-37

Jesus is asked about the meaning of the Love of Neighbor and he tells the story where neighbor can mean even the enemy. He changes the obligation to follow the law to an invitation to having the liberty to respond out of compassion.

This reflection is prepared for delivery at a Rally “Light on Liberty OBX” on Friday evening July12, 2019 at Dowdy Park, Nags Head, N.C., to protest the treatment of Asylum seekers and the closing of the U.S. Detention Camps.

Light On Liberty

One of the dangers of this moment in this country's life is that we are walking around with chests full of resentments and bellies full of anger ; we want to get even with the villain de jour, where even our “good works” are tainted with the desire to humiliate the enemy, the lying SOB, who it seems to us to be the cause all of the horrors on the 24 hour news cycle. Who the villain is different, depending on one's political persuasion. We are not here to find reasons for resentments or anger but we are here to shine a light so that we might have the liberty to respond in compassion to those who are hurting on the side of the road of their journeys.

As a Christian Priest I keep going back to the Bible for an inspiration of how to deal with real life. I want to take a look at the story in the Gospel of Luke where Jesus tells a story which we call “The Good Samaritan”, a story about compassion with our neighbor. But first let me look at this with the help of Thrich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk who teaches a great deal about compassion as a result of living in mindfulness,a heightened awareness of every moment. When Nhat Hanh heard that an American Military Officer said that they had to destroy the village of Ben Tre in order to save it, he became so angry that for awhile he could not do his work of compassion. Each day we nurse the anger and we think we can get rid of it by shouting it out or pushing it down; but the anger stays because it has found a home in our hearts. The way out of the anger is not to give it freedom, or deny it to eliminate the anger but to transform it through mindfulness so that compassionate action might take place.In mindfulness we see how we are connected to all of our brothers and sisters in creation. We find that when we look inside of ourselves, we find that the people we hate so much display the traits that we have tried all of our lives to push down from consciousness. We push them into becoming our shadow, a shadow that shows up only when a bright light shines upon it. Healing comes when we can accept that is part of the rich stew that is part of each one of us.

Lets take a look at the story. Jesus sets it on the Jericho road through the wilderness of Judea. It is a 16 mile hike partly through the desert and it used to be very a dangerous road to travel alone, and if you wander off the path the desert will consume you. About a quarter century ago, my wife and I joined a group of fellow students in Jerusalem to hike part of that road. When I read of the trek that so many of asylum seekers cross our southern border, I am reminded of that hot dusty desert. It was both a place of beauty and of danger that at times felt like a gift of God and God forsaken at the same time. There was a show on the tube this week where one of the first persons to walk on the moon called it a “magnificent desolation”. We started off the walk well rested after a comfortable night in the dormitory, nourished after a good breakfast at the college, carrying all the water we would need, guides we could trust, a monastery in the desert where we could rest, a well marked path and people who would us meet us outside of Jericho where we would spend the night. We had the money to pay for all those things and a senses of assurance but the asylum seekers do not; they only have hope. What is it like to live with hope rather than privilege? What kind of faith does that take?

In the story Jesus speaks of the bandits, the coyotes of their day, who robbed and wounded the traveler.What is it like to be a bandit? What is it like to have a life where human beings are reduced to things, treated not as subjects but as objects? What is it like when you, I, don't care who I hurt? What is it like to be so desperate that that I know no other way than to wish violence on anyone who gets in my way? When I look honestly deep inside myself I have more than a little bit of understanding about what that world looks like? In the cast of characters that make up my story there is someone who has a lot in common with a bandit; the bandit and I are interchangeable. It doesn't mean that I have to keep acting it out and that I don't need people who love me help stop me when I go there. The shared bandit in me needs to be seen, acknowledged, accepted and transformed into a person of compassion.

In the story the traveler lies wounded on the road when a Priest comes by. The Priest feels that he is called to help people into a deeper relationship with God. However, he needs to keep himself pure as part of his job. In his religion, if he gets contaminated, defiled, with human blood , he will not be able to do his job and his job, his calling, his livelihood, his reputation, the opinion and admiration of others is seen as more important that the life of a stranger. He is filled with fear and tries to justify it by thinking: “Who knows; maybe the person deserved to be attacked because he was foolish enough to go on this road alone? Maybe he is a bad person and this is God's judgment?” As I look deep inside myself I see the fear and the arrogance of the Priest to be not unknown to me. The shared Priest in me needs to be seen, acknowledged, accepted and transformed into a person of compassion.

In the story there is a Levite, a person skilled in the law. She is busy; like Alice's White Rabbit: “I'm late, I'm late for a very important date!” She feels sorry, but bad things happen; as my High School Football line coach used to say “T.S.- Tough Situation”. She has to work for a living - there is a mortgage and car payment due and kid's soccer practice to attend. This would be one more damned thing to do! As I look deep inside myself the intense desire to stick with the safe routine of the Levite is not unknown to me. The shared Levite in me needs to be seen, acknowledged, accepted and transformed into a person of compassion.

In the story there is the stranger, the Samaritan, who has his own problems, agendas, fears and failings and he could feel anger toward a person of the tribe that kept putting his tribe down. He could have been taught resentment toward the way his parents and parents' parents, and so on, had been treated by people of the Travelers's ilk. This is is a man who is under no legal or moral duty to care for the traveler. Yet, he shines a light on how he is connected to the stranger as a fellow child of God and he lives into a liberty to have mercy on someone who is so different. Knowing a kinship with all who are wounded, he interrupts his journey and binds up the traveler's wounds. He inconveniences himself by placing the traveler of his donkey taking him to shelter and digs deep into his time and pockets to pay for the shelter.

The last character of the story is the Inn Keeper who earns a living caring for Traveler. The Samaritan doesn't try to convert the Inn Keeper and fill him with guilt about he should care for the Traveler for free. The Samaritan knows that he can only give what he has from his heart and he cannot give what is not his to give. What others give is up to them and the light they shine within themselves for the liberty to give.

Poem: Light On Liberty

Looking at each other's chests puffed

in resentment, bellies swollen with anger,

with harsh words ringing a loud clangor

as if released from feelings long stuffed,

but only an illusion release into loud hate,

and vitriol of assigning even more blames

on loss of freedom, while forging chains

of old behavior out grown when we're eight.

We can wallow in dark guilt of old misery,

or shining bright light on denied shadows

to see how we are deeply connected close

and transform us into compassion's liberty.

Releasing us from what we think we've been

to live as each other's brothers and sisters kin.

Thomas E Wilson

Peace Is On This Place

Poem and Preliminary Notes for Reflection of 7 July, 2019

Thomas E. Wilson + Retired

Theme: “God's peace is on this place”

Lessons for the 4^th Sunday After Pentecost July 7, 2019

2 Kings 5:1-14

Part of the Elisha Saga of stories. The prophet Elisha in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Samaria, agrees to help bring about a restoration of wholeness and healing for Naaman, the General of the Armies of an enemy of Israel. Elisha say he will do this so that Naaman “may know that there is a Prophet in Israel”. The story of the Northern Kingdom is full of stories of Corrupt and Incompetent Kings who keep turning their backs on God, but God is still there and calls faithful people to bring in peace to those who come to that place. The prideful alien Naaman immerses himself in a new found grace given by strangers.

Psalm 30

The Psalmist sings a Thanksgiving of being restored to wholeness.

Galatians 6:(1-6)7-16:

Paul writes that all the religious stuff that we practice is irrelevant since God's Peace, wholeness is already here for all those who will claim it.

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Jesus sends out 72 (or 70) men (and women?) to proclaim God's love and healing. He tells them: “Whatever house you enter, first say, `Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person . . . cure the sick who are there, and say to them, `The kingdom of God has come near to you.' But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, `Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.'”

Thoughts:

SHALOM, God's peace, is what good Jews would say “Hello” or “God Bless” to a neighbor; it doesn't just mean an absence of conflict but a declaration of healing, wholeness, prosperity and justice. It is a declaration that the space between us is Holy Ground and God is present and will use us to help to bring it about. Kingdom of God is not a geographic place but a metaphor for any place where live as if God's love and wholeness are present in people's lives be they citizens or aliens

This is the week of the 4^th of July which is an anniversary of the day the 2^nd Continental Congress set forth a document that defined the underlying hopes of a nation “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

In the news this week are stories of Immigrants who have crossed our river border searching for a new healing of life. Painful pictures of a father and child drowning to death in the Rio Grande in a pursuit of happiness.

Like Israel's Kings, we have at times chosen leaders who are corrupt and/or incompetent and we have often overlooked the Creator given rights of our neighbors: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

We have often thought of our own desires and advantages as more important than our neighbors We as Christians are called to proclaim by word and deed that the Kingdom of God has come near by working for God's Peace.

Personal Remembrance of receiving “Peace”

I had an older brother, Paul, who was the much loved only child, until a year and four days later I came on the scene as the alien interloper. He may have resented me but he also knew he had a responsibility for me. One summer day, I do not know if I was 3 or 4, we were at my grandfather's place for the annual visit back to the country,and we were at the pond on his property. My father was still at work in Salvador and my mother was looking after my infant younger sister, Anne. I was instructed of course to not go into the deep end, but I never really paid attention to direction well even then. I remember going out deeper and I still have a memory of seeing water above my eyes and how beautiful it was. Before I had a chance to breathe in much of the water, Paul grabbed me and pulled me back to safety.

It has been over a quarter of a century since my older brother died, but each year I realize that Paul saved my life to have liberty and the pursuit of happiness from the choice I made that day; he did a small thing but proclaimed Peace to me.

It was a small thing he did, but it made all the difference in my life. What do I do, small or large, in proclaiming Peace?

POEM

Peace Is On This Place:

My proud Naaman steps deep in alien Jordan river

guessing that the waters in Damascus were better

to wash clean; pure without being such a debtor

to that grace not demanding payment to the giver.

I open my eyes to see water above my sighs,

sun dappling light highlighting pretty bubbles

rising to the surface, taking away the troubles

caused by chasing my life after the shiny prize.

There is a peace in which I knew I could die

in order to live in another way so I would care

for my brothers I knew not of and life to share

for liberty and pursuit of happiness under the sky.

Breathing a peace that came beyond understanding,

I resolve anew to reach beyond mere tribal branding.