The Proof of God's Love

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved...through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:8-11)

Gospel: Having A Windshield Larger Than The Rearview Mirror

"[Jesus] answered, "I suppose you're going to quote the proverb, 'Doctor, go heal yourself. Do here in your hometown what we heard you did in Capernaum.' Well, let me tell you something: No prophet is ever welcomed in his hometown. Isn't it a fact that there were many widows in Israel at the time of Elijah during that three and a half years of drought when famine devastated the land, but the only widow to whom Elijah was sent was in Sarepta in Sidon? And there were many lepers in Israel at the time of the prophet Elisha but the only one cleansed was Naaman the Syrian."


That set everyone in the meeting place seething with anger. They threw him out, banishing him from the village, then took him to a mountain cliff at the edge of the village to throw him to his doom, but he gave them the slip and was on his way."


What could be worse than being thrown out of your own community of faith, especially when you were being seriously truthful...explaining the Scriptures as faithfully as you could?


Many times I've seen this sort of thing, though not to the extreme measure which these folks took in the end, in the course of my own ministry. Not every church goer who professes to be a believing Christian is able or wants to hear the honest truth proclaimed. It's not that they don't want "the message" to be spoken and taught...it's just that it has to be their version of the message. Unfortunately, most times it's a narrow, adolescent viewpoint which they perhaps heard in Confirmation class years before and which, in their insecurity in faith, they feel they must hang onto. The curious thing is that many of these folks may be people who are quite "with it" in their field of work, and don't bat an eyelash over change in the marketplace. Just don't touch their "religion"!


Luke tells us that after Jesus moved down the road from the hostile hometown crowd in Nazareth, he got a much different reception: "He went down to Capernaum, a village in Galilee. He was teaching the people on the Sabbath. They were surprised and impressed—his teaching was so forthright, so confident, so authoritative, not the quibbling and quoting they were used to."


John Indermark, in his wonderful little book Gospeled Lives, has a quite relevant passage with which to conclude this reflection: " Over the past two years, the Reverend Dr. Mark Miller has served as the Transitional Interim Conference Minister of the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Church of Christ...Mark makes light of the acronym for his title (TICM), saying he hopes his work does not lead too many people to hear it with an 'off' at the end (as in, 'tic 'em off'). His other trademark wordplay when he speaks to churches and church leaders explores variations on the theme: 'Your windshield needs to be larger than your rearview mirror.' The image is not only striking -- it is gospel." 

Getting back to Normal

As most of you probably heard already, our (approximately) 60 year old Laysan albatross, Wisdom, has been seen coming back to feed her chick. She actually showed up the same day as her mate, so the chick got a big meal that day. At least the suspense ended with a good outcome. We still have not seen the short-tailed albatross parents, but they don't stay long to feed anyway. The chick seems to be doing well, so it seems that it's still getting fed. We've got a visiting photography group out here right now led by environmental photographer Chris Jordan. Rather than tell you about them myself, I would highly suggest checking out their blog, Flickr pictures, You Tube videos, and facebook page. They are filming a movie out here as well as taking photos. So please look at these pages: http://www.midwayjourney.com/ Other links are on this page. Really good vids and photos on all pages. http://emilysmidwayjourney.blogspot.com/ This site is done by a high school student that came along. She has an interesting story. The islands are finally drying out. We've been seeing a lot of albatross chicks dying off. Even though they made it through the tsunami, they may have been injured, stressed, or not found by their parents. We are seeing a lot of new plant sprouts coming up in the devastated areas. Hopefully they are mostly natives. Nesting season is ramping up for Red-tailed tropic birds and white terns, and the sooty terns and gray-backed terns are starting to return. The first Hawaiian monk seal pup of the season was also born a little over a week ago. So the life is returning. We had a Coast Guard C-130 stay for a day this past week. We also got a visit from our supply ship, the Kahana again. Wisdom preens her chick.

The short-tailed albatross chick is huge now and waits to be fed.

Between past posts on this blog and my Tern Island blog, you've seen the Kahana a lot. So here's a slightly different angle.

The USCG C-130 lands about an hour after sunset to minimize interaction with birds.

Jan, Jim, and Victoria are getting some shots for the Midway film on Bulky Dump.

While they were out there, they found two adult albatrosses that fell into a sinkhole. It was produced when the water washed the sand down into the voids of the dumped materials. Quite a few were formed and we try to fill them or at least make a ramp for the birds to climb out. I had to crawl in head first to get this one out.

I found this red-tailed tropic bird on Cargo Beach. I don't know if it was a tsunami injury, but it wasn't doing well. I put it in the shade under a naupaka bush, at least giving it a chance.

This is what most of the washed over west half of Eastern Island looks like. There's not much vegetation left.

This is taken from the top of one of the old airplane revetments looking to the eastern part of Eastern Island. There's a lot of life where the tsunami didn't wash over (too bad it's mostly invasive mustard).

Bad sunlight angle, but there's one chick in the middle of the picture surrounded by adults. This is the only chick in this whole area visible in the picture.

Many of the chicks are sitting on the dead birds. This Laysan albatross chick is sitting on a dead black-footed albatross adult.

This Laysan albatross chick was in the surf and found his way back up the beach.

The parrotfish don't look quite so intimidating when they are alive.

Our seabird biologist from Honolulu, Beth Flint, is inspecting the damage on Eastern Island. Quite a few of the bottles have been turned into little terrariums.

The great frigatebirds are ready for mating season.

Here's the same bird.

At least the dead tournefortia trees are still useful nesting sites.

Living Water

We’re almost at the half-way point in the season of Lent. The Gospel passage for today’s liturgy is the well-known story of the woman at the well in John’s Gospel (4:5-42). It’s a story about brokenness which we’ve all felt, a story of how God’s love and pardon came to a woman and her town through the man named Jesus of Nazareth.


The story begins when Jesus strikes up a conversation by asking a Samaritan woman for a drink of water from the well, where he was sitting while awaiting the return of his disciples who’d left for a lunch-run. The well, Jacob’s well, had been there a long time. John hints that the woman came here frequently to lower her bucket and draw water. The woman is put off by the fact that Jesus, a Jew, is asking for water from her, a Samaritan. She then becomes amazed at Jesus’ offer to give her some special water, since he has no bucket. The well is deep and he process is tedious and time-consuming. A fountain or spring of “living water”, she thinks, would certainly make the job ever so much easier.There’s an immediate miscommunication, because the living water to which Jesus refers is actually the Wisdom which gives life. In the Hebrew Scriptures “living water” refers to Torah, “the gift of God”, as the rabbis called it. The will of God as expressed in Torah, and practical living according to it, was life-giving Wisdom for a Jew.


For writers of the Christian Scriptures, especially John, “living water”. the Wisdom which gives life and guides people’s lives is both Jesus’ wisdom, his teaching, summed up in himself, the “Word” incarnate; and the Spirit whom Jesus communicates, sends. “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. The one who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.‘ Now he said this about the Spirit which those who believed in him were to receive.” The coming of the Spirit was to be the sign that the messiah = anointed [Greek, christos] One had arrived. Jesus had proclaimed in his own hometown synagogue, quoting from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me...he has anointed me...to heal the brokenhearted.”


As Jesus’ conversation with the woman unfolds, we begin to glimpse how inwardly broken she is. This is a woman who, for whatever reason, has bought into the racial and religious discrimination which existed between Jews and Samaritans in first century C.E. She could be described as a person who felt “denominationally superior” because she was convinced that her people knew the “right” way to worship. We learn further that she’d apparently had her share of broken relationships in her life until now. She’d had five husbands. When Jesus mentions her husband, the dialogue abruptly shifts to the topic of “real” worship and the proper place for it. Jesus had gotten a little too close to home for her. The woman deals with her embarrassment and guilt by drawing attention away from her home situation. Jesus quietly offers her his presence and peace. He slowly, patiently, cuts through her misperceptions, prejudice, spiritual blindness, even deceptiveness, and reveals himself as the healing One, holding out to her the remedy for her brokenness, foretold by Isaiah: the living water of God’s Spirit, his very presence and peace.


Jesus accommodates her and takes up the topic of worship, but he begins to explain how he views true worship. It’s not in Samaritan vs. Jewish terms, but in terms of “spirit and truth”. Whenever spirit appears unmarked in John’s Gospel it usually refers to God’s Spirit. And truth, for John, primarily indicates Godself or is a characteristic of people who respond to God’s revelation.


In proclaiming worship in spirit and in truth Jesus doesn’t seem to be contrasting external worship with internal worship, with worship of God in the inner recesses of one’s heart. Being broken before God and yet trusting that somehow we’ll come out at the other end is God’s way of challenging us to deeper faith. When you and I stand vulnerable and open to God’s life-giving Spirit, even if grudgingly at first, we begin to have faith, to believe. Acknowledging and accepting the Spirit, Godself, and God’s will expressed in the Word -- Jesus himself and the Scriptures -- becomes the basis of true worship. “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not spurn.” The liturgical prayers, gestures, and paraphernalia which we use in worship are only aids, and are all empty and meaningless unless they lead us to make real the kind of worship of which Jesus speaks. When, in our brokenness, we approach the living God in spirit and in truth, we allow God to heal, to restore, to recreate us.


Jesus does this for the Samaritan woman. Through a simple request for a drink of water, through conversation, and through patience Jesus helps her work through her self-imposed limitations and short-sightedness, and to come to know God’s Spirit which he himself embodies. The selfsame Spirit of truth enables this woman to eventually do “surprise ministry”: to share Jesus’ story with her friends and townspeople. It’s something she’d probably never have done on her own. Like us, she’d have pled “unworthy”, “incapable”, with “not enough time to devote to it”. Her fellow townspeople would never in a million years have enlisted her as the town evangelist, the bearer of “Good News”. After all, they knew what she was like!


After the disciples return, a bit shocked to find Jesus speaking with the Samaritan woman, John notes that “the woman left her water jar and went back to the city”. Why did she leave the jar? Was it just because she was so excited and in haste to share the latest bit of gossip? Or was that little detail symbolic? Could it, perhaps, indicate that in dealing with the Holy God and with each other, you and I need to leave our jars, our containers, however large or small, behind? No one can contain or put limits around God’s truth, the living water who is the Spirit. Unfortunately, don’t we often attempt to do just that: to contain and put limits on God’s Spirit, on the Spirit’s ability to deal with whatever brokenness afflicts our lives or those of others? We’re uncomfortable with life’s uncertainties and changes. We want the answers to life’s questions, the security of “the truth”. Jesus’ most radical opposition, after all, came from “religious” people who believed they had a corner on the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth: in a jar, so to speak. The Samaritan woman had thought that way at first, and so do we until we realize, as Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians that “...we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us.”


Thomas Merton coined the phrase which (approximately) says “God writes straight with crooked letters.” God has a way of continually smashing our jars and containers when we attempt to put limits on God’s Spirit, when we try to dictate how God should deal with those of whom we disapprove, or worse, when we try to disallow even God the freedom to change brokenness, in ourselves or in others, into a new start, a “surprise ministry”. Jesus’ gift of eternal life is there for the taking, if only we choose to be refashioned in its power, if only we believe enough to leave our jars behind and let the Spirit blow where it will.


I wonder what Jesus might have said to a person like singer Janis Joplin, a broken woman to all appearances, often disapproved of and berated by others, ultimately a victim of her own addictive tendencies, dying alone. How might she have responded had someone sat down with her, been truly present to her, and told her about the living water of the Spirit. Amanda McBroom wrote a song called The Rose, used in the movie of the same name, a movie based on Janis Joplin’s life:

It’s the heart afraid of breaking

that never learns to dance.

It’s the dream afraid of waking

that never takes a chance.

It’s the one who won’t be taken

Who cannot seem to give,

And the soul afraid of dyin

that never seems to live.

Mary: A Lesson In Humility & Faith

Someone has said, "A person who has never doubted is a person who has never thought." Frederick Buechner goes further: "...if you don't have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving." Some folks seen almost always at peace with their faith. Others seem to be in a state of constant questioning. 


To speak of doubt is to speak of testing or difficulty in believing, not of refusal to believe.The presence of doubt says nothing about the certainty with which we believe. A person can be torn by doubt, yet be very dedicated and firm in faith. Strong faith, in fact, can often be accompanied by great doubt. The more a believer loves and surrenders self, the more one has abandoned one's own ground, and more is at stake. A challenged faith can remain a full faith, for true faith is always full. It isn't a question of half-believing and half-unbelieving. 


The man whose son was possessed by a spirit and who cried out to Jesus, "I believe, help my unbelief," had a full faith. And Jesus healed the son. Thérèse of Lisieux, the French Carmelite nun, often known as "The Little Flower", had painful doubts about faith even as she lay dying of tuberculosis at age 23. "My 'little way'," she wrote, "is the way of spiritual childhood, the way of trust and absolute self-surrender." In the example of Jesus himself we can see best of all the certainty which is not crushed even by the worst difficulty or doubt. Jesus was tested in the desert. Though, quoting Psalm 22, Jesus cried out in agony on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", his surrender, his faith, his gift of himself was at its most total in his temptation and doubt.


Scripture constantly talks about people in crises of faith and confidence. One could cite such stories as that of Abraham, or of the Exodus, or of Jeremiah, or of the people after the destruction of Jerusalem. Such crises of faith take on a different form in each age. Some centuries have been called the "Ages of Faith", while others have been marked by darkness approaching despair. Many in our own day feel that any sort of belief in God's existence or Jesus or the Spirit is a complete illusion.


Doubt has its origin in many things, mostly in such questions as arise in all our minds at some time or other. How do I reconcile the cruelty and violence of the world with God's goodness? What do I do when the salvation I hear proclaimed seems to bring me no deliverance? What if I don't perceive God as part of my existence, as meaning nothing to me practically? Why do people witihout faith seem to get along just as well, perhaps better, than those who profess to believe? Many of us remember a time, perhaps, when "the faithful" were advised not to busy themselves too much with such heady issues, to simply pray to God for guidance and to go on leading a good life, with assurances that it'll all be OK in the end. Such simplistic platitudes are largely ignored in an age which constantly seeks, probes, and questions. There's no way, ultimately, to dodge honest doubts, nor should we. While it would be foolish to allow ourselves to become the playthings of every new thought or idea which crosses our mind, or slaves to compulsive notions, we should take time, make time, to thoughtfully discern the meaning of our doubts. 


Even this can be somewhat simplistic, because difficulties in faith go far deeper than simply the intellect. The real source of doubt often is that we've lost a sense of God's presence and peace, or contact with it. The testing may, in fact, be a call to deeper belief. It may be that we're not living in faith, that we're allowing ourselves to be choked "by the cares of the world, and the delight in riches, and the desire for other things" (Mark 4:19) Sometimes we try to fit our convictions to decisions we've already made, decisions contrary to conscience. Or we may be inwardly unable to bring ourselves to love certain people, or perhaps we're feeding a hatred in our hearts.


Sometimes serious doubt spills over into actual despair. Thomas Merton described such critical times as "the absolute extreme of self-love", when a person makes a choice to turn her/his back on all help from anyone else, including God. Perhaps there's some hidden root of despair within all of us. There's a pride which raises its head as soon as our own resources fail us, which they will, inevitably, at times. Despair is the result of letting pride develop to such a point, where even despite the reality of the suffering of Christ on the cross, one chooses the absolute misery of complete separateness and alienation, rather than accept happiness from God's hands. 


The way out of doubt and despair, the way to God's presence and peace, calls for humility. Humility is primary if one is to live spiritually. It is the key to faith with which our life in God's Spirit begins. Deriving from the Latin word humus = earth/ground, humility "grounds" us, helps us see reality, things as they are, not the fantasies we wish they would be. Only when I can humbly accept the reality that I'm a creature in relation to God can I submit, surrender, myself -- even in the face of doubt or despair -- to God's presence and peace.


This feast of the Annunciation is a celebration of Mary's extraordinary humility and faith. If anyone had reason to doubt, maybe even to despair, it was this young Jewish girl of marriageable age, who, though unmarried, found herself pregnant and with no explanation which anyone could comprehend, much less accept, least of all her intended, Joseph. We can only conclude from Luke's story of Mary that somehow this young girl had learned quite early the key to wholeness and holiness. The Lord's messenger addresses her as "Highly favored one, the Lord is with you." God's presence is there, unrecognized, and the only way that could be is if she were at the same time humble, grounded: she knew the way things were in relation to her Creator. When it was made known to her that she was to be a key figure in the greatest event in history, a thousand doubts and questions must have rushed in on her. She expresses some of them: "How? I have no husband. I'm afraid. Why?" But as soon as it becomes clear to her Who is behind all this, the Most High, the Holy Spirit, she exclaims: "...I am the Lord's servant; let it be to me according to your word." We'd be very wrong to read into this scene that, for Mary, it was somehow "different", or that for her it was easy, but surely not for us. That would be to rob her of her true humanity. French writer, Jean Guitton notes that Mary might well have said of her humble and faithful "Yes" to God what the French painter, Corot, said of a canvas he'd hastily completed: "How much time did I spend on it? Five minutes -- and my whole life."

Of Potters & Clay

The passage from Jeremiah [18:11; 18-20] strikes a responsive note because it ends with a question which we’ve all undoubtedly asked: “Is evil a recompense for good?” [v.20] You and I might rephrase the question a little differently: “Why did God cause this tragedy, or whatever, to happen?”; “I don’t understand it: I pray and pray, and God never answers.” “There’s no justice in this world! The rich just get richer and the poor, poorer!”

It appears that Jeremiah was a sort of “visual learner”. God’s message told him to go to a potter’s studio: “...there I will let you hear my words.” Jeremiah watches intently as the potter works at his wheel, fashioning a clay vessel. But he goofs (the potter, that is). Perhaps he pressed too hard, used too much water on the clay, didn’t spin the wheel fast enough: whatever,...the pattern he’d set out to make was ruined.

The thing which Jeremiah noted was that the potter didn’t get upset and throw the piece of clay away. Patiently, “he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do…” It was then, after the potter handled the situation this way, that Jeremiah understood God’s message which he was to give to the people of Israel.

God compares Godself to a potter working with the clay, in this case, Israel/humanity. If the people are “bad” clay, i.e., they aren’t as clay should be, God is still able to fashion them into something useful, to accomplish the divine purpose, if the clay will respond to God’s expert touch. If, on the other hand, people who are “good” clay, i.e., capable of being fashioned into a vessel of God’s choosing, willfully allow themselves to be deficient clay, then even God won’t exercise his artistry. God won’t contradict the laws of nature which are the expression of the divine goodness and truth itself. The logical consequence and result, despite God’s creative hand, will be a misshapen, disfigured vessel. The potter’s creative purpose will have been purposely frustrated by the “clay”.

“Is evil a recompense for good?” therefore? Does God cause evil in our lives? or bad things to happen to good people? Certainly not! For God is like the potter, after all. Is Jeremiah’s message, in terms of the potter, meant to convey simply that the potter has dominion? that he calls the shots? that the clay isn’t important? that the potter exercises arbitrary control over the vessel’s existence, or that he can shape evil regardless of the quality of his clay?

Or does Jeremiah’s message, rather, have a different thrust: that a potter is one whose delight is in creating, in giving things the possibility to be; that potter is careful, precise, patient; that a potter puts something of her/himself into what is created; that a potter fashions objects which are useful, things which delight us with beauty, which benefit and serve others?

“Is evil a recompense for good?” No. But to say this doesn’t mean that it’s a complete answer, or that you and I understand or can ever fully grasp the mystery of evil in the world and in our own lives. It’s not a complete answer, but it’s a firm and sure answer, one based on the Word of God.

The reality of being human and limited and of being the inheritors of selfishness is that, sooner or later, we’ll each find ourselves as spoiled vessels in the Divine Potter’s hands. But faith tells us that God can and does rework us, if we allow it, into other, and more magnificent vessels, “as it [seems] good to the potter to do.” No one, I think, has expressed this more beautifully than St. Paul, writing to the Christians at Corinth: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” (2 Corinthians 4:7-10)

Fear the moon, Hollywood tells us

Last Saturday's "super moon" had stargazers agape and caused widespread speculation that the moon's unusually close proximity to Earth might wreak havoc on our planet by precipitating destructive geological and tidal activty.

Of course, humanity's fascination with the mysteries of our celestial neighbour is as old as humanity itself, so it was only natural that as we strode into the age of mechanical reproduction the moon assumed the leading role in cinema's very first science fiction film. Georges Méliès' 1902 classic A Trip to the Moon depicted a group of astronomers journeying to the moon only to find it populated by hostile insectoid aliens known as "Selenites."

The moon has been subject to the silver screen treatment many times since Méliès' pioneering cinematic lunar excursion, but, for obvious scientific reasons, few films besides Méliès' have ever connected the moon with the idea of extraterrestrial life. Over the next 18 months, however, no less than three films will do just that: Apollo 18 (April 2011), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (July 2011), and Dark Moon (Sept. 2012), and it is notable that all three of these films will be tapping directly into real-life debates among UFO researchers surrounding the idea of a 'black ops' space programme.

Is there more to NASA - and to our moon - than meets the eye? Hollywood certainly thinks it's a cool concept, but will its upcoming movies along these lines serve to open minds to the not entirely far-fetched idea of a secret space programme, or to push the notion further into the realms of public fantasy as an implausible cinematic fiction?

For information relating to alleged moon anomalies and secret NASA activities, see the testimonies of Disclosure Project witnesses Donna Hare and Karl Wolf, as well as that of the now legally imperilled computer "hacker" Gary McKinnon.

Thanks Everyone

Wow, thanks for all of the support to everyone who commented. I'm glad that so many people were interested in what happened out here. It's very nice to hear.

The big question as of late seems to be "Is Wisdom ok?" If anyone doesn't know, Wisdom is now recogized as the oldest wild bird in the U.S. at least 60 years old (she was banded as a breeding adult in 1956). There's no reason to think she's not ok, since her nest was not in an area that was affected by the tsunami. If she was at her nest, she would have been ok, and if she was feeding, she would most likely have been flying out in open ocean. I'll let you know when we spot her though.

I have been putting up some of my pictures on the USFWS Flickr site. Many of them are here on my blog, but I posted a few more there. There are also some photos of Laysan Island, and a map that I made of the flooded areas of the islands on Midway. It's worth looking at it (it's the last of the 50 pictures).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/sets/72157626265154692/with/5537779135/

There is also an official news release at:

http://www.fws.gov/pacific/ It is under the Recent News Releases toward the bottom.

We had another couple of days of finding more buried birds. And we did some more cleanup of the Monument seep on Eastern Island. We sometimes have problems with botulism outbreaks in the endangered Laysan ducks. Decaying proteins (i.e. dead birds, fish, and vegetative debris) can give the botulism bacteria great growing conditions, so it was important to get that out.

Aside from a visitor's group from the Oceanic Society, we also got the crews from Laysan Island and Kure Atoll. They were all a big help with seep cleanup and habitat restoration. The NOAA ship Hi'ialakai was kind enough to evacuate the island crews to Midway. They will put new crews on those islands soon.

Thank you all again!

This seal found its way into a washed up net on the boat ramp. Luckily, it wasn't stuck too bad yet and we could quickly pull the net back over its head. It went right back to sleep after we removed the net.

I finally found this chick after 6 days. It was still alive, and still pretty snappy.

This Black-footed albatross only had one wing stuck for days. The 2 Laysan albatross in the photo only had their heads uncovered. Albatrosses can sit on their nests for weeks without going for food, so as long as they aren't too stressed, there is a possibility that they can survive.

One of our visitors, Connie, is freeing a buried Laysan albatross. Most of the birds are biting while we dig them out, making it a bit more difficult. I've got about 20 separate cuts from them on my hand. They usually quit biting as soon as we pull them out.

You can see the NOAA ship Hi'ialakai in the background as their SAFEboat brings in the 5 people from Kure Atoll.

Enough of the depressing pictures. There is still a lot of life here, and our facilities are all still intact. For instance, here's Captain Brooks Tavern.

The white terns seemed to be mostly unaffected since they usually sit in trees or on raised objects. I have better white tern pics on my older posts.

This picture is really cool at full resolution, but it lost a bit when I shrunk it down. Since I went through the work, I'll post it. This green sea turtle was eating floating vegetation in the harbor.

"I Set My Heart"

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: 
Be gracious to all who have gone astray from 
your ways, and bring them again with 
penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace 
and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your 
Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you 
and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns,one God, 
for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel for Lent 2 (John 3:1-17) is a familiar one. It redefines the life of faith in Christ. It speaks of being born into a new life of the Spirit. Inasmuch as you and I are transformed, we're called to trust in God's promises.

James Adams' book, So You Think You're Not Religious?, written for modern skeptics, is a favorite of mine for the definition of faith which he suggests in it. Adams tells of an incident which he witnessed at Oxford University, where Robert Morgan was giving a series of lectures on Paul's Epistles. Morgan came to the text in Romans 10:9 where Paul says: "...if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." "Then", Adams recounts, "he looked up and said, 'Believe in your heart. That is the only kind of believing that matters. As you probably know the Latin word 'credo', from which we get our word 'creed', is usually translated 'believe', but it means literally 'to set the heart'." Adams notes that this stunned him, for it suddenly solved for him how a skeptical person might, with integrity, pray the Nicene Creed. "'Credo'...'I believe in', really means 'I set my heart'. It does not mean 'I set my head'."

In John's Gospel passage Jesus and Nicodemus have an interesting conversation, "by night", John says. I think it helps to put that conversation into some perspective by reading the preceding three verses: "When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone." John makes this observation in light of a challenge flung at Jesus by Jewish religious leaders in vv. 18-19, after he'd "cleared the deck" of moneychangers in the Temple just before that.

Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a Jewish leader, now approaches Jesus (note again, "by night"), opening with rather unctious words of praise about Jesus' skill as an authentic teacher, and alluding to the "these signs that you do" as evidence of that. Jesus who "himself knew what was in everyone", including this man, cuts right to the chase: "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the reign of God without being born from above." That phrase, "the reign of God", by the way, appears only here and in v. 5 of John's Gospel. Jesus' statement whizzes right over Nicodemus' head as Nicodemus puzzles over the mechanics of how someone might be born again once the person has "grown old", as he himself presumably has. But Jesus is relentless, and says again, "You can't be part of God's reign without being born from above, that is, of water and Spirit." Water is a symbol with several meanings: a cleansing agent or a refreshing liquid. But also, in sufficient quantity, such as an ocean or the tsunami which devastated Japan last week, with rippling effects even here in our own state of California, it's a source of power, of undoing and destruction. Spirit is the principle of life. We might draw the implication that eternal life, which is the essence of being part of God's reign, is possible only through a rebirth, a transformation, a humbling, even an undoing or destruction, in a sense, of our human ways of knowing and understanding, and being given the gift of God's life-giving Spirit.

Jesus continues with a beautiful image of wind, breath, blowing where it chooses. Of course, the Hebrew word ruach and the Greek word pneuma = breath, spirit are both applied in Scripture to Holy Spirit also. As wind blows around us we can hear its sound, its voice, but we don't know where it comes from or where it goes. "So it is", says Jesus, "with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Well, poor old literal Nicodemus, "a teacher of Israel", as Jesus describes him, still doesn't "get it". Not so subtly, Jesus singles out the crux of the Nicodemus' problem: "We [the majestic "We" of the Trinity?? or "We" who've learned to set our hearts on God??] speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you [those who either haven't learned the necessity of setting their hearts on God, or those who've deliberately chosen to live in the darkness of blindness to what's right in front of them??] do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?"

Jesus then draws a parallel between Moses and "the Son of Man". There's a vertical ascent involved: "...just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness [cf. Numbers 21:4-9], so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. There's also a vertical descent: "...God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life." And this descent, the sending of the Son by the Father to humankind, was done so that all human beings themselves could ascend, be raised up, "that the world might be saved through him." In this passage, John, through Jesus, addresses you and me who are the Church. If Moses' action brought life to the Israelites, Jesus' actions, indeed everything which he did and said, brings eternal life to us. In the whole mystery of Jesus' crucifixion on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, and his being taken back into and glorified in the presence of the Trinity, you and I, through the power of the Holy Spirit, who sets our hearts on God, are ourselves raised to glory. "The reign of God" becomes our new way of existing. The only way this cannot happen is if I refuse the Holy Spirit ["blaspheme", according to Mark and Luke; "speak against", according to Matthew], if I choose to live in darkness and lack of understanding, thus withholding my heart from the very Spirit who is Love.

Hazel Jean Spire wrote the following in the January/February issue of alive now!:

"Florida. August.
    I leave my husband to cast his line again. I point my new camera at the palm trees. Click. The wading birds. Click. The Miami skyline. Click. I shield my lens against an unusually bright glare from the ocean.
   A fishing boat glides in to the wooden jetty. A young man steps out and calls my name. Who on earth knows me here?
    'Yes?' I respond, feeling my toes sink into the wet sand while he makes a half hitch around a cleat.
    'Did you think you could escape from me, Hazel?' The man is laughing now, and walking toward me.
    I squint. 'Roger?'
    'No, not your ex. Your first love. Remember the youth retreat, south coast of England?'
   I want to hide. Instead I stammer, 'Oh, it's you.'
   With a glance at Mark, who is reeling in a branch of seaweed fifty yards down the beach, I say, 'You know I've remarried.'
   'Of course,' he says, and my old friend invites me to sit with him on the jetty. His hair and skin are a lot darker than in the mental picture I've been carrying.
   'I'm sorry I cut off communication,' I tell him. 'No excuse really, though I did try to blame Roger.'
   He smiles, but his eyes reveal the pain of rejection. 'I've missed you,' he says. 'You didn't reply to any of my messages.'
   I shake my head in shame as well as disbelief that we're having this conversation. 'I was looking through some of your messages the other day. I've been through so much change lately, I was trying to find some words to help me. But they didn't make sense any more.'
   He sighs. 'You used to be able to read my thoughts.'
   Retrospect sweeps me back to those early steps away from my first love. All I can say is, 'I guess I wasn't ready to promise you anything at fifteen.'
   'But you did accept my gift and that made you mine.' His look penetrates my soul.
   'I still have plans for you.' His tone is gentle, persuasive, but I hestitate.
   My husband wades to the top of his boots, casting again.
   'What about Mark?'
   'Oh, he's coming too, but I still want first place in your life.' My friend stands. 'It's not the first time I've been betrayed,' he says. 'I always knew you would choose your own way for a season. But I wouldn't force you to stay. I can only draw you back with my love.'
   He reaches down and pulls me up with his strong brown arm. Now I notice the ugly scars. I remember what he did on a dark lonely hill outside Jerusalem. My guilty verdict is washed away by the tide of grace.

Boneyard Arts Festival Events in Urbana, Central Illinois

The 9th Annual Boneyard Arts Festival

Boneyard Arts Festival Events

at Beads N Botanicals

FEATURED ARTIST: Vicki Brown of Simply Vicki

TREES OF LIFE. Born, raised and living in Urbana,

Vicki has created art for over 28 years.

This self-described mother, grandmother and crazy cat lady has developed her

 Trees of Life, each one as individual as live trees.

Her works are available for viewing April 7 thru April 9 of the festival

 during regular store hours.

“Meet the Artist” Wine & Cheese reception

 on Saturday, April 9, from 3pm-5pm

Musical Performance by Anne Clements

Guitar and Vocals, Agent of Change Project

Saturday, April 9, 12noon to 1pm

The Trikhala Bellydance Troupe,

made up of University of Illinois undergraduate and graduate students, will perform their style of tribal fusion dance-- a mixture of American tribal-style bellydance, traditional ethnic bellydance and contemporary dance styles such as hip-hop. Come watch them dance and dance with them.

Saturday, April 9, 1pm to 2pm

Rattle the Boneyard: Community Drum Circle-
Bring a drum, rattle, instrument or just clap your hands.

Beads N Botanicals is hosting a drum circle as a part of the Boneyard Arts Festival.

Saturday, April 9, 2pm to 3:00pm

St. Joseph & The Church

 

From a sermon by St. Bernardine of Siena:

"...A comparison may be made between Joseph and the whole Church of Christ. Joseph was the specially chosen man through whom and under whom Christ entered the world fittingly and appropriately. Thus, if the whole Church stands in the debt of the Virgin Mary, since it was through her child-bearing that it was able to receive Christ, surely after her, it owes special thanks and honor to Joseph.

For in him the Old Testament finds its fitting close. In him the noble line of patriarchs and prophets comes to its promised fulfillment. What God in his goodness had offered to them as a promise, Joseph held in his arms. Clearly, Christ cannot now deny to him the same intimacy, respect and high dignity which he gave him on earth, as a son to his father. We should rejoice that in heaven Christ completes and perfects all that he gave to Joseph in Nazareth..." 

Circumcising The Foreskin of One's Heart

The Office reading this morning from Deuteronomy 10:12-22 urges: "Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer." It's a very graphic image, one that I'm sure I've read before. Surely there are many biblical references to circumcision which I've read before, but not really thought about. It occurred to me that I'd never actually seen a male foreskin, either for real or in pictures. It was pretty easy to imagine that cutting off the foreskin in circumcision must be a painful, bloody process. I'd heard a lot of jokes about the "bris", the Jewish ritual of circumcision on the eighth day after a male child's birth. Again, I've never actually seen the ritual performed, nor did I know much about it.

The ritual of circumcision, as explained to me in seminary Scripture classes, was God's command to Moses and the chosen people of Israel, a largely patriarchal society, to set them off as God's own with a sign in the flesh. The blood involved, the human symbol of life, was understandable in light of the sacrificial use of animal blood to signify a sharing of life between God and the people. Because of its uniqueness in the surrounding early culture, there was also an element of the solidarity of the people.

I've learned, in pursuing this today, that b'rit mi'lah = covenant of circumcision is the correct Hebrew term [בְּרִית מִילָה], and that bris is the Yiddish term used. Bris milôh is the Ashkenazi variation. This Jewish religious ceremony is performed on 8-day old male infants by a mohel, and is followed by a meal, seudat mitzvah, literally, commanded meal. A mohel is a Jewish man trained in the ritual of circumcision according to the precepts outlined in classical rabbinic texts. Today they generally receive medical training also, and it is very common to find mohelim who are also doctors.

Judaism views body and soul as holy partners in serving God. So, the Brit is performed on the most physical part, for all of man is holy before his Creator. Brit milah is understood to join the forces of body and soul together in serving God.

The kabbalistic writings teach that seven days represent the physical world of creation. In having lived for eight days, a child is seen to have transcended the physical to the metaphysical. The covenant joining body and soul, physical and spiritual, can now take place.

Brit milah includes three main parts: the blessing and circumcision; the Kiddush and naming; and the 
seudat mitzvah, or celebratory meal. Not counting the latter, the entire ceremony of Brit milah takes about 15 minutes.

The child is brought into the room where the ceremony will take place, and as the baby enters, the guests greet him by saying "Baruch haba" = "Blessed be he who comes. This greeting wasn't originally part of the ceremony, but was added as if to express a hope that, perhaps, the messiah had been born and the guests were greeting him. It's customary to honor and invite family and friends to participate in holding the baby at various parts of the Brit. The ceremony begins when the mother hands the baby to the Kvatterin, the Jewish equivalent of a godmother, who then takes the baby from the mother and hands him to the Kvatter, the Jewish equivalent of a godfather. The Kvatter then brings the baby to the mohel.

The highest honor of the ceremony is to be the sandak. The Sandak is the person given the honor of holding the child while the circumcision is performed. If the Sandak is a righteous man, he can help in drawing down a holy soul for the child. In fact, the child takes the good character traits from the Sandak and shares a spiritual connection with him. Since this is the highest honor bestowed at the Brit, many choose the grandfather, brother, a close friend of the father, or some other revered individual for the role. Sometimes the Sandak sits in a special chair called the Chair of Elijah. The prophet is thought to be the child's guardian at the circumcision, hence there is a chair in his honor.

The mohel then recites a blessing over the baby, saying: "Praised are you, Adonai our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us with Your commandments and commanded us in the ritual of circumcision." The circumcision is then performed and the father recites a blessing thanking God for bringing the child into the covenant of Abraham: "Blessed are You, Adonai our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us with Your commandments and commanded us to make him enter into the covenant of Abraham our father." After the father has recited the blessing, guests respond with "As he has entered into the covenant, so may he be introduced to the study of Torah, to the wedding canopy, and to good deeds."

Next the blessing over the wine (Kiddush) is said and a drop of wine is put into the baby’s mouth. A prayer for his well-being is recited, followed by a longer prayer that gives him his name: "Creator of the universe. May it be Your will to regard and accept this (performance of circumcision), as if I had brought this baby before Your glorious throne. And in Your abundant mercy, through Your holy angels, give a pure and holy heart to ________, the son of ________, who was just now circumcised in honor of Your great Name. May his heart be wide open to comprehend Your holy Law, that he may learn and teach, keep and fulfill Your laws." Ashkenazi-European Jews have the custom of naming a child after someone deceased, a beautiful tradition of immortalizing a close relative or friend. Sephardic Jews customarily name the child after the living. A child may have one or more names, depending on the parents' wishes.

Finally, there is the seudat mitzvah, a celebratory meal required by Jewish law. Through it the joy of a new life in this world is connected with the joy of sharing food with family and friends.

What's the reason for this circumcision of the flesh? The most obvious answer is found in the Hebrew Scriptures: "And God spoke to Abraham saying: ...This is my covenant which you shall keep between Me and you and your seed after you -- every male child among you shall be circumcised." (Genesis 17:12) For 3500 years, since the time of their forefather, Abraham, the Jewish people have observed the ritual of circumcision as the fundamental sign of the covenant between God and Israel. It is "the Covenant of Circumcision", much more than simply a medical procedure. Brit milah is the sign of a new-born child's entry into the Jewish tradition. For millennia, in every country where Jews have lived, they have always practiced this ritual, sometimes at great personal sacrifice. Perhaps more than any other ritual, Brit milah is the ultimate affirmation of Jewish identity.

In Of the Special Laws, Book 1, the Jewish philosopher Philo (20 BC - AD 50) also gives six other reasons for the practice of circumcision. He attributes four of them to "men of divine spirit and wisdom". These include the idea that circumcision:
- protects against disease;
- secures cleanliness "in a way that is suited to the people consecrated to God";
- causes the circumcised portion of the penis to resemble a heart, thereby representing a physical    connection between the "breath contained within the heart [that] is generative of thoughts, and the generative organ itself [that] is productive of living beings";
- promotes the future man being prolific by removing impediments to the flow of semen.
To these, Philo added two of his own reasons:
- it "signified figuratively the excision of all superfluous and excessive pleasure";
- "it is a symbol of a man's knowing himself".

Contemporary Talmudic scholar and professor, Dr. Daniel Boyarin, of the University of California, Berkeley, offers two other innovative reasons for circumcision. One is that it's a literal inscription on the Jewish body of the name of God in the form of the letter yud from yesod. The latter is a Kabbalistic term, translated as foundation, the ninth of ten sephirot (emanations). Yesod is associated in the soul with the power to contact, connect and communicate with outer reality, represented by the sefirah of malchut = earth. The foundation (yesod) of a building is its "grounding," its union with the earth. In Christian kabbalah, yesod is compared to the Christian concept of Holy Spirit, that aspect of God that descends upon and sanctifies earth and humankind.

Dr. Boyarin's second reason for circumcision is that the act of bleeding represents a feminization of Jewish men, significant in the sense that the Covenant represents a marriage between Jews and a symbolically male God.

Most of the above explanation is a long way of getting back around to the question which arose in my mind this morning as I read the passage from Deuteronomy 10:16: "Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer." What would that mean for me in practice? It would certainly imply the recommittal of my mind, soul, and body, indeed, all my powers, to the living God. Along with that it would involve inwardly sacrificing, "giving up", to use a common Lenten term, letting go, anything standing in the way of growth into maturity in the ways of God, primarily in love. Circumcision of the heart would also, of necessity, conjure up the living memory and reality of all those signficant people in my spiritual life, past and present: "honored people" similar to a Kvatterin, Kvatter, Mohel, and Sandak, who have helped bring me to where I am, spiritually, today. It would also certainly lead me to examine my commitment to the baptismal covenant which I've made and renewed so often in the presence of God and the community of faith, to appreciate and participate with greater devotion in the Christian "commanded meal", the Eucharist: "Take, eat...This is my body...This is my blood...for you." Finally, it would lead me to recommit myself to the Holy Spirit of Love, the foundation and inspiration for study of the Holy Book, for relationships with others, for the doing of good deeds.

Lord Christ, our eternal Redeemer, grant us such fellowship

in your sufferings, that filled with you Holy Spirit, we may

subdue the flesh to the spirit, and the spirit to you, and at

the last attain to the glory of your resurrection. Amen. 

The Shepherd of Erin: St. Padraic of Armagh (c. 390-461)

 

"I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a priest, of the settlement [vicus] of Bannavem Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people, according to our deserts, for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our priests who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought down on us the fury of his being and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where I, in my smallness, am now to be found among foreigners.

And there the Lord opened my mind to an awareness of my unbelief, in order that, even so late, I might remember my transgressions and turn with all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my insignificance and pitied my youth and ignorance. And he watched over me before I knew him, and before I learned sense or even distinguished between good and evil, and he protected me, and consoled me as a father would his son.


Therefore, indeed, I cannot keep silent, nor would it be proper, so many favours and graces has the Lord deigned to bestow on me in the land of my captivity...

...And therefore for some time I have thought of writing, but I have hesitated until now, for truly, I feared to expose myself to the criticism of men, because I have not studied like others, who have assimilated both Law and the Holy Scriptures equally and have never changed their idiom since their infancy, but instead were always learning it increasingly, to perfection, while my idiom and language have been translated into a foreign tongue...
 
...But why make excuses close to the truth, especially when now I am presuming to try to grasp in my old age what I did not gain in my youth because my sins prevented me from making what I had read my own? But who will believe me, even though I should say it again? A young man, almost a beardless boy, I was taken captive before I knew what I should desire and what I should shun. So, consequently, today I feel ashamed and I am mightily afraid to expose my ignorance, because, [not] eloquent, with a small vocabulary, I am unable to explain as the spirit is eager to do and as the soul and the mind indicate...

...I am, then, first of all, countryfied, an exile, evidently unlearned, one who is not able to see into the future, but I know for certain, that before I was humbled I was like a stone lying in deep mire, and he that is mighty came and in his mercy raised me up and, indeed, lifted me high up and placed me on top of the wall. And from there I ought to shout out in gratitude to the Lord for his great favours in this world and for ever, that the mind of man cannot measure.

Therefore be amazed, you great and small who fear God, and you men of God, eloquent speakers, listen and contemplate. Who was it summoned me, a fool, from the midst of those who appear wise and learned in the law and powerful in rhetoric and in all things? Me, truly wretched in this world, he inspired before others that I could be—if I would—such a one who, with fear and reverence, and faithfully, without complaint, would come to the people to whom the love of Christ brought me and gave me in my lifetime, if I should be worthy, to serve them truly and with humility.

According, therefore, to the measure of one’s faith in the Trinity, one should proceed without holding back from danger to make known the gift of God and everlasting consolation, to spread God’s name everywhere with confidence and without fear, in order to leave behind, after my death, foundations for my brethren and sons whom I baptized in the Lord in so many thousands.

And I was not worthy, nor was I such that the Lord should grant his humble servant this, that after hardships and such great trials, after captivity, after many years, he should give me so much favour in these people, a thing which in the time of my youth I neither hoped for nor imagined.

But after I reached Ireland I used to pasture the flock each day and I used to pray many times a day. More and more did the love of God, and my fear of him and faith increase, and my spirit was moved so that in a day [I said] from one up to a hundred prayers, and in the night a like number; besides I used to stay out in the forests and on the mountain and I would wake up before daylight to pray in the snow, in icy coldness, in rain, and I used to feel neither ill nor any slothfulness, because, as I now see, the Spirit was burning in me at that time...

...And I know in part why I did not lead a perfect life like other believers, but I confess to my Lord and do not blush in his sight, because I am not lying; from the time when I came to know him in my youth, the love of God and fear of him increased in me, and right up until now, by God’s favor, I have kept the faith...

...Now I have put it frankly to my brethren and co-workers, who have believed me because of what I have foretold and still foretell to strengthen and reinforce your faith. I wish only that you, too, would make greater and better efforts. This will be my pride, for ‘a wise son makes a proud father’.

But I see that even here and now, I have been exalted beyond measure by the Lord, and I was not worthy that he should grant me this...But I fear nothing, because of the promises of Heaven; for I have cast myself into the hands of Almighty God, who reigns everywhere... 


...Behold now I commend my soul to God who is most faithful and for whom I perform my mission in obscurity, but he is no respecter of persons and he chose me for this service that I might be one of the least of his ministers...


...Therefore may it never befall me to be separated by my God from his people whom he has won in this most remote land. I pray God that he gives me perseverance, and that he will deign that I should be a faithful witness for his sake right up to the time of my passing.

For the sun we see rises each day for us at [his] command, but it will never reign, neither will its splendour last...We, on the other hand, shall not die, who believe in and worship the true sun, Christ, who will never die, no more shall he die who has done Christ’s will, but will abide for ever just as Christ abides for ever, who reigns with God the Father Almighty and with the Holy Spirit before the beginning of time and now and for ever and ever. Amen.


Behold over and over again I would briefly set out the words of my confession. I testify in truthfulness and gladness of heart before God and his holy angels that I never had any reason, except the Gospel and his promises, ever to have returned to that nation from which I had previously escaped with difficulty.

But I entreat those who believe in and fear God, whoever deigns to examine or receive this document composed by the obviously unlearned sinner Patrick in Ireland, that nobody shall ever ascribe to my ignorance any trivial thing that I achieved or may have expounded that was pleasing to God, but accept and truly believe that it would have been the gift of God. And this is my confession before I die."

(From The Confession of St. Patrick)