How to Spend a Fortune

Today's newspaper says the United States has spent over $500 Million to renovate the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay. $500 Million! Five hundred million dollars! $500,000,000.00!

Here at our church, folks in need often knock on the door asking for food or gas or help with their rent or medicine. If we have it, we give them a $20 gift card to a local grocery store. Often we don't even have $20 to give. With $500 Million, we could give $20 gift cards to 25 Million people.

I got an email from a church member yesterday about some friends of hers. The father in this family of friends has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. A week before he was diagnosed, this man was fired from his job for poor work performance. Turns out his (then-unknown) brain tumor was causing him not to do his job so well. Now he's fired, sick, and dealing with insurance woes. I have no idea what this illness will cost this family or how they will pay for it. But the average hospital stay in the country costs $17,734.making his work. With $500 Million we could pay the hospital stays of 28,194 people.

The average tuition cost at a state university is $7020 per year. With $500 Million, we could send 71,225 students to college for free.

I understand the costs of renovating Guantanamo. Since that base occupies a tiny little sliver of a county that hates us and doesn't want us there, everything we use for renovations has to be shipped in. That's costly.

And, I understand that Guantanamo is a beautiful place, but it must be tough for our military personnel to be stationed in a place that has a reputation for for torture. If we the people are going to send our women and men to places like that, then we have an obligation to keep the place up for them.

But $500 Million? Five hundred million dollars? $500,000,000.00?

The 28,000 people who might need a little help with rent or food or medicine might like maybe just half of that. The man with the brain tumor? I bet he would be thrilled with just a tenth of that? And those 71,225 college students? f we're not going to pay their tuition for a year, maybe we could at least buy their books.

What has been will be again...

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again." ~ Quoheleth, Ecclesiastes 1:9.

* * * * *

"I think we certainly should be very sensitive to the fact that the purpose of the military is not to see if we can create social experiments." ~ Mike Huckabee, former preacher, former governor, would-be president, April 9, 2010, expressing his opposition to repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell.

"If envious enemies insist on using us as a guinea pig for alien psychological and sociological experimentation, let's not be too impatient though we know beforehand the experiment will be a dismal failure." ~ Alabama Journal, December 18, 1955, expressing opposition to integrated buses.

* * * * *

The bold italics are mine. But the sentiments are theirs, and sadly they are strikingly similar.

The Important Work of Walking in Circles

Earlier today I walked the labyrinth that folks in our congregation are building down in the woods east of our church house.

The labyrinth is a work in progress. So am I.

The labyrinth is a rough walk these days. So is life, sometimes.

My labyrinth-walking companions were a cardinal watching from a nearby tree and a whippety little garden snake who zithered off under a rock. Good companions are had to come by and worth keeping.

About halfway-through the labyrinth, both going in and coming out, I got bored. That happens every time I walk a labyrinth. I have the urge to rush on out or cross the boundaries and get back to work. I did good, though. When the hurry-up vibes tickled my soul, I slowed down, plodded on, kept on labyrinthing. That's what a labyrinth is for: the countercultural, subversive act of slowing one down.

As I walked, I hummed a song: "I may not pass this way again..." Last night my wife was remembering singing that song at her elementary school graduation. The image of a group of kiddos waxing eloquent at the top of their lungs about the passing of time made me chuckle. Laughing is good. Singing is good.

Walking the labyrinth is good.

Taxes and Questions and Prayer

Taxes.

I'm weird, I guess, because I think they make sense. I wouldn't say I like paying taxes. In fact, I'm horrible at the actual acts of filling out the forms, doing the math. My lovely spouse does all that.

But I appreciate the things our taxes pay for: roads, health insurance for poor kids, breakfast for hungry people, mental hospitals for terribly bothered people, schools, teachers' salaries, research that tries to end horrible diseases, firefighters and other public safety workers. Those are good things. I'm glad to do my part to pay for them.

There are things I'm sad my taxes pay for. I do not like that my money buys weapons to kill other people. I don't like it that some of my tax money is frittered away and used sloppily at times.

Having had my own salary paid by tax dollars for a while in a previous job, I know that there are good, diligent, hard-working folks toiling away in our bureaucracies; and I know there are some lousy, lazy people earning tax dollars as well -- about like any workplace, I suppose.

Lately, I've been thinking about Jesus and taxes. He befriended Zaccaeus, a corrupt tax collector (which says to me we don't hurl bombs and names at people we don't like). And Jesus was accused of subverting the tax system (Luke 23:2).

Governments shouldn't abuse, exploit and over-burden everyday people, just trying to get by. And it's much easier to point that out when "Caesar" is on the throne. It's harder when "we the people" all sit together on the throne.

Governments (again, functioning as "we the people") have a covenant (by virtue of our basic humanness) to take care of each other.

So, taxes. How much is too much? How do we make sure it's spent in the right ways? What would Jesus do? I don't know, to all of the above. So, I'll sign my name to form, and pray -- pray that it's filled out correctly, and pray that the money's going to the right places.

Bread for the World offered this prayer for taxpayers to consider as we work our way through our tax forms:

Gracious God, all that we have is a gift from you, including this country in which we live. As April 15 approaches, help us see our reporting to the Internal Revenue Service as a reminder of our interdependence.

Jesus taught us to love one another as he loves us, and scripture reminds us that each is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good (1 Corinthians 12:7).

We remember all employers, all who are self-employed, all who labor to feed themselves and their households, and all who are unemployed and seeking work.

Loving God, Bless the people whose lives are linked with ours

We remember all who have had capital gains or losses and all who manage money, especially those who are entrusted with the savings and financial well-being of others.

Loving God, Bless the people whose lives are linked with ours

We remember all landlords, all tenants, and all who own their own homes, while we especially recall those who have no place to call home.

Loving God, Bless the people whose lives are linked with ours

We remember all who farm, all who produce food for others to eat and all who depend upon the land for their survival.

Loving God, Bless the people whose lives are linked with ours

We remember all who receive social security and other government benefits.

Loving God, Bless the people whose lives are linked with ours

We remember all students and teachers, all who pay tuition, all who have student loans, and all who devote their lives to education.

Loving God, Bless the people whose lives are linked with ours

We remember all whom our nation’s tax policy deems worthy of special credits: employers creating jobs, parents adopting children with special needs, people buying their first homes, and those raising children on low incomes.

Loving God, Bless the people whose lives are linked with ours

Bless those individuals whose lives have touched ours in ways that are now reflected on a tax return, through a filing status, deductions, credits, or alimony payments. And Lord, bless also all those who make decisions for our common good.

All this we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

From the webpage www.bread.org/April15.

Tomato Stakes and Waiting on Holy Saturday

Ernst Schrieben- festen stood behind Old Josh in line at Di Popolo's Feed Store this morning.

Ernst is the editor of the paper here in Zen. Old Josh, a preacher, had tomato stakes in his hand.

"Tomatoes already up, Josh? On the first of April," Ernst asked. For Ernst to speak at all was unusual, but Josh was one of his favorites.

Josh replied with half smile, "Faith is the substance of things hope for..."

"...the evidence of things unseen," Ernst replied. "Sounds like an Easter sermon."

"Yup," Old Josh said. "Maybe." He looked at the stakes. "Tomatoes, though, they're my Holy Saturday project. Every year, the day before Easter, I put stakes in the ground 'round my little plants, knowing, hoping, that by the end of May or so those vines'll reach up round this metal and take off toward the sun."

Ernst nodded. The two men stood there in silence waiting on the flustered women in front of them to dig out the money from her purse. She was buying a crate of baby chicks, and she spoke very loudly.

"We're having an Easter egg hunt down at the Baptist church at ten o' clock this morning. And I'm buying baby chicks to give to to the top ten kids who find the most eggs. Aren't they the cutest thiiiiiiings!" She trilled the word "things" like a tenor singing an aria from Handel's Messiah.

"The chicks, I mean, not the kids. Oh, the kids are cute, too," she rattled on. "They'll be there in their little Easter dresses and matching sailor suits. Boys hate those clothes, so I figure winning baby chicks would make 'em glad they got dressed and came. Last year I bought baby bunnies for the winners. Kids was just knockin' each other down to get those eggs. But the preacher told me they was pagans."

"The bunnies I mean, not the kids." She laughed loud, long and high. "Anyway, this year we're giving these chicks as prizes. So ya'll come. Ten o' clock at the Baptist church. Everybody'll be there."

Old Josh and Ernst watched as the woman bustled out of the door with the crate of chicks.

"So, Josh, you going to the egg hunt? Might win yourself a chicken," Ernst said.

"B'lieve I'll pass on that, Ernst," Josh said. "You better go and take some pictures for the paper. Kids in sailor suits knocking each other down to win baby chicks to commemorate Jesus dead in a tomb -- that'll sell papers, for sure."

In a rare public outburst, Ernst bellowed a giant "Ha" of a laugh. He wiped saliva from the the corner of his mouth.

"So what do you do on Saturday, Josh? Holy Saturday, you called it? Besides putting out tomato stakes," Ernst asked.

"Well, we leave the egg hunt to the Baptists," Josh said. "They do that pretty well. The Episcopalians, they put on pretty moment with their organist playing Bach and all. They're solemn. I like that. And the Methodists are the most earnest -- they get together and scrub their building from top to bottom, all day. Leaf blowers and weed eaters. They're diligent."

Old Josh stared at the floor for a good long while. Ernst waited. Even the pimply teenager working the cash register leaned forward.

" 'Bout seven o' clock this evening, we'll gather at the church. There may only be three or four of us, maybe as many as eight or ten or so. We'll sit there a for a few minutes. Then I'll stand up and read a scripture. Maybe Psalm 22, about being forsaken and our bones being out of joint. Then I'll say that's probably how Mary and Mary Magdalene and Joanna and the rest of Jesus' disciples felt with their friend buried and gone. I figure we all feel that way sometime, even when we're looking for Easter eggs or using a leaf blower in the flower bed. A lot of the time, if we're honest. Life is painful. We're lonely. Then I might pray and ask God not to be far off, even when our souls lay down in the dust. Then we'll sit still for a while, then go home."

Silence in the feed store.

"So, that's it," Old Josh said.

"That's it," Ernst said quietly.

"That's it," the pimply teenager said, even quieter still. "Uh, I mean, that'll be $7.49." His voice was scratchy, as if his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Old Josh paid and went home to put stakes around his tomatoes that were growing, unseen, in the dark earth.

Telling Time Twice

There are two clocks on the piano in our living room.

One clock, the big one, is old. It belonged to my grandmother. She inherited it from her father. My guess is that it's a product of the 1950s, though it was designed to look older. It's a mantel clock, that sits squarely and squatly in its place. It's faux marble, plastic really. And when you look up close, you can see the seams in the plastic and the cracks along the tiny pillars. The hands on the clock are metal, and the second hand is missing. Somewhere along the way, somebody (maybe a grandkid) painted the hands purple. They may even be covered with melted crayon. Maybe the work of a grandmother and grandchild working together.

When I was a child, that clock sat imperiously on the mantel of my grandparents' farm house. It chimed with deep-throated dignity each hour and dinged cheerfully the quarter-hour, half-hour and three quarters-hour. On rare and special occasions, my grandmother would let me wind the clock, gently, gently, careful not to twist the innards too far. (Winding the clock was fun. But this was the same grandmother who made out cleaning brush to be a party and cleaning the fish pond more fun than going to an amusement park.)

That clock, the big one, sits on top of the piano, passed down where my children -- the fifth generation now to have its company -- can see it.

That clock no longer works. But still it keeps time. That clock -- plastic facade, purple-painted hands, and sadly-sprung innards -- reaches across generations and keeps my present in time with the past and the future.

The other clock on our piano is small. Plastic also, it marks the minutes and seconds with digital enthusiasm. Set to some satellite in the atmosphere it silently runs and perhaps will forever. It is the clock for keeping track of the details of our daily schedules: "How long have your practiced the piano?" "Is my 'screen time' over?" "Brush your teeth, it's time to go to school."

The little clock, new and dependable, measures my minutes. The big clock, old and broken, tells the time of generations. I think I need them both. Time needs telling in at least two ways.

Glenn Beck is right .... and very, very, wrong

Glenn Beck is right. He said "social justice" isn't in the Bible. (At least I think that's part of what he said in his recent Fox News rant.) But that's the true, the phrase "social justice" is not to be found in the sacred texts of Judaism or Christianity. Lots of words that are key to our faith are not found in the Bible. "Easter" is not there. Neither is "Christmas." Some theological words -- such as "Trinity" -- aren't there. And tried-and-true church traditions -- such as "potluck supper," "committee meeting," or "Sunday School." For that matter, "air conditioning," "automobile," and the "Dallas Cowboys" won't be found in the Bible either.

But, Glenn Beck is very, very wrong. To say that Christians should flee from churches that preach social justice (I know Beck said that: I heard it with my own boggled ears) demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the call of the church.

Even though the exact words "social justice" are not found in the Bible, the scriptures are full of examples of, definitions of, and calls to social justice.

The farmer-prophet Micah defined religion, at its core, as "doing justice" (along with loving kindness and walking humbly). The poet-prophet Isaiah painted a picture of the world as God sees it: where enemies lie down together, where weapons become garden tools. The carpenter-preacher Jesus said to give clothes to poor people, feed the hungry, and care for the sick (among other things). The writer James said that religion is about caring for orphans and widows in their distress. Each of these things is social justice. Each of these is a call to make society more just. That's what we faith-followers are supposed to do.

Yes, there are other aspects of Christianity. And, sure, maybe some people sometimes get carried away with their social justice work. And the relationship of church and state in doing justice can be tricky. But anyway you look at it, the work of social justice is central to the call of the church.

In fact, to take a page from Glenn Beck's suggestions and turn it around, I would tell people to take a look at their churches. If they don't hear -- or better yet, see -- social justice in the works, don't leave. Instead, get busy. Go to work. Make society more just. Care for God's people.

Here's where Mr. Beck really missed the boat: he talked about churches where social justice is preached. As a professional, paid preacher, I would like to think that preaching is all that's needed. How cool would that be if I could stroll into the pulpit a time or two a week, hold forth on feeding the poor, and -- poof! -- there would be chicken enchiladas in every pot, health care for all, affordable housing, fair wages for good work, good schools, and equal rights. Alas, no preacher I know is that good. (Certainly I'm not.)

So, don't tell Mr. Beck, but churches that preach social justice are no big deal. Church people who do social justice are, well, that's a different story -- in fact, that's "the old, old story of Jesus and his love" (as one hymn writer put it). So, the real work of social justice is church people lobbying members of Congress, talking to city council members, building cross-boundary coalitions, hammering out solutions with educators. That's social justice. It's hard work. It's needed.

One more word about Glenn Beck's controversy over social justice... I should have seen it coming. A few months ago, our church started a yoga group. The very next week, Pat Robertson and crew said yoga was a tool of the devil. Last week, a church member emailed me about beginning a social justice group at our church. Within days, Glenn Beck says to flee social justice churches. Maybe we should have a pro-war rally at church so that Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly would become pacifists. If we declare universal health care to be the work of the anti-Christ, would John Boehner and Michelle Bachman decide it's the birthright of all Americans? Maybe we should just stick to the social justice that Jesus set forth.....