Writing

This piece landed in my inbox today. I subsribe to a daily meditation from the Henri Nouwen Society. There are a couple of week's worth still waiting to be read. But in the midst of sermon-writing-procrastination, I read today's.

Writing to Save the Day

Writing can be a true spiritual discipline. Writing can help us to concentrate, to get in touch with the deeper stirrings of our hearts, to clarify our minds, to process confusing emotions, to reflect on our experiences, to give artistic expression to what we are living, and to store significant events in our memories. Writing can also be good for others who might read what we write.

Quite often a difficult, painful, or frustrating day can be "redeemed" by writing about it. By writing we can claim what we have lived and thus integrate it more fully into our journeys. Then writing can become lifesaving for us and sometimes for others too.

In the past three months, there have been more days than I'd like to admit that needed "redeeming" through writing. I couldn't bring myself to sit down at the keyboard and type, or open my journal and put pen to paper. I have lists of blog-post titles and themes written on various to-do lists, in my planner, in random notebooks. I am hopeful I'll get to them.

For now, it's time to return to some preaching preparation. It's the Fourth Sunday of Easter tomorrow, which means Good Shepherd Sunday. It's also Malaria Sunday (World Malaria Day was last Wednesday) and the ELCA has stated a goal of raising $200,000 to begin the campaign's work in Liberia. At least the check's written, even the sermon isn't.

A death in the human family

Just before I turned off the computer last night and finally headed to bed, I saw the headlines that Osama bin Laden had been killed, and listened to the President's speech about it.
It's been hard to avoid coverage about it - front page of the paper, all over the news, and even all over facebook. I am thankful that so many of my friends who "demand a deeper ethic for the world," as one new facebook pal put it.
Check out tensegrities, and the links offered there.
Maybe... someday we will actually remember to pray for our enemies, and to love them, until the only enemy left is death itself.

What follows is the letter to all the members of my denomination, the ELCA, from our Presiding Bishop. Not bad.

Sisters and brothers in Christ,

 The death of Osama bin Laden is an occasion for solemn remembrance. We remember the lives of all whose deaths resulted from his choosing hatred and violence. We stand with those who continue to mourn the death of loved ones while giving thanks for their lives, their love and their faith. We also continue to hold in prayer all whose service in the military, in government and in humanitarian and peacemaking activities contribute to a safer and more prosperous world.

At the same time we also recall who we are: people baptized into Christ, freed to serve our neighbors. We are people called as Christ’s ambassadors of reconciliation with our neighbors, serving God’s work of restoring community. We engage our neighbors of other faiths, including our Muslim neighbors near and far, in respectful, searching dialogue and shared commitment to build a world that reflects God’s will for peace with justice. We pray for our neighbors, even those who are our enemies.
Most of all, in these 50 days of celebrating Christ’s resurrection, joy finds its fullest and deepest expression not over a human death but in God’s promise to unite all things in heaven and on earth, to reconcile the human family and to bring God’s reign of peace. Confident in what God has promised, we witness our resolve against any act of violence in the name of religion and our renewed commitment of service to the neighbors and world God so deeply loves.

In God’s grace,

Mark S. Hanson

NY Times Op-Ed from Desmond Tutu

There's an interesting piece by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in today's NY Times, calling on President Obama not to cut support for anti-AIDS work in Africa. It is a little bit frightening to think that President Bush allocated more money than President Obama has so far. Perhaps it's time for those of us who tend to be good at raising money to also get better at the advocacy side of that coin. The timing is interesting for me, since it was just yesterday I started trying to learn more about the Lutheran Malaria Initiative (also see here) and was at the same time reminded of the ELCA's commitment to fight HIV/AIDS. Our VBS is the first week of August (assuming we can find enough volunteers - I will confess I have moments when I'm tempted to just cancel the whole week this year) and our offering "project" this year is the Lutheran Malaria Initiative, despite the fact that the official fundraising efforts don't begin until 2011. Our curriculum has an African theme and we thought mosquito nets will fit right in...