To the Saints in Santa Fe
These letters from Pastor Harry and church leaders explore the challenges we face as people of faith in a complicated and fearful world, not unlike the world that Paul faced, and not unlike the world that Dr. King faced down.
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September 23, 2023
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.
A sandwich board, a street corner, a beggar on the roadside, a special offering, and a shared ministry.
Frier was a middle school classmate of mine at Haven Middle School in Evanston, IL. We lost touch in high school (there were 5200 students!) but he showed up again in Time Magazine after graduation. Always a bit outside the box, Frier decided to raise money for college by standing on a street corner in Chicago with a sandwich board around his shoulders asking for money.
It seemed humorous at first, even creative back then, but then pushback soon followed. One letter to the editor noted he came from a good and supportive home, his dad was a postman making $25,000 a year (!), and there was no reason for him asking for money. Point taken.
What about all the people, more and more it seems, who stand at intersections throughout Santa Fe and no doubt the country holding up cardboard signs, clearly in need. What do we do? We are told not to give money but donate to social service agencies instead. Yes, but what do we do? What do we do about this rising toll on humanity as it touches our own humanity?
Mark tells a story in chapter 10 about a blind beggar on the roadside in Jericho who hears Jesus coming by, surrounded by his disciples, and calls out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” The disciples try to hush him up, but Jesus would have none of that, nor would he just drive on by. Rather, he stands still, calls to him, and asks “What do you want me to do for you?”
We often think we know what others need, while at the same time not quite sure what we ourselves need. Here are two possibilities that will help others, and perhaps you and me as well.
The first is the Peace and Global Witness Offering we are receiving on World Communion Sunday, October 1st, which supports peace and reconciliation programs across the world. The local congregation keeps 25%, another 25% goes to presbytery, and 50% goes to the Presbyterian Mission Agency.
The second is a shared ministry with Westminster, our sister congregation only a mile away, called the Matthew 25 Fund which gives up to $500 to a person in need who cannot pay for rent, utilities, car repair, etc. Each case is carefully vetted, and the money goes not to the recipient but directly to the entity in which the money is owed. Westminster has been administering this fund for the past few years which to date has raised over $96,000, all from private donations. Wow.
I assume Frier retired that sandwich board years ago . . . and did you hear? Bartimaeus ended up throwing off his cloak, sprang up, received his sight, and followed Jesus. As followers of Jesus ourselves, when we see great need, like with the Peace and Global Witness offering and the Matthew 25 Fund, we spring up. We give. Simple as that. It’s in our job description. Part of our Jesus-follower DNA. It’s who we are and what we do.
Grace and peace, and many thanks for all you do.
Harry
September 15, 2023
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.
“To the Glory of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.”
This was written on the final page of a geology test by a college classmate of mine. We all knew Chris and it didn’t surprise anyone. I would have probably forgotten many years ago if not for the response from the professor when the test was returned. At the bottom of the front page he wrote “You and Jesus got a D.” Ouch.
I have shared this story through the years because of the professor’s response but I have changed my tune about Chris’ words.
What is wrong with taking a test to the Glory of Jesus? The Celts, part of our Presbyterian heritage, were known to pray throughout the day in everything they did. I assume it could include a geology test as well. Why not?
What is wrong with understanding Jesus as your Lord and Savior? At one time this was a question posed to new members in our Presbyterian tradition, a long-held profession of faith.
I have spoken many times about the definition given to “Glory to God” by Irenaeus in the second century as “a human being fully alive.” I have always loved this definition and I am reminded of this every time we open our hymnals, aptly named “Glory to God.” We become fully alive when we sing. How wonderful is this?! And then what else?
“Lord” has been more problematic, especially in recent years, as we grapple with male language and domination. For that very reason, and a solid one at that, many prefer other ways to address Jesus. Yet, the idea behind the word remains an important one, that we see Jesus as one with authority in our lives. How counter-cultural is that?!
“Savior” has so very often been misinterpreted and misunderstood. It does not mean one who helps you get to heaven if you believe the right way. Rather, the word for salvation in Greek literally means “wellbeing, health, integrity, and shalom.” Jesus embodied all these words and Christianity is at its best and most authentic when we do so as well.
Perhaps Chris wrote his words at the end of a test because it helped him, apparently not with a grade, but with the way he saw his life, and the life he wanted it to live. I have no idea what he is doing now, perhaps not a geologist (but who knows?), but I would like to thank him for making me think through what a life with Jesus might really be.
If we’re serious about following Jesus, it’s a question we all need to ponder: Whether or not we want to be fully alive through the message and life of Jesus Christ, who still holds authority in this challenging world of ours, and offers us wellbeing, health, integrity, and shalom.
You might want to write this down somewhere.
Grace and peace,
Harry
September 8, 2023
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who never stopped talking about love and compassion.
We need to plant seeds.
I am one generation from the farm. My mom was the eighth of ten children on a 500-acre farm in central Ohio and she knew every crop by sight. On car rides through the countryside, we would ask mom what was growing in the fields, and she always had a ready answer.
It’s good to know plants by name. I know this better now after last week’s blog about my quest for the smell of honeysuckle. I took a photo of the bush on that San Anselmo hill below the seminary buildings and showed it to a friend. “Oh, that’s jasmine!” she tells me like mom would have done with crops. Jasmine? All these years and I didn’t know it. Jasmine? Really?
Yes, it’s good to know plants by name, but I think it’s more important to know seeds. We don’t often see them and probably couldn’t tell one from another, but we know what happens when we are careless with the kinds of seeds we plant, like the seeds of discord and hatred, division and lies, mistrust and trauma. Our culture has become quite proficient at this, and these plants are thriving, their seeds being carried and sowed across our land.
So, today I suggest we plant different seeds, seeds that grow love for the “other,” anyone and anything outside of our own self-interest, anything that needs attention and care, a listening ear, a gesture of compassion.
Let’s start with our children and youth. We are going forward with the Infant Care Center on the third floor because there is a huge need in Santa Fe for such care. Yes, it will replace the Moore Conference Room and the Youth Room but every time I think of this new space, I think of the young families who can rest assured their infants are being nurtured and cared for by our Child Development Center staff. Remember, we are planting seeds.
And, in the same breath, we are building a new space for our children and youth across the hall. Planting seeds so they can grow and feel loved and cared for and supported. Is there anything more important than this?
You are holding seeds in your hands this very moment. Will you plant them now? And if not now, when?
Planting seeds, you see, is a spiritual discipline, can be quite difficult, and always biblical. Moses led the Israelites to the Promised Land, but he never set foot in it. The prophets suffered tremendously by proclaiming their message but never saw days of peace and hope. Jesus lived a life of love but died at the hands of hate. Why should it be any easier for us?
Let us, then, plant seeds knowing we will probably not enjoy the shade of these trees, witness the beauty of its branches, or delight in their smell. But we do so anyway. Not for us and our own desires at this moment, but for a world that so desperately needs it from this day forth, seed by seed, plant by plant, field by field, child by child.
Grace and peace,
Harry
September 1, 2023
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, whose stories reach us through all our senses, even smell.
It was the smell of honeysuckle on the hills that drew me back.
Three summers of my childhood in the 1960s were spent at San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS) in San Anselmo, CA, where my dad was pursuing a Doctorate in Sacred Theology, equivalent to a PhD. My days were filled with pickup baseball games on a field by the playhouse, running around with other children of students and professors, taking trips to Muir Woods, Mt. Tamalpais, and across the Golden Gate Bridge to the city and Candlestick Park, going from one adventure to another. Oh, and smelling the honeysuckle.
To me that’s what being Presbyterian was all about. It was fun. It seemed important. It was beautiful (STFS is the most beautiful seminary in North America a professor there told me, and I agree). It felt good and it smelled nice.
Only later did I learn being Presbyterian was hard work and a good way to live. We confront issues of the day and learn to live in community. We elect elders who govern the whole church (thankfully, clergy don’t do this!) and it is the session who decides the issues in a congregation after recommendations by committees. Unlike other systems, the whole church doesn’t vote on everything we do. We remember that “God alone is Lord of the conscience,” rejoice being a connectional church, and thrive when we include God in our life together. The system works and works better than most.
But that came later, as did this orientation to a class this past week called “Spiritual Care and Trauma.” It’s an on-line course from October to June. I could have done the orientation online as well, but I needed to come back. I needed to smell the honeysuckle again. I have been searching for that smell since 1968 and never quite found it.
Until Monday morning. I was walking up the steep hill to Scott Hall, a majestic stone-like castle of a building, to attend our first session. It was the same honeysuckle hill I used to climb. But I didn’t smell the honeysuckle. Anywhere.
Then, there it was. It literally turned my head like Moses who “turned aside” to see the burning bush. It was beautiful with flowers greeting me, welcoming me back. I breathed in the flowers and their essence and lingered with the aroma, imagining this is what God smells like.
I fully intended on ending my letter to you delighted that my pilgrimage led me back to this beloved smell, but there’s more to the story. The following day I went back to smell the honeysuckle again, that burning bush of mine, but, lo and behold, the smell was no longer there. I went back the next day. No smell still. Was it my imagination or were the flowers apologizing? Or perhaps they were reminding me that God doesn’t show up just so my story ends the way I want it to, nice and neat. We never read that Moses kept returning to that place “beyond the wilderness” to see the bush burn again. Once was enough to get him on his way.
So, with me and maybe with you. God isn’t “back there” anymore in honeysuckle smells and old burning bushes but right here and now with more aromas to smell and other hills to climb.
Grace and peace,
Harry
August 25. 2023
This is the final of a six-part series on the Beloved Community. May we continue to look for it, talk about it, and manifest it in our life together.
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.
Believeland and the Beloved Community.
If you’re not from Cleveland, like I am, you may not know that fans of the Browns, Cavaliers, and Guardians are apt to wear t-shirts and jerseys that say Believeland. It no doubt comes from years of rooting for Cleveland teams that disappoint, tease (we were so close to winning the World Series in 2016!), amuse the rest of the sports world (the Drive, the Shot, the Fumble, the Rain Delay), and break your heart. Believe me, I know.
So, we resort to religious words like believe and make it part of our name, identity, and fashion statement. We think that if we just believe hard enough our teams will finally win the big one and all will be right with the world. Hmm.
The word believe has taken us on many a trip. Sports fans attach wishful thinking to it and religious folk tend to think our way to faith. For years I have been telling you that the Greek root for believe is credo which means “what you give your heart to.”
Scholar Marcus Borg goes further in a quote I read recently from a Diana Butler Bass blog as she mused about the TV show Ted Lasso and the omnipresent BELIEVE sign hanging in the locker room:
Prior to the seventeenth century, the word “believe” did not mean believing in the truth of statements or propositions, whether problematic or not. Grammatically, the object of believing was not statements, but a person. Moreover, the contexts in which it is used in premodern English make it clear that it meant: to hold dear; to prize; to give one’s loyalty to; to give one’s self to; to commit oneself. It meant. . . faithfulness, allegiance, loyalty, commitment, and trust.
Most simply, “to believe” meant “to love.” Indeed, the English words “believe” and “belove” are related. What we believe is what we belove. Faith is about beloving God. . . To believe in God is to belove God. Faith is about beloving God and all that God beloves. . . Faith is the way of the heart.
Believeland, you see, is much like the Beloved Community. We hold our community dear. We give ourselves to it. We are committed to it. It’s all about loving the people in it and around us. We belove people and we believe in them. And our hearts will break not because a team loses but because we all lose when we don’t belove the world and all that is in it.
Grace and peace,
Harry
August 18, 2023
Each Friday through August Pastor Harry will be writing on Growing the Beloved Community to stimulate ideas and discussion on how we might live into this vision.
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, the new Moses, who welcomed children into his arms.
Moses looked, and his life changed right then and there.
Before he noticed the burning bush, Moses’ life was caught up in the system of empire, from his earliest moments of life being saved in a basket on the Nile, to growing up in the privileged halls of Pharoah with slavery all around him, until the day he killed an overseer who was abusing a slave. He fled and eventually found himself tending sheep in the wilderness.
It was then he looked. Scripture said, “he turned aside” which literally means to stop what you are doing and give your attention to something else.
There are burning bushes all over the world, the Rev. Traci Blackmon said in a sermon I heard at the Wild Goose Festival last month. An African American preacher and a United Church of Christ leader and pastor, she wondered how often we don’t stop, turn aside, to see whether a bush is being consumed. She then went on, in a rising crescendo, to list people and places, today’s burning bushes, that require our undivided attention.
What are your burning bushes? What are the burning bushes in our culture and community?
For me, children and youth immediately come to mind. As I mentioned in an earlier Letter to the Saints, new opportunities arose in June to enhance our ministry to parents and their children, whether they are enrolled in our Child Development Center (CDC) or part of our church school. We could now create an Infant Care Center to meet a huge need in our community as well as enhance and expand our ministry to children and youth. After a thorough search of our building, the third floor was the only location that would work. The wall would be removed between the Moore Conference Room and Youth Room for the Infant Care Center, and across the hall a new door would connect the former Business office and Volunteer Room to create space for our children and youth. It would be one project to meet the needs of all.
Many meetings were held with those who would be affected by this project. A burning bush stood right before us and there was excitement in addressing an overwhelming need in our community. But soon objections and concerns arose which eventually prompted our CDC Director Anne Liley and me to say we just can’t go forward. Not with all we’re hearing. The stress and pressure were simply too much. It was a hard call but, unfortunately, no different than the many times through the years that new ideas fall to the floor because loud objections arise.
Then something happened. The bush kept burning. Since we made that decision a few days ago, many voices have risen to support the project. We love our children and youth, they said. We want to support our young families, all of them, no matter what it takes. All these children are our children. Two nights ago, session unanimously reaffirmed its commitment to this project and pledges its full support to make it happen.
Burning bushes don’t get consumed. Moses found that out as God chose him to lead the people to freedom from empire to the Promised Land. God is the one who frees us, this story tells us, the one who starts the blaze. We just need to look, turn aside, and give these burning bushes our undivided attention.
Grace and peace,
Harry
August 11, 2023
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.
“It’s not your fault.”
It was some twenty years ago, and I had just told my therapist, rather off-handedly, that I had caused my cancer. I had read somewhere (or did I make it up?) that Type A personalities were more apt to have heart attacks and Type Bs, like me, get cancer. The theory is a bit hazy now, but it somehow helped me make some sense of all that was happening to me at the time.
My counselor looked at me and said, “Harry, you don’t have the power to cause cancer. It’s not your fault.” I burst into tears. I couldn’t hold them at bay any longer. All the years of blaming myself, sub-consciously or not, was finally released. It was one of the most liberating experiences of my life.
I had a similar experience at the Wild Goose Festival last month in North Carolina. Diana Butler Bass, in my mind the foremost interpreter of what is happening with religion in American today, was talking about new understandings of Mary Magdalene (I’ll share this with you on Sunday). Five hundred people were there. Some crowded into a tent and most, like Jenny and me, were outside on the grass, the lucky ones under trees, leaning in to listen.
In response to a question at the end of her talk, she replied, “Yes, it’s a new Great Awakening.”
Wait, what. . ., now? People audibly gasped around us and started smiling and nodding their heads. A new Great Awakening. According to Butler Bass: “Awakenings are periods of sustained cultural reorganization wherein an entire society is transformed. They are not renewals of what already exists. Awakenings extend and enlarge the boundaries of faith and culture, often embodying unfulfilled aspirations of earlier generations and opening our religious and social imaginations in unexpected ways. Awakenings open eyes and hearts toward greater practices of love and justice. . . Every spiritual awakening seeks to make visible, even if only in some complete way, God’s dream for creation.”
This is to say, things are happening beyond our power to control them, despite all our best efforts. It’s not our fault that Church isn’t working as it used to and that less people are finding this to be their spiritual path. We can blame ourselves and others, keep looking for some magic program or leader, and continue to feel anxious when the next idea doesn’t pan out. Or. . .
Understand it’s not our fault. It’s a new Great Awakening. It’s finally here which brings me great relief. Tears are not streaming down my face as before, but my eyes still moisten a bit when I imagine all that might be, and can be, and will be, because God is still dreaming.
Grace and peace,
Harry
August 4, 2023
Each Friday through August Pastor Harry will be writing on Growing the Beloved Community to stimulate ideas and discussion on how we might live into this vision.
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who taught us that all life is sacred and spiritual.
Look, hmm, toss. That became my cadence year after year upon receiving a missive in the mail from the Ignatian Spirituality Institute. I would look at it, wonder what in the world Ignatian meant, then toss it in recycling. Look, hmm, toss.
Until 2009. I was having breakfast with a clergy friend from a neighboring church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and he mentioned two of his members were part of a spiritual direction program. It was called the Ignatian Spirituality Institute. I sat up straight, put my fork down, and listened as he told me how much they loved the program and how it was doing such great things for them personally and for the congregation as well.
That afternoon, what arrived in my mail? You guessed it. This time I looked it over more carefully, called the Director within the hour to set up an interview, and began a two-year intensive training program that fall to become a spiritual director, Ignatian-style. I was the only non-Catholic in a class of twelve, and one of only two men. Apparently, male Presbyterian pastors didn’t do such things then.
But I did, and honestly, it’s the best thing I have ever done as a pastor. I started a spiritual direction group soon after I arrived in Santa Fe and a portion of that group continues to meet today. Leading up to our 150th anniversary in 2017 I ushered the congregation through four years of spiritual direction, a year for each of the four movements of Ignatian Spirituality.
And then it was put on the backburner, where spiritual things are apt to be put. More pressing needs came to the forefront (there are always more pressing needs, right?) and I directed my attention and energies to those places with the loudest voices and the greatest needs.
But what if spiritual direction was our greatest need? What if we need to experience a God who loves us deeply, and fall in love with Jesus and his teachings? What if we are given a choice in our own Garden of Gethsemane to either fall asleep like the disciples or follow Jesus to the cross? If we fall asleep we go no further, but if we follow Jesus to the cross we experience a death, whatever that might be to us, it leads to resurrection, renewal, and new life. These, you see, are the four movements of spiritual direction.
It’s tempting right here to say we should drop everything and focus only on the spiritual and the sacred, but that’s a false statement. Everything is sacred, everything is spiritual. It’s never a choice between spiritual and non-spiritual. Wait, you say, what about buildings, and budgets, and committee meetings? All sacred, all spiritual. Ah, but then what about conflicts and money and people not getting along? All sacred, all spiritual.
Nothing, you see, is beyond God, whether we like it or not. Growing the Beloved Community understands that. Hopefully, we do and will as well. Look, hmm, yes!
Grace and peace,
Harry
July 27, 2023
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who opened his arms and welcomed children to come to him.
Infants and children and youth. Oh my, what a Trinity! Add their parents and we have four gospels teaching us how to love, cherish, listen to, and support young families.
So, get your scorecard out (you may need it!) and I will explain the changes happening on the third floor and the reasons for them. After weeks of discussions with various parties affected by the changes, the following was approved unanimously by the session:
The Youth Room is moving across the hall to the Business office, and the volunteer break room/CDC teacher lounge will become a classroom for our Children’s Ministry. At some later date a door will connect the two rooms. The Business Office has already moved to the end of the hall while every other room down this hallway—Andrew Black’s office, History and Archives, and the counselor’s office–remain untouched.
A little history: The Youth Room, you may recall, was once my office when I first arrived in late 2011. In 2014, I moved to my present space on the first floor so that the youth could have their own room and make it their own, which they did. Our present youth now have the chance to do the same.
An Infant Care Center, to be run by our Child Development Center, is being planned for the Moore Conference Room and former Youth Room to respond to the overwhelming need in Santa Fe for infant care. Once the permitting process is complete both rooms will become one and will care for eight infants a day. New opportunities have arisen that will allow us to serve this much needed age group. Construction costs will be covered by private donations and a foundation contribution.
Why all the changes? Do we need them? Would it not be easier to leave as is and go on as we always have? Yes, certainly it would, but I don’t think we are being called to do easy. Especially today, especially here.
I think we are called to do bold, to stretch beyond what we might now see, to let go of things we might hold dear and open our hands to receive the needs of those before us, to regard all children as our children and CDC families are our families, and to symbolically plant trees that we may never see grow but coming generations will.
It sure begins to sound like the gospel is coming alive on the third floor. I hope you will join us in seeing it prosper.
Grace and peace,
Harry
July 20, 2023
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who envisioned and embodied the Beloved Community.
Growing the Beloved Community is our vision, grand as it is. We’ve talked a lot about it, now how do we put that vision into practice?
Just last week my wife Jenny and I attended the Wild Goose Festival (a wild goose is a Celtic symbol for the Holy Spirit) at a farm in North Carolina, along with 1600 other people of all ages including more youth and young adults than I have seen in a long time. Some were still part of a church, others had left. Many were still seeking, and waiting, and hoping for something new.
We sang, talked, ate, walked from tent to tent, and listened. I kept close to well-known authors and preachers like Diana Butler Bass, Brian McLaren, Bill McKibben, and Tracy Blackmon. One spoke of the Third Great Awakening happening right now (could that explain what’s going on today?!). Topics ranged from Christian nationalism to yoga to a demonstration of “Guns to Gardens” that I helped lead where fifty people showed up. It all felt like a festival.
What if our Sunday mornings felt like a festival? What if we surrounded our Sunday morning worship and education with Spiritual Direction and contemplative exercises, art and cooking classes, music lessons and wellness activities, meetings and gatherings, service opportunities, excursions, and any and all ideas that meet the needs and desires of our members and friends, young, old, and in-between? Oh yes, and how about good tea and coffee in the Lobby?
What if we used every available space in our building all morning long? Consider chairs rather than pews (a task force of people on all sides of this issue are already exploring this). What if committees (is there a better name to reflect a church gathering and not a business meeting?) met at a local coffee shop, because less people are willing to attend meetings at night, and then returned for worship? And while we’re at it, what about a Saturday night service geared to our youth followed by fellowship and food and whatever their hearts desire? (Two rooms on the third floor are being renovated for our children and youth, along with a CDC Infant Care Center across the hall).
In short, during the pandemic people found other activities for Sunday mornings. Why not offer them here?
And what if we spend the fall as a congregation sharing our own visions with one another, and then make them happen in the coming year? From now through August, I will be preaching on various parts of the Beloved Community to get such conversations going.
So that’s my vision. Instead of a farm in North Carolina, we have a triangle in Santa Fe. And the Beloved Community, and a Wild Goose, just waiting for us.
Grace and peace,
Harry
June 16, 2023
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who wept over the death of a friend, and who I imagine is weeping still over how we continue to treat one another.
June is Pride Month, and it couldn’t come fast enough.
On Wednesday the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination with around 50,000 churches and 16 million members, voted overwhelmingly to oust two churches because they had women pastors. One is Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, the denomination’s largest congregation whose pastor, Rick Warren, a national figure and author of The Purpose Driven Church, responded with “Saddleback disagrees with one word. That’s 99.99999999 percent in agreement! Isn’t that close enough?” Ninety percent of the 10,000 delegates shouted back at him, “No!”
Women pastors? Is that even an issue anymore? Apparently, it is, but what is left unsaid is the 99.99999999 percent that Saddleback agrees with, which includes not allowing LGBTQ people into Southern Baptist congregations unless they “repent” of the sin of homosexuality.
What might seem startling to us concerning women, should be just as startling, and more so, when we consider how we continually and shamefully malign the LGBTQ community, often without headlines. It’s taken for granted, and accepted, all too silently.
Pride Month can’t come fast enough, but even the Presbyterian Church (USA) didn’t allow its pastors to officiate at same-sex marriages until June 19, 2014. I was at the General Assembly in Detroit that day and remember well when the vote came down. There was no shouting in celebration, just silence, a hush, an exhale. Why did it take so long? was the question I felt all around me. And what about all the people who suffered in the name of Christianity until that moment?
The following Sunday I stood before all of you and proclaimed with relief that the doors of the Presbyterian Church are finally officially open to all people, but then wondered if anyone would bother coming in after being shut out for so long. Why would they?
Pride Month can’t come fast enough with Target bending to pressure from anti-LGBTQ forces, the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law in Florida, bathroom laws, hateful rhetoric, violence, and the deep and profound harm such discrimination has caused, including suicide.
So let us remember Pride Month, especially now in these fractured times. Display rainbow colors. Stand up. March. Speak out. Don’t let discrimination go unanswered. Keep doing so beyond this month, year by year, until that grand day comes when these bad times are long gone and we can shout, not with a chorus of 10,000 no’s, but with 8 billion yes’s for our love and acceptance of all people, no matter who we are, who we love, and who God made us to be.
Grace and peace,
Harry
May 30, 2023
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who began a movement to change the world.
Since then, Christianity has changed and grown and diversified. Lately, though, I hear more about Christian Nationalism and strident views than I do about a religion based on a compassionate God who loves the world and everyone in it.
So, I wrote something this morning that I have been thinking about for a long time. I share it with you first. Give me your ideas and suggestions to fill in the gaps and make it better. English majors, please help! Then I will send it to my colleagues, other churches, and then to the media with the hope that it is published.
Here it is:
There is another Christianity in our country that doesn’t resemble the one we hear most about today. It doesn’t ban books, replace school boards, march with white supremacists, storm the capitol, take away women’s rights, deny transgender care, glorify guns, incite violence, build more walls, erect more prisons, dismiss climate change, and take funds from public education.
The Christianity we know and practice traces itself back through the civil rights and peace movements, child labor laws, voting rights, the abolishment of slavery, the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment, and the Reformation. It reaches back through the Mystics and Saints, both women and men, who stood up to Empire and offered alternative visions of God and the world. We share the same faith that stirred the imagination of the early followers of Jesus as they gathered into communities to support one another and provide care for those who suffered. Our lineage goes all the way to Jesus who healed the sick, opened the eyes of the blind, set free the prisoners, and talked of an alternative community of peace and compassion for all people.
We haven’t always gotten it right. We have been on the wrong side of history many times. Yet, we continue to strive to be people of compassion who stand up for human rights and the dignity of all people. We believe we are all children of God where no one is pushed aside. We cherish the earth, work for nonviolence, and yearn for the day when poverty has been eradicated and all forms of racism dismantled. We envision the Beloved Community and work tirelessly to see it grow.
There is another Christianity in this country, the one that’s been here all along.
Many thanks for helping with this. And, as always, grace and peace.
Harry
May 16, 2023
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who often looked to the prophet Isaiah who spoke of turning swords into plowshares and imagined a world without weapons.
Now Farmington, yet another community rocked by gun violence. What’s more, I just learned the shootings happened very close to the Farmington Presbyterian Church whose building and parking lot are still cordoned off.
A statement was sent out last night by New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, a group that had its start in our church, and of which I continue to be co-president: “Once again, our hearts are breaking as another New Mexico community is ripped apart by gun violence. Tonight, families and loved ones will grieve the unthinkable. They will continue to grieve the rest of their lives. It doesn’t have to be this way. Every death by a firearm is 100% preventable. We will continue to do everything we can to end the epidemic of gun violence in our state and nation.”
Honestly, we’re running out of words to say. Are there any words that can go deep enough to address the once unthinkable gun violence that has gripped our nation? Thoughts and prayers sound increasingly hollow, do they not, unless actions and solutions follow right behind.
You say that won’t happen? You say our country is too divided? Too numb? Too paralyzed?
Then let us turn our weary eyes on Isaiah, and prophets like him, and the bold people who stand up for children and fearful parents and safe communities and insist upon a higher vision: Of swords being turned into plowshares and guns into gardens, when there will no longer be
funerals for gun violence victims because we don’t shoot each other anymore, and when hearts and lives will no longer be broken but can thrive and prosper.
O, Isaiah, where are you? Tell us again what we need hear. Tell us again about that dream of yours. Tell us again how we might finally learn war no more.
Grace and peace,
Harry
April 10, 2023
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, the one whom others asked if anything good could come
out of Nazareth.
Now, I am wondering, might anything good come out of Nashville?
We’ve heard too many names of individuals and cities falling victim to gun violence, resembling
the cadence of a litany too difficult to finish, name after name, day after day, year after year.
Almost unbearable . . ., no, it is unbearable, to imagine the pain and loss this lengthening litany
represents.
We now include Louisville with yesterday’s shooting at a downtown bank. We already heard
our name, Presbyterian, with the most recent Nashville shooting, and now, the city which is
home to our national Presbyterian offices is grieving once again.
Then, yesterday, we heard names in a different way. Justin. Not just one, but another. Justin.
Not gun victims, thank goodness, but the names of two young black Tennessee state legislators
who would not back down in the face of gun violence in our country, even as they were
expelled and silenced.
Yet not quite. The two Justins and their colleague Gloria Johnson, have more of a voice than
ever before. This is how movements begin, with previously unnamed people in places like
Nazareth and Nashville. Away from the center of power.
This burgeoning movement comes not from a bill but with a song. This Little Light of Mine was
heard through the hallways when one Justin was reinstated. Not by conventional means of
argument and debate. Not because one side finally saw the light of reason or cringed at the
power of these weapons of war.
No, this inspired and remarkable moment came when people had finally had enough (oh, why
not sooner!), and they are standing up and more are following and they do not seem to be
weary or discouraged but hold their eyes firmly, not on death’s tomb, but on the possibility of
life and hope and change.
It’s taken too long, way too long, far too long, but might the time be now? Might it come out of
Nashville? Two Justins, and a white women named Gloria, and those singing about a little light,
and young people joining the chorus, and people across the country who are witnessing this
movement and saying it’s finally time.
I might be disappointed again, like so many times before, but I still remember a story told two
days ago about new life and hope rising out of death with the promise of transforming the
world. Might it be happening in Nashville? Perhaps even here as well?
Grace and peace,
Harry
April 4, 2023
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who is leading us through Holy Week.
While the world seems fixated today on New York City and the arraignment of a former President, Jesus is in Jerusalem confronting the powers and principalities of the world.
It is far too easy, and done without much thought, to jump directly from the excitement of Palm Sunday (though what a beautiful day on the Plaza as we gathered with the Cathedral Basilica and Church of the Holy Faith!) to the joy of Easter. Rather, we are called to follow Jesus, day by day, not look away, and stay close.
I am trained as a spiritual director having spent two years in Cleveland studying Ignatian spirituality that was developed in the 16th century by Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. One practice I have found most helpful is called Ignatian Contemplation where we listen to a biblical story with our eyes closed and our imaginations wide open. What do we see, hear, taste, smell, and feel? Here there is no analysis. Here no theologians are allowed to interpret a story for us. Here it’s just us and the story where God’s spirit is at work.
We would do well for Ignatian Contemplation to accompany us this week as we see the withered fig tree, hear the Scribes and Pharisees connive, taste the Last Supper, smell the Garden of Gethsemane, and feel the emotions of the crowd at Jesus’ trial.
Note: Take special care on Thursday when the disciples all fall asleep in the garden after supper. This is the crucial moment in Ignatian spiritual direction, as it is in our own journey with Jesus to the cross: Do we fall asleep and fall away as the disciples did, or do we follow Jesus to the cross? Only by following, and only then, does resurrection and new life happen. Only then.
Oh, we love a parade and look forward to bunnies and chocolates but it’s all a bit hollow if we don’t experience the depths of these holy days in between.
They are not light nor fun-filled. They don’t arrive by motorcade. They don’t shout at us to look. They don’t make it on the news. They simply and profoundly lead us forward where death will eventually succumb to life. May it be so. May it be so.
Grace and peace,
Harry
March 28, 2023
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who wept at the site and sight of death.
Another shooting, this time in Nashville. And this time we heard our name: Presbyterian.
It doesn’t matter if it happened at a school run by another denomination, this time the Presbyterian Church of America, the name is ours, the tragedy is ours. We are connected. We are part of the same family, the same country, the same world. The victims are related to us. The children are ours. The grief is ours.
We heard our name yesterday.
So did Jesus. Our story last Sunday from John 11 focuses on the death and resurrection of Lazarus, whom some theologians suggest represents all humanity. We live in a culture of death, then and now, bound from head to toe with violence, war, greed, injustice, inhumanity.
And Jesus wept over it all. But instead of mumbling thoughts and prayers and turning away, as we often do when death is before us, Jesus “approaches the tomb.” Would we?
Jesus then says, “Take away the stone.” Expose the culture of death. Shine light on it. See it. Name it. Martha complained that there will be a stench if we do. People will try to stop us with all kinds of excuses. All kinds.
“Lazarus, come out!” Jesus continues. Get out of the tomb! Get out of thinking that we can’t do something to break away from its grip. He knows it’s hard. Come out anyway.
And then, perhaps one of the most important words for our day, “Unbind him, and let him go.” Take those death cloths off! Yes, you, yes me. Get free. We can’t do it ourselves. Others will need to help us, and we need to help them.
It is much easier to look away, do nothing, stay where we are, ignore all that binds us.
But we heard something new yesterday in Nashville. We heard our name, “Lazarus, come out!” Presbyterians, come out! Humanity, come out! Violence need not have the last word. We saw it last Sunday when Lazarus came out of the tomb. We’ll celebrate it Easter morning, coming soon. Will we see it today?
We heard our name yesterday. Death got our attention. What now shall we do?
Grace and peace,
Harry
February 28, 2023
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who often shared meals around a table.
Potluck: a communal meal to which people bring food to share.
Merriam-Webster helped me with this definition, but they needn’t bother. Since my earliest memories I have been part of such occasions, always at church. I had a chance to pick what I wanted under no watchful eyes, go back as often as the food lasted, and usually ended up consuming sloppy joes and a vast array of casseroles.
Perhaps you know potlucks by a different name: pitch-in, shared lunch, spread, faith supper, carry-in dinner, covered-dish-supper, fuddle, Jacob’s Join, bring a plate, and fellowship meal. Actually, I haven’t heard of most of these (they come from Wikipedia). For me, once a potluck, always a potluck.
For quite a long time we didn’t have them and now we do every first Sunday of the month. Adult Education begins the day at 8:30 am, followed by one service at 10 am in the sanctuary, followed by our potluck in Pope Hall.
Intrigued? Bringing back memories? Can taste that casserole as you read? Well, here’s a little more information, again from Wikipedia, to whet your appetite: “Pot-luck “appears in the 16th century English work of Thomas Nashe, and used to mean ‘food provided for an unexpected or uninvited guest, the luck of the pot.’ The modern execution of a ‘communal meal, where guests bring their own food,’ most likely originated in the 1930s during the Great Depression.” Some believe that potluck originated as a North American indigenous communal meal known as a potlatch (meaning “to give away”).
There are at least fourteen stories in the gospels where Jesus ate with folks. They don’t mention what he brought, or his favorite meal, but we do know that table fellowship was central to his ministry. We still remember this by celebrating the Lord’s Supper.
And with potluck meals. I hope you’ll join us on Sunday! Bring any food you like. No additional directions are necessary.
Wait, anyone have a good recipe for vegetarian sloppy joes?
Grace and peace,
Harry
February 2, 2023
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who continually calls us to love one another.
“We have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.”
Remember this part of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech spoken sixty years ago this August, and 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation?
Dr. King went on to note that it was obvious that people of color in America have been given a bad check, one that came back marked “insufficient funds.”
Tyre Nichols, whose funeral was yesterday in Memphis, is but the latest to receive this “bad check” of injustice and inhumanity inflicted upon women and men of color through the centuries.
Sadly, churches have sometimes been complicit and, all too often, complacent. All too often.
February is Black History month and each Sunday morning, 8:30-9:30 am, our Adult Education series, “Racial Justice: Bending the Arc,” will look at racism “right under our noses.” In worship our music will feature spirituals and music by black composers. We are using a new lectionary by Wilda C. Gafney, and black woman scholar of Hebrew scriptures, and thereby are being introduced to new stories in the Bible about people left out and on the margins.
And then let’s talk to one another and hear the stories of others talk to others and face the racism that has so handily destroyed the lives of so many in our communities. Let us become more aware of racism’s shape, scope, and contours. And then may we do all we can do dismantle it.
It’s a heavy lift, which goes without saying. I am seeking to form a group here in the congregation, a peacemaking group I mentioned in my last letter to you and invite you to join me in talking all this over, racism and injustice and every other way our culture allows such inhumanity to fester.
Dismantling racism, confronting injustice, talking over issues, and seeking a way forward—this is the work of the church, as we work hand in hand with others to fulfill the promises of our nation to “guarantee the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Where one day we’ll hold a funeral for racism and allow people like Tyre to live.
Grace and peace,
Harry
January 17, 2023
Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who taught “blessed are the peacemakers.”
I want you to join me in the work of peacemaking in 2023. Get together, talk it over, form a group, be part of movement, do something small, consider something big, make a difference, if not for the world, then for you. And me. And our community. Will you?
Now if you haven’t yet scrolled to something else then allow me to make your deliberation a bit easier. I have already listed your objections (but you can still come up with your own!).
It’s hopeless. Yes, it is. Howard Zinn, the historian who wrote A People’s History of the United States, agrees with you. Shortly before he died, he said with tears in his eyes that all the great movements for social change in our history—the Abolitionists, the Suffragettes, the Labor movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-Vietnam movement—all believed they would never see the change they were working for, but they refused to give up. They never stopped. They knew it was the right thing to do.
But what can I do? Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, shortly before he was assassinated, said, “No one can do everything, but everyone can do something!”
Hmm, but this nonviolence thing, it doesn’t really do anything. “People equate nonviolence with inaction, with not doing anything,” Cesar Chavez wrote, “and it’s not that all. It’s exactly the opposite.”
OK, but I don’t know where to start. “I recommend picking one cause that’s close to our hearts and getting involved in that struggle with all our heart and energy,” says long-time peace activist and former Sana Fe resident Father John Dear, whose quotes above come from his book The Nonviolent Life.
I’m not sure I’ll like it or stay interested. Fair enough. You might not. But personally, I can’t think of a better way to spend my time than with the likes of Gandhi, King, Mandela, Chavez, Zinn, Romero, Dear, Day, and Jesus, of course, as we come together and join the Global Movement for Justice, Peace, and Creation.
Still on the fence? Then I invite you to attend an online seminar this Sunday, January 22, 2:30-4 pm called Jesus Christ, Peacemaker, A New Theology of Peace. Follow this link.
Please let me know if you are interested in starting something here at church. It’s never too late to start, and probably we’re right on time, to make this a year of peace.
Grace and peace,
Harry