February 17, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

I am distraught with this past week’s news of the killing of a 15 year-old, in school, by a 14 year-old—the end of a rash of school shootings that is absolutely numbing to think about. Thousand of people are grieving for a child we never met. But what caught me in the throat was that this was an effeminate boy who only recently began to admit to himself and classmates that he was or might be gay.

It is hard to imagine being 15 again. I do remember that I was scared to be myself and that I hid my feelings and my questions. What puts young gay boys or lesbian girls at such risk nowadays is that they are more self-aware, at earlier ages, and are growing more confident because of the relative acceptance in society. In the 1960s there was NO acceptance, period, as well as no information. So when I was 15 I didn’t even have a name for who I was and was bright enough not to ask questions out loud.

  Photo: Ventura County Star

Young Lawrence King became a martyr for relative acceptance. Like Gwen Araujo, a 17 year-old M2F transgender person, decent society is outraged at his senseless killing. It is small comfort that the 14 year-old killer is to be charged as an adult for a hate crime. But two lives are still destroyed: one in tragic death, the other who will almost certainly serve an appreciable number of years in detention or prison.

Clearly, “LGBT rights” haven’t gotten very far if it is still not safe to grow up gay or lesbian or transgender. The expansion of hate crimes statutes is long, long overdue.  According to a U.S. Department of Justice November 2005 report, 18% or nearly 1/5 of hate crimes were related to sexual orientation. Who is standing up, besides Barack Obama, for stronger hate crimes legislation?

Why is there so much hatred and fear of what is simply different? Why must there be martyrs to bring decent people out, and get moral people to proclaim their shock and intolerance of violence loudly enough to suppress (at least temporarily) such violence in a local community?

Wasn’t the murder of Matthew Shepard over nine years ago enough to get all of America to demand an end to such hate and such violence?

Answer to that rhetorical question: No, it wasn’t enough. America loves violence, perpetuates violence, tolerates violence, promulgates violence. Like Spaniards who still relish bullfights, Americans simply want to channel violence ever-so-slightly to protect some people.

I would personally argue for greater gun control. The equally senseless killings in Illinois by a recently-deranged bright college student illustrates this. He bought the guns legally, which means that our laws aren’t doing the job that guns rights advocates pretend they are.

Yes, I know the counter-argument: “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Blah, blah, blah.

If it were that simple then hey why can’t individuals legally purchase nuclear weapons? Nuclear bombs don’t kill people, people kill people.

The fact is that too many people, even in a free and allegedly decent society, are nut cases. They are disposed to hate, disposed to judgment of others and of anything that is foreign to their experience, and disposed to violence. Should millions of potential nut cases have access to the trigger or the button on a nuclear bomb because, it is argued, bombs don’t kill people, people kill people? Of course not.

Most violent crimes are committed by people with weapons that rightfully do not belong in the hands of individuals—from “Saturday night specials,”—cheap handguns—to assault weapons.

The surface reason we don’t have meaningful gun control in America is that politicians are pressured by gun lobbyists and nut cases disguised as conservative voters. The underlying reason is that politicians have no backbones. Remember, folks, these are the “leaders” who cannot even stand up the current administration to say that America will not torture people. If they cannot say No to George Bush on waterboarding, would they have the spine to stop the senseless killings of effeminate boys?

Obviously, we will have thousands more senseless killings of children by children before the public outcry is loud enough to stop the NRA’s death grip on America.

But my heart goes out to the family of Lawrence King, and the families of others who tried to protect their young child from the hatred of others, only to see their loved one hurt, killed, even tortured as was Matthew Shepard. My heart breaks for any children who suffer unspeakable violence. But my heart is also angered by all the complicit evil, in the name of “liberty”or “family values” or any other quackery that claims every life is sacred and then turns a blind eye to hatred, torture, violence and murder.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

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February 11, 2008 by PD.

For our parish life, I have settled on a “theme” for our Thursday evening Lenten services, which begin on February 14.

Each year we use the Holden Evening Prayer service— which is entirely sung except for readings, and takes perhaps 20 minutes total. For the past several years, I have provided something different each year for brief meditations during these services. Two of the last three years I have written brief dramas, either contemporary or biblical, usually in “readers theatre”style for 2-3 actors.

This year I intend to guide us in a series in contemplative prayer. Each week will be different, not “stuffy” or “pious.” In addition to the selected readings, I will make very brief comments, and then guide us in contemplative prayer for no more than 5-7 minutes. It is my hope this year only to plant seeds, not teach an exhaustive course in prayer.

Our age is beginning to get hungry again for a more mystical experience. Many people in the “Emerging” or “Emergent” church movement are experimenting with contemplative prayer and centering prayer. (The two are quite distinct.) But because so many faithful Christians have little experience with contemplation and meditation, our prayers are usually at best intercessions – requests that God will help, heal, rescue, fix or forgive something. Our prayer life is rather like small children who want to run and play outside all day, and only come in to their father’s presence to ask for something (usually, permission) and when they have received it, they exit at top speed to go out and play again.

Contemplative prayer asks for nothing, petitions for nothing, seeks nothing. It does not demand, plead or intercede. Contemplative prayer puts us in the presence of the holy because we both enjoy and hunger for that presence.

Contemplative prayer invokes the name of God. It is not self-emptying as much as God-focusing. It is not based on the human search for aspiration for God, but on the revelation which God gives to us. As Lutheran theologian Kelly Fryer (”Reclaiming the F word“) constantly stresses, God always comes down.

If God is spirit, God is mystery. That we may receive God remains suspended in mystery also. Contemplative prayer allows us and invites us to enter into God’s mystery as redeemed children of God. We are born “of the spirit,” after all. If we allow our own spirits to atrophy, we would find that we have lost ourselves. In order to find ourselves, we must be willing to enter into God’s mystery. Contemplative prayer asks us to shift gears, slow down and give ourselves time to experience the mystery of God.

What blocks us? But too often our interior life is crammed, crowded, with our worries and concerns, our desires, our random thoughts, and even unhealthy obsessions of guilt, shame, and grief. It is as if our interior life is a large house full of cluttered rooms, and we are stuck, constantly sorting and sifting through the clutter we have accumulated, looking for something we have lost, or something of value, or something to amuse ourselves. Spiritually, what happens to us is like “writers block” in the soul. We become blocked, stuck, immobilized by our own concerns and problems. Contemplative prayer summons us to open more of our consciousness, to open the door, as it were, to an unused room, to open ourselves more and more to God’s presence than we do.

We always pray “through Jesus Christ our Savior.” In his name we have confidence to draw near to God’s presence, rather than to run from God in fear and terror. We see that Christ is the open door to God, and that his merciful sacrifice is a sign of God’s reconciliation with humanity. In Christ, we are invited, urged, even commanded to come into God’s presence with prayer.

— Pastor Dan

Posted in Faith, Living by Grace, PRAYERS, Spirituality | Print | No Comments »

February 6, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

This caught my eye in the e-mail box recently. I was tempted to scoff at their efforts but at the same time wanted to understand more of why they are profoundly skeptical about matters of faith.

“Sometimes, if you’re trying to find an answer to a problem, finding the edges, and working in from there works quite well — it’s known as approximation. Military gunnery works in the same way, overshoot, undershoot and bingo! In some topics this can be done through opposing statements. Here’s what I and my youngest son came up with—a doubters creed.

“A dubious Credo

“I do not fear God;
I fear mankind.
I do not fear my death;
I fear for my posterity.

I do not believe in Heaven or Hell;
I believe that all sentient life has a spiritual element.
I do not believe in the concept of sin;
I believe that love, in all its forms, is the most vital part of human experience.

I do not know if any religion is “true” or “false”;
I do know that there is a greater presence outside ourselves.
I do not know if God still exists;
I do know that once I did not exist, now I do, and soon I won’t.

I must not harm anyone else;
I must live every minute as if it is my last.
I must not allow the past to cripple the future;
I must make the day of everyone I encounter better.

Amen”

For openers, these Doubters appear to think of a Credo (”I believe”) as a statement of what they observe, rather than what they put their trust in—what they believe about, not what they believe in. For them a “greater presence” is something they are “approximating”—working in from the edges of what they observe, supposing something must be there and letting that suffice.

This view of reality is an inch or two over from the man I met at a New Year’s Eve Party a few weeks ago who thinks that all spirituality is simply “brain chemicals.” He told me he is a practicing Quaker. But he is also a Doubter of one of the higher orders.

Spirituality is something that even doubters, skeptics and secular philosophers acknowledge; yet their rejection or suspicion of religious doctrines really eviscerates human spirituality: it cuts the guts out of it.

With very little effort, as on that proverbial “slippery slope,” spirituality devolves to mere sentiment, limited by consciousness—for example: your trying to live each day “as if it were your last.” (Maybe I should go see The Bucket List while it’s still around.) But I suspect that a lot of loud, young, male, speeding pickup-drivers would be even more self-absorbed and rude and violent if they really believed that today was their “last day.” If you don’t fear death or God, Heaven or Hell, then why not just do whatever brings me instant gratification because, after all, this might be my last day on earth!?

Spiritual uncertainty, or a lack of spiritual consciousness, is clearly expressed here over and over: “I do not know . . .” Perhaps that phrase is offered as a mark of spiritual humility. But it doesn’t nearly approximate human experience. It lets humanity off the hook quite easily. It misses the moral mark by a mile. I do not always know, for example, if my actions today are in fact hurting someone else, rather than making other people’s day “better.” And if I do not know, then I am not responsible, right? Think of the long-term effects of greed, waste, and environmental damage of which generations of moral people were completely unaware while they sentimentalized the act of making somebody’s day better.

The most troubling and naive part of this dubious Credo, in my opinion, is the line “I do not believe in the concept of sin.” Do you really think “sin” does not exist? Or that the “concept” as you understand it is something you can’t subscribe to? If there is no God, then sin defined as an offense against God would not exist. That’s clever! But sin has been understood for thousands of years as also an offense against my neighbor. Most of the Ten Commandments are guidelines to keep us from sinning against—harming or exploiting—other people. The Old Testament is a confusing and quirky collection of moral commands, of actions and consequences (karma), but the majority of its moral wisdom falls in the column of justice, not merely religion.

Or is the “concept of sin” one these writers just associate with a penalty phase? (”Hell”?) In other words, can I simply adopt a personal ethic not to harm my neighbor without having to admit my failure to live up to my own ethic a lot of the time? Or attempt to make amends for the things I inadvertently do which harm others? Or to accept the consequences of my failures?

Someone wise remarked that “Sin is the one Christian doctrine which is empirically verifiable.” You can see it and document it, even if some doubter simply says “I do not believe in the concept of sin.” Was the Nazi extermination of six million Jews and unnumbered homosexuals and gypsies not sin? Or does the Doubter have a different term for it if the word sin isn’t used? Is “I do not believe” the escape line for the men who gutted the assets of Enron, including the retirement savings of thousands of their own employees? For the sub-prime lenders who have manipulated millions into Option-ARM loans no one could possibly afford, and has now left them homeless, bankrupted and with terrible credit scores? For Iraq war independent contractors who are bleeding the American government and therefore the American people for billions of dollars? For mass-murderers in our malls and schools? For men who mercilessly kill their wives and children before turning the gun on themselves? For drive-by shooters? For those who write computer viruses, or devise Ponzi and pyramid schemes, who defraud gullible senior citizens through phoney “investments”? All of those obvious examples are not “sin”? Then what are they? If there is no “sin” then what is it these Doubters fear in mankind?

To borrow a phrase from a well-known bumper sticker, “If you don’t believe that sin is real, you haven’t been paying attention.” If you can’t “buy into” a lot of religious talk, well okay. But the “spiritual element” of human life includes a sense of personal responsibility, self-examination, self-discipline, consciousness, humility, and an openness to change oneself and one’s life when confronted with the error of one’s ways. See, for example, the accusation of the prophet Nathan against King David, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:7)

Ash Wednesday is the Christian acknowledgment not only of our sinful predicament—our sinful nature—but also our finite nature. As the liturgical phrase has it, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Or as the Doubter puts it, “I do know that once I did not exist, now I do, and soon I won’t.”

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Environment, Faith, Public Affairs, Spirituality | Print | No Comments »

February 4, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

I’m not sure I have the best term for this, since I just discovered the thoughts of Peter Russell, but perhaps “pop philosopher” will serve for now. Russell is a scientist/writer/futurist/mystic. His views and wisdom can be found on his web site, www.peterrussell.com, along with intriguing devices.

Sample his World Clock for example, that rolls through the number of counters, including the rate of abortions, deaths from cardiovascular disease, world population etc., how fast cars and bicycles are being produced, and forests denuded, all  on one screen. Or his Life Expectancy Calculator which, in a series of 34 questions, will tell you how long you will live. You may be amazed at what counts as a debit and what counts as a credit in this accounting.

Looking beyond the so-called “Information Age,” I am intrigued by his suggestion that evolution itself is speeding up like global warming, that the universe’s intelligence is expanding exponentially (intelligence being sharply distinguished from wisdom—both terms are adequately defined—which is still in its infancy), and that change itself may reach a maximum point or a leveling-off. Russell presents ideas such as “singularity”, the ingression of novelty, and how human beings see our real selves apart from our external circumstances. We are a “Half-Awake Species,” he suggests with good reason (from “A Singularity in Time“):

In addition, we are only half-awake to our deeper needs and how to attain them. Most of us would like to avoid pain and suffering, and find greater peace and happiness, but we believe that how we feel inside depends on external circumstances. This is true in some cases, for example. if we are suffering because we are cold or hungry. In the modern world, most of us can fulfill these demands very easily. The flick of a switch or a trip to the store usually suffices. But we apply the same thinking to everything else in life. We believe that if we could just get enough of the right things or experiences we would finally be happy. This is the root of human greed, our love of money, our need to control events (and other people); it is the cause of much of our fear and anxiety, we worry whether events are going to be the way we think they should be if we are to be happy. This thinking is also at the heart of the many ways we mistreat, and often abuse, our planetary home.

The global crisis we are now facing is, at its root, a crisis of consciousness—a crisis born of the fact that we have prodigious technological powers, but still remain half-awake. We need to awaken to who we are and what we really want.

Needless to say, Russell’s consciousness steps into the spiritual. I am usually cautious and skeptical about such ideas, until I begin to realize that spirituality is found widely in the Judeo-Christian heritage, and not always cloaked in or tied to specific religious or dogmatic language. If sectarian Christians are unwilling to explore this, we should at least note that the pioneers of the “emergent church” are doing it with or without our blessing.  Much more on that later.

As I have noted, I’ve just discovered this pop philosopher. But I expect to spend some time reading what he has written and, at least, exploring his prodigious web site.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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