May 4, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. • He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. • And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. —Mark 6:30–32

This was the title of a recent book review in the L.A. Times Book Section, on a completely different subject. But I instantly realized it described the very scope and dimensions of what prayer and contemplation are about. “Hide and seek.”

Truly, it is not child’s play. Constantly, the world closes in with its relentless noise, demands and interruptions. Twenty-first century life makes demands on us that few can actually meet without always feeling we are about to stress out or collapse with an anxiety attack, if not a full-blown nervous breakdown. If only we could hide ourselves for a while from the confrontations we must usually engage with our work, our neighbors, our homes and families, bills and stresses, then the dialogue with God might have a chance. Hide and seek.

But remember, it is not so much that we seek God, but that God seeks us. When we are quiet, we can at last hear God’s voice in our lives. When we get away from other distractions, God can receive our full attention. God’s spirit gets through to our conscience, our hearts, our wills, and gently corrects us.

It also goes without saying that the more frequently we can do this the more effective it is. For then our subconscious minds begin to look forward to the time of quietness, apart-ness and attention to God’s voice.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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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

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January 17, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

We had an astonishing and unsettling occurrence last night at the outset of our mid-week Bible Study. A friend of someone in our community came in, agitated, stood up to praise Jesus and then thoroughly condemn us for tolerating homosexuals. Chapter and verse!  He read us the riot act, and then bolted for the door—several times, returning in between.  He continued to interrupt even after I had announced that we would now be about our prayers and was already naming those in our community who had prayer concerns!  I am still trying “to process” what happened and how I handled it, and how I feel after it is all over!

First there was the hubris of a Biblical know-it-all fundamentalist.  He was the answer man who can set us all straight because the Bible is The Answer Book, and he knows his Bible cover to cover. In this case, he was unaware that several of us in the room had studied the passages he had in mind far more extensively than he—to the point of reading and even writing articles and books on the subject. The Biblical view of homosexuality is complex and does not yield straight-forward or conclusive answers, regardless of how many “know-it-alls” insist that it does.

But being a Biblical liberal here only inflames the conservatives, who are sure they are right and therefore are on God’s side. We can’t simply argue that the Bible is full of social prejudices – that does not fly with people who sincerely believe that the Bible contains no errors and was dictated word for word by the Holy Spirit into the ears of its writers, in fact that the Bible contains no human content because it is God’s Word. We’re simply are a world apart on this, and no amount of shouting in a room will make that fundamental difference go away. (I wonder if this isn’t behind a lot of Biblical ignorance/uncertainty of our own people, who do not want to be drawn into the exactitude of fundamentalism. They are gun-shy about stating anything of their faith and knowledge because it can never be as seemingly solid and impregnable as the position of Christian conservatives.)

He was also full of rapid-fire relentless speech for a few minutes—imitating what he has no doubt learned from preachers, especially the fast-talking charismatic radio and television personalities who seem to be so full of faith. For this style of argumentation it is important to keep talking, even if highly repetitious, so as (1) not to lose one’s nerve; (2) not to give someone else opportunity to respond or disagree.

We don’t study the Bible that way. We don’t arrive at truth that way. We don’t formulate our public teachings as a church—local or national—that way. But it is an effective technique that has made televangelists millions of dollars!

I might have countered this outburst—and I did later in the evening, after he bolted form the room—that the Bible’s apparently strict ethical teaching about human sexuality contains some elements that most people would find odious today, and even the most conservative heterosexual Christians among us do not live by them.

For example, the Bible’s answer to rape is really horrific from an ethical point of view. It is not and cannot be the final answer in a Christian sexual theology. The Mosaic law requires the rapist to marry the woman he has raped, without possibility of divorce, and there is no other punishment! Or is there? In the case of Shechem, is it the appropriate punishment to kill the rapist and his entire family and all his compatriots? Does Genesis 34 belong in a Christian sexual ethic? If not, why does Genesis 19?

The religious right—such strident students of every word of the Biblical text—must somehow know as well as I do that a lot of bad ethics and unusable teaching about sexuality is scattered all over the Scriptures. It may be that there is so much uncertainty in the Bible’s sexual ethics that conservatives have latched on to one small matter—homosexuality—that they think they can be absolutely certain about, and therefore feel like they are doing their religious “duty to warn” sinners about the wrath of God.¹ There is no complete view of human sexuality in the Bible we have, and on some matters such as homosexuality there is so little which actually is decipherable that we cannot rely on it. But in fact, the less said in the Bible on a given subject, the better for an “answer man,” a Biblical “know-it-all”, and the more certain his answers, because it is so much easier to “flip and point” to the answer than to wrestle with conflicting or confusing ideas and their implications.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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January 12, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

I just learned this morning of the death of someone I’d been trying to get closer to. He died apparently of a drug overdose after a drug binge—depressed?—that had cost him his job.

This news has triggered a lot of shock in me, and I found myself questioning our mutual friend hard, as if it were not possible, or somehow the news was not true.

He had a lot going for him, which makes this seem like a total failure of hope and grace. He was a Christian, knew his Bible well, was confident and enthusiastic about both his work and his children (although divorced), and knew the 12 Steps of recovery. He had come with a good friend to our Bible studies on numerous occasions, was affable and stable.

Something completely eclipsed my friend’s path to recovery, however, and snatched his life away.

And sadly—as so often happens—he shut others out when he was in his greatest need and hitting bottom in his greatest depression. I have learned that he refused to go into a detox and rehab facility, and was found dead in his home days later.

As a Christian teacher and Pastor, I feel a huge sense of defeat that I never got or found the right opening or opportunity to get closer to this man. Could I have played a role in redemption for him? Would I ever have been the one he might have called when he hit a low point in life?

It strikes me how often religion plays such a feeble role in the recovery and redemption of human life. Yes, he knew the Scriptures and could quote them as well as may lay people. But what happened? Where had the Christian faith let him down so that in successive moments of poor judgement and discouragement evil forces could pull him completely under?

The pull, and the destruction, of addiction is real and powerful. These are the demons of our times, and they are legion. Thanks to the law of supply and demand, they remain quite plentiful and available in our country. Drugs and alcohol are costly but not so prohibitive as to make anyone avoid them because of money. In any big city, drugs are especially easy to get.

What is not easy to come by is an absolutely confidence in God’s redemption and grace. This seems to be in short supply– and those who have it cannot always successfully reach those who long for it or need it the most.

And the recovery process is not for wimps. The Twelve Steps are not twelve wishes. They are hard, even demanding work. They require our attention over the long haul—for an entire lifetime—in order to grow in the spiritual strength that nothing can shake or damage or pull under.

As much as I feel defeat in this dark moment, my defeat tells me not to give up or become cynical. My effort—and all of our effort—is critically needed somewhere out there to chase the evil demons of life away, and to be a steady, reliable, unshakable friend for those who lose their nerve or their way. Probably more than anything, we need “street smarts” to understand the demons and to recognize their power.

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December 31, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Gracious Father, we pray for your holy catholic church. Fill it with all truth and peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in anything it is amiss, reform it; where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in need, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it, for the sake of Jesus Christ, your Son our Lord. —Evangelical Lutheran Worship, 2006

Let us pray for the holy Catholic Church of Christ throughout the world; for its unity in witness and service, for all Bishops and other Ministers and the people whom they serve, for all Christians in this community, … that God will confirm his church in faith, increase it in love, and preserve it in peace. — Authorized Services for the Book of Common Prayer (The Episcopal Church), 1973

O God our Father, we pray for thy Church, which is set today amid the perplexities of a changing order, and face to face with new tasks…. Bid her cease from seeking her own life, lest she lose it. —The Methodist Hymnal, 1964, 1966

“Neither pray I for these alone, but for them which shall also believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” — Jesus’ High Priestly Payer, John 17:20–21, King James Version, 1611

New Year’s Eve seems as good a time as any to pray for the whole church of Christ on earth. We pray every week for the whole Church in our parish.

I’ve been reading the comments of Nicholas Lash, a Roman Catholic theologian and respected professor at Cambridge University in England, in the December 11 issue of The Christian Century, who was asked in an interview about the state of ecumenism today. He made a few comments but also remarked that generalities about ecumenism are not that helpful. “At least we’re not at war with one another anymore,” he said.

In some ways there is a condition of detente, but in others, there is a constant, willful eroding of one constituency by another. I have a great deal of respect for the people and clergy of groups I have worked with and known — mostly mainstream Christians. But I remain deeply suspicious of “non-denominational” outfits – whether the independent mega-churches or the “ministries” that sell youth materials, send musicians around, or want to come speak and ask for a free-will offering. What I’ve come to see is that “non-denominational” does not mean uber-open minded (as if they have gotten past the squabbling which divided Christians in the past). It means they have no accountability to anyone except their immediate machinery. For some clergy, it means no accountability to anybody except the one congregation they’ve put together by grand-standing or upstaging others.

Yet in some important ways there is an ecumenical open-mindedness which now characterizes many church bodies. I don’t include the patriarch of Rome (Lash’s term) who publicly stated in 2007 that the rest of us are not really the “church” as he understands the church. There are many small, conservative bodies also who won’t have anything to do with those of us whoa re liberally disposed.

There are issue-oriented movements which supercede the denominational divisions with some degree of success, such as the Institute for Welcoming Resources that unites the individual movements within denominations to work for the full inclusion of LGBT people in the Christian church. Lutherans Concerned modeled its Reconciling in Christ program on the Methodist program of the same name more than 25 years ago. Now every major and even marginal denomination has some kind of entity working independently of its own body and with some kind of loose cooperation with other programs: the Methodist’s Affirmation and Reconciling Ministries Network, the Episcopal Church’s Integrity and the Alliance of Lesbian and Gay Anglicans, More Light Presbyterians, Orthodox Axios, Brethren Mennonite Council for Lesbian and Gay Concerns, American Baptists Concerned for Sexual Minorities; the Gay, Lesbian and Affirming Disciples Alliance, the Moravian Sanctuary, Seventh-day Adventist Kinship International, Quaker Friends for Lesbian and Gay Concerns. This is not an exhaustive list; there are more at www.godmademegay.com.

Perhaps I am naive to go on believing that these groups, although narrowly focusing on the single issue of including sexual minorities in the Body of Christ, are modeling the ecumenical and universal Spirit by patiently workin today on today’s issues, rather than hunkering down around issues from two, three, five or ten centuries ago.

Yet we painfully acknowledge that what divides the church is most often not doctrine but human nature. At best, we are all anxious to be the church but each of us lunges and pulls in opposing directions with enthusiasm energy that tears at our unity. Our cultural and political differences constantly interfere with our best intentions to reform the church to be more welcoming, compassionate, wise and generous. At worst, each of us is self-important and the pawn of pious power lust, anxious to protect our own fiefdoms and crown ourselves as God’s vicars on earth.

True prayer for the church universal must begin with a prayer of humility and repentance, and the expectation that none of us has the will nor the wisdom to unite the whole Church. The French Jesuit and visionary philosopher Fr. Pierre Tielhard de Chardin once ventured that the closer all of us come to Christ the closer we would be to one another. Those who pray a real ecumenical prayer must acknowledge “Thy will be done,” and then get out of the way.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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December 2, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

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November 30, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

I think we are all suffering from “compassion fatigue.” People don’t care as intensely, or consistently, as we did a few years go, at the height of the AIDS epidemic in this country.

But our “suffering” is slight compared to those living with, and fighting against HIV/AIDS. The suffering of this country is slight, now, compared to the struggle being endured in developing countries. Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS, says that the epidemic has globalized and feminized. (Read his statement here.) The face of AIDS today is that of a heterosexual African woman of color. UNAIDS estimates that 95% of those living with HIV/AIDS are in developing nations, where all resources are scarce and costly.

There are countless world-wide and national organizations trying to help, but they too are often short on financial resources. The miracle drugs and “cocktails” which have made the continuation of life possible for thousands of Americans living with HIV/AIDS, are prohibitive elsewhere in the world, where even basic sanitation is spotty and difficult to maintain. Your compassionate response makes a difference.

Originally launched by the World Health Organization, tomorrow is the twentieth annual World AIDS Day, December 1.

This Sunday the Hollywood community will respond with an ecumenical Vespers/Concert in observance of World AIDS Day at Hollywood Lutheran Church, 1733 N. New Hampshire Avenue 90039. “World AIDS Hollywood” is an event to remember, pray and bring light. [Full details can be found at www.worldAIDSHollywood.org. Or call (323) 667-1212].

The event will feature the premier of “The Celestial Veil”, a new musical composition by Christopher A. Flores and Adrian Ravarour; music from Vox Femina and the Hollywood Wind Ensemble and other guest artists. Three 12×12 blocks of the National AIDS Memorial Quilt are on display. A bell will be rung and a votive candle lit for hundreds of names of those whom we have lost in our community. Please join us!

It is my prayer that our compassion fatigue has ended, and that the Hollywood community especially will be awakened again to the urgency of our compassionate response.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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November 28, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

When I am in a hurry, (in other words, all the time), I become easily annoyed by things which don’t seem to cooperate: the rubber brake pedal that repeatedly falls off on the car floor, the drawer that won’t come unstuck, the tool from which an essential screw or part drops precisely at the moment when I am on a high ladder with it . . .

You get the picture. Every machine, or part, or material, or object, it seems, has not only the physical qualities which we see, and the force of inertia, but also some hidden, demonic ability to not work or to fall apart precisely when it shouldn’t. “Inside of every little problem is a bigger problem waiting to get out,” said Murphy in one of his famous laws. To which I add my own corollary: “Impeding every daily activity is some object which is broke, stuck, the wrong size, corroded, disintegrating, or back ordered.”

Recently my friend Ron explained this all to me as “The Conspiracy of Inanimate Objects.” In animate objects, he insists, really are ganging up on us! I had never much believed any of those conspiracy theories that roam the internet via e-mail (and did I mention how often e-mail is stuck, broken, the wrong size, corrupted, etc.?). There is another good saying to dispense with most conspiracy theories: “Never attribute to conspiracy what simple stupidity will explain.” For example, virtually everything our government does. Which government (city, county, state, federal), you ask? You fill in the blank.

But The Conspiracy of Inanimate Objects seems to explain virtually everything which stupidity will not explain. It is certainly more satisfying than calling the scissors or stapler, the carburetor, the door key, the door bell, lawn mower, fireplace damper, suitcase handle, cell phone, calculator, printer, or postal worker STUPID.

Beware! They are all conspiring against us! Especially people. Ron’s Conspiracy Theory also helps to explain people who are problems precisely because they become inanimate objects, almost on cue. In other words, obstacles. Inanimate means without animation. They have no “anima” or spirit. They block the store aisles, they brake for no reason, they clog every service station and convenience store, they stand in long lines in every government building, they park on the web, using up bandwidth until their session times out.

By the way, I take that back about postal workers. I have stood in line many times at the local USPS and had a hard time deciding which was more inanimate, stupid or conspiratorial: the employee or the customer on my side of the counter.

Did I mention that I am in a hurry and impatient a lot of the time? Okay, all the time? The Conspiracy of Inanimate Objects explains the problem here, because this demonic force—the conspiratorial force inside of most objects and too many people—has a built-in stress detector which monitors my stress level and misbehaves accordingly.

I just had another birthday. And alas, as I go through the inevitable aging process, I have made a very PAINFUL discovery: my own body is becoming one of those inanimate objects: creaky, broken, stuck, corroded. Stretching, yoga, push-ups and sit-ups are less and less effective, more and more of a reminder that the day will come when I am finally laid out as an inanimate object, and put in some box or incinerator.

The trouble with the Conspiracy of Inanimate Objects theory is that it explains too much. It even reminds me that my patience with stuff, people and self is constantly becoming more brittle, rigid, stuck or corroded. In my most charitable moments, I pray for greater patience — I really do. But, it never arrives. I guess it must be back-ordered.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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October 18, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Windows Vista is on the market. But all reports I’m hearing — not product reviews, but comments from the people who actually use a computer, not just test it for pay— is that it’s terrible. It has enough bugs for the exterminator to put his kids through college on it.

So I’m in the market for an older operating system — one that is maybe “trite and true” but at least I’ll know what I can get out of it and expect from it in order to get through my day without crashing.

The original “Windows XP”: The Greek letters Chi Rho
are an abbreviation for “Christ.”

I’d never thought of religious faith as an “operating system” before, but maybe it’s a metaphor we can use. Twenty-six year-olds were born the same year as IBM gave birth to the PC. In that time, operating systems have come and gone like fads. One or two have stood the test of time (although cosmically-speaking, 26 years is a pretty short period of time). It may be that Linux will one day eclipse Windows.

Is the Christian faith a faith I can live by (operate with, function with)? Or is Christ about to be eclipsed by — well, by what? Or is it the trite but true “operating system”with which my life hums along?

At least I know what it can do. It reassures me that, through God’s amazing grace I am in sync with the universe, because a loving God has created it and sustains it. I can download God’s power, energy, and healing any time I need it. I can e-mail God any time, and I won’t get a Daemon message telling me my prayers didn’t go through.

 The interactive Christian “system” invites me to do things for others as a way of responding to God’s grace— things which aren’t impossible processing tasks that will crash my own system.  And it has a fantastic manual! 

The Christ Operating System Manual

I just need to spread the good news about Christ, my operating system, through deeds of compassion, love and an occasional sacrifice. Most Christians spend more on worthless computer upgrades every year than they spend on supporting the work of Christ, even though it gets better results, so yes, I could be more generous.

But when I run into the error messages of life, they can all be forgiven. Even the “blue screen of death” – when you get those fatal errors in front of your eyes and that sickening feeling in your stomach — dissolves in the trust that Jesus is preparing a place for us (”in my father’s house”). In this great future life, there will be no crashes, no freezes, no validation codes, service packs, no required upgrades that actually make things worse, no fear of losing virtually everything I have put into my life.

Maybe I shouldn’t push the analogy too far, though.

But what if Christ really is being supplanted by another “operating system,” something newer and very cool? Before I buy, I would want to know that it’s more than Hype 1.0, that it really can do more than run its own demonstration loops in “virtual” (imitation) reality. Is there an Emerging Church operating system which has anything really new or improved in it? Should I look into the Wiccans or Neo-Pagans, into Islam or Baha’i? Can I try before I buy? After all, do they handle any of the suffering, cruelty, greed or violence of this world any better than Christ does?

Will the scripts or applets of these other operating systems work with the hardware of my life — my finite limitations, disappointments, failures, and occasional disasters? Will they run reliably within the constraints of my place in the world: culture, language, history. Will they work, with very little time, in an environment surrounded by crazies, loonies and predatory drivers whose operating systems run like a doomed video game?

I think I’ll just stay with Christ, my current operating system. When I boot up my life each morning, I see the Cross, not an animated GIF or gimmick trying to get my attention and my credit card number. I send an e-mail to thank God for another day, and for the peace, love, forgiveness and hope which are integrated seamlessly into my life. And at the end of the day, I realize that everything that I did could not have happened at all without Christ.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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October 5, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Yesterday I went to the hospital to see our dear brother Larry, who is close to death. Spiritually he is prepared to surrender his life back to God, trusting always in God’s grace. With other dear friends, we held on to him, prayed with him, and asked him to give us a sign about his desire to continue the invasive treatment that is preserving his fragile hold on life. Finally it was time to say goodbye.

It was with tearful relief that a lady spoke to me, in the elevator when I got on at the 4^th floor. Was I a chaplain or minister? she asked. (Of course, I was dressed in clerical garb with a cross around my neck. You can never hide.)

She was hoping to find a hymn book, she said. Her story tumbled out as we descended the elevator together. On the next floor up, her mother is gravely ill, and has been hospitalized for weeks. Eighty years old, her mother has a favorite hymn, but the daughter cannot remember all the words to it, to comfort her. Mother and daughter are trying very sincerely to remain connected with one another throughout this health trauma, and to stay connected with their spiritual roots. Perhaps they have wandered from the church they once new. It doesn’t matter, really, and I was not going to interrogate her about such things.

I asked her mother’s name. Odette. I offered to bring a spare hymnal to the hospital tomorrow, and also to pray for Odette. I gave her my card, hoping that she will call me, since I didn’t get the room number or the family name.

I am still thinking and praying about these women, and prayer keeps coming up in me. I hope that the daughter does call me. But for now, I am keeping my promise to pray for her mother Odette. And, of course, for our brother Larry, hoping that if it is God’s will to take him, that his death will be like gentle sleep.

We pray to you O Jesus, the divine Healer of the sick and Physician of all souls. We come to you with empty hands but open hearts, asking simply for your mercy and gentle love. You have stood with us and helped us carry the burdens of illness, as we care for our loved ones. Time and time again you have given us the gift of healing.

But now, Lord, we place our worries for our loved ones completely in your hands. We commend to you our brother Larry, and our sister Odette, and humbly ask that you grant these, your servants, the strength and the very breath of life. Assure us, that if this is to be their last hour, is it your will to alleviate their suffering graciously, and that you will receive them into your everlasting arms. Help us to accept your will for them, and for ourselves, with the trust and confidence that you always act for the sake of your great love for all, and that you are with us in our pain, our fear and our sorrow. Amen.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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