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Cuthbert

I came across an article recently about the untombing (if that’s a word) of Cuthbert, the chief saint of Durham cathedral in 1104.  When the monks got to him -- presumably in was in one of those crypt like things you see in English Cathedrals -- he was actually in pretty good shape., especially considering he’d died 400 years previously.  The article said:

“What they reported finding was astonishing, given that Cuthbert had been dead for more than 400 years. His corpse was not merely undecayed, but flexible and lifelike. It was as if the saint were not dead, but sleeping.”

Naturally, this being medieval times, his well-preserved being was considered a miracle and the phenomenon redounded to the Cathedral.  His preservation was in fact taken as proof that he was a saint, though there were probably few doubters among the monks.

The Reformation, of course, did away, with the idea of sainthood as the Roman church taught and replaced it with the sainthood of all believers. I remember vividly visiting the Lady Chapel in Ely Cathedral.Not only had it been whitewashed but every single statue was headless to discourage people praying to “graven images.”

The idea is that while we are all justified by Christ, we live into sanctification (becoming more Godly) by the grace of God and the encouragement of the Holy Spirit.  But modern people are a little afraid of being characterized as “saintly” conjuring up images of a timid English vicar who is so heavenly minded that he is no earthly good.

On the contrary, you will tend to like people who are living into their salvation.  They will prove humble, natural, of good humor, encouraging, wise, and  above all welcoming and loving.

I’m not sure they will be well preserved in 400 years like old Cuthbert was, but I really doubt it matters.  The prospect of having every tear wiped from our eyes is good enough for me.

Dan

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The iPhone and Connecting

by Daniel England

I came across an article recently in the Atlantic magazine by Jean M. Twenge entitled Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?  The author is a research psychologist who has studied generational characteristics and trends for the past 25 years. In the article, she noted a disturbing increase in screen-time by the iGens, those born between 1995 and 2012, (2012 being the year that more than 50 percent of Americans owned a smartphone).

She believes the data shows that disconnection and isolation has increased among these kids -- dating is way off even compared to Millennials, and so is sex.  In addition, so is the desire to have a driver’s license -- why go anywhere when all you need is a bed and a phone. One girl is quoted in the article as saying about her summer,  “I’ve been on my phone more than I’ve been with actual people,” she said.  “My bed has, like, an imprint of my body”

The downside of this behavior is a verified spike in depression and suicide among teens. Since 2007, the homicide rate among teens has declined, but the suicide rate has increased a lot.  There is some evidence that teens themselves are beginning to understand the phenomenon of disconnectedness and feeling bad. A girl quoted in the article said she noticed that her friends are often looking at their phones when talking to her.  “They’re looking at their phone or they’re looking at their Apple Watch.”  And what does that feel like? “It kind of hurts.”

All of us need to be conscious of how well we listen, even adults. It sometimes seems that any call coming in on the smartphone automatically takes precedence over my conversation with a person.  And we all know people whose idea of a conversation is to interrupt you early and often.

I suppose the same could be said for many people’s prayer life, which is a laundry list of needs, complaints, wishes and projections without much time for the silence of listening and being in the presence of God with our whole heart and mind and soul.

I think there may be one other factor in being glued to a portable screen that my generation (I’m not a teenager, thank God) learned with TV.  Endless banality, silliness and pettiness, such as watching a whole day of daytime TV, or what passes for comment by 13-year olds can induce ennui faster than anything. Meaningless, pointless “snapchatter” can have the same effect because when you constantly do something that really has no point, you may soon fail to see the point of anything, including yourself.

What does that old hymn say?  “Solid joys and lasting treasures, none but Zion’s children know.”  Still something to that, I think.

Dan

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At Face Value

Daniel England

I was at a local restaurant last night that features various bands on the patio.  This one (called Space Cats was terrific, a gal (Christine Tambakis) and a guy (Andy Abel), each, I gather, with some notoriety in band world.  Her voice was clear, without affectation, and she sang with heart.  The guitarist sang only with his instrument, of which he was obviously master.

Now I suspect they have been playing together for a while for they seemed totally at ease in their rhythms and handoffs.  But the thing I couldn’t help but notice was every once in a while one or the other would give some kind of signal to the other. The one I caught was a slightly arched eyebrow by the guitar man that was immediately followed by a new pace and vibrancy to the song they were performing.  

It’s a shame that the gospel writers don’t give us more on Jesus’ expressions.  We can infer from various words what his face looked like… “he warned them sternly”; “when he saw the crowds he looked on them with compassion.” Even in Genesis, it’s clear that God is a face reader: “Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?”  But I have often speculated that the story of Jesus and the Phoenician woman in Mark 7, a difficult passage for many reasons, would be more understandable if the text told us that Jesus wore a slight ironic smile throughout the dialogue with her, and she with him.  

I am sometimes brought up short when someone will ask me if everything is all right, apparently because my countenance conveys a scowl or something like it.  I always try to clear my face like a etch-sketch of the troubling visage, but I wonder how often sweet words are betrayed by a furrowed brow.  I doubt any of us smile enough, with the exception of those few people who seem to smile all the time, which is disconcerting.

One of the things tall people have to watch out for is looming over people (a lá Trump with Clinton). Even eye-contact, or lack of it, can tell a great deal.  None of this is new and I’m not suggesting that we double-down on trying harder to look more pleasant. No, rather, I’m reminded that a contented life, a pure heart and true humility will naturally come through in our body and facial language.  I doubt my band duo last night practiced the eyebrow signal in the mirror to convey it was time to turn up the energy. It came from the music itself that had become part of who they are.

Dan

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Why I don’t use #Christian

Daniel England

September 14, 2017

As bloggers know, there is an opportunity to put hash-tags (#) at the end of an article in order to attract people who might be interested in the topic you’re writing about.  I realized that I had some tags that were religious, even #Christ, given the nature of this blog, but for some reason  I had avoided Christian or Christianity.  I wondered about that.

Now to be sure, I self-identify myself as a Christian person (and I hope that God and others who know me would as well) but Christian these days is a slippery term.  The main problem isn’t the traditional divide between Protestants and Catholics (the Pope recently urged much more progress on global climate change, for example: Go Francis!).  The problem is what I often hear from friends - “I don’t want anything to do with Christian types.”  When pressed, what they mean is “evangelical” Christians.  Pressed further they are dismayed by their anti-science stances on evolution and climate change, their suspicion of immigrants in general and refugees in particular, their overwhelming  support of Trump and their revealing opposition to gay marriage and in many cases, to being gay at all.  They don’t seem to like much else about sex either.  

It bothers me that I have to edge away from the word Christian, an ancient and apostolic term, just because a peculiar brand of American church people somewhere along the line hijacked Jesus.  Jesus, who went after the stranger, the immigrant, the poor, the marginalized and the humble has somehow become a Ted Cruz Republican.

I can stand the confusion when people thrust upon my claim to be a Christian as being of the fundamentalist, evangelical stripe because I can soon clear that up.  I just worry about those who are throwing God in the ditch as well because of associations they want nothing to do with.

I guess we can only respond with extravagant love, radical inclusiveness, and keep checking on what Christian is really supposed to mean in this world.

.

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Schadenfreude Rev. Daniel England September 11, 2017 None of us, especially those like me who were in New York that day, can ever forget this date. Nor should we. And now a new round of incomprehensible pain, suffering and death has visited our fellow countrymen in Texas and Florida.   It’s a bit weird enjoying a hot shower, crisp clear skies, and a car that is not floating down the street when so many are enduring such personal and communal catastrophes.  Apart from giving to organizations on the ground there, I’m not sure what to do, except to pray that God might give them courage and resolve. As I listen to people discussing these latest blows to normal life, no one is rejoicing in others misfortunes, and all we can do is bless our luck this time (Sandy is too raw a memory to be smug).  Nevertheless, there is always lurking nearby a hint of Schadenfreude, that  German word that means a prick of pleasure at another’s misfortune.  It is a photographic negative of envy, a deadly sin if ever there was one. And like almost everything that is the not-quite-oppposite reality of a part of us (like the shadow-side, of personality, not the album by Andy Biersack) it is subtle, but detectable.  It leaks through when we refer to “those less fortunate” or “people in circumstances we cannot imagine” i.e. people like the homeless or those wiped out without recourse.  It only takes one trip to the Gillespie Center in Westport to serve a meal to the aforementioned “less fortunate” to realize that a great many of these people, still wearing Polo shirts from “better” days, just a few days ago, are us. Minus a paycheck, or plus a lawsuit, or burdened by a decision gone horribly wrong. Jesus went about finding these people and restoring their bodies and redeeming their worth.  He did it purely, and - here’s the key, I'm telling you - without a hint that he was doing them a favor. So we weep with those who weep, we give as generously as we can, we’re glad our taxes support  humanitarian efforts (and not an inhuman wall) and we will pray that God might purge us from the tempting but worm-like evil of Schadenfreude.  Still less, that in acting Christ-like we’re doing someone a favor. Dan

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Shadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Rev. Daniel England

September 11, 2017

None of us, especially those like me who were in New York that day, can ever forget this date. Nor should we. And now a new round of incomprehensible pain, suffering and death has visited our fellow countrymen in Texas and Florida.  

It’s a bit weird enjoying a hot shower, crisp clear skies, and a car that is not floating down the street when so many are enduring such personal and communal catastrophes.  Apart from giving to organizations on the ground there, I’m not sure what to do, except to pray that God might give them courage and resolve.

As I listen to people discussing these latest blows to normal life, no one is rejoicing in others misfortunes, and all we can do is bless our luck this time (Sandy is too raw a memory to be smug).  Nevertheless, there is always lurking nearby a hint of Schadenfreude, that  German word that means a prick of pleasure at another’s misfortune.  It is a photographic negative of envy, a deadly sin if ever there was one.

And like almost everything that is the not-quite-oppposite reality of a part of us (like the shadow-side, of personality, not the album by Andy Biersack) it is subtle, but detectable.  It leaks through when we refer to “those less fortunate” or “people in circumstances we cannot imagine” i.e. people like the homeless or those wiped out without recourse.  It only takes one trip to the Gillespie Center in Westport to serve a meal to the aforementioned “less fortunate” to realize that a great many of these people, still wearing Polo shirts from “better” days, just a few days ago, are us. Minus a paycheck, or plus a lawsuit, or burdened by a decision gone horribly wrong perhaps, but us.

Jesus went about finding these people and restoring their bodies and redeeming their worth.  He did it purely, and - here’s the key, I'm telling you - without a hint that he was doing them a favor.

So we weep with those who weep, we give as generously as we can, we’re glad our taxes support  humanitarian efforts (and not an inhuman wall) and we will pray that God might purge us from the tempting but worm-like evil of Schadenfreude.  Still less, that in acting Christ-like we’re doing someone a favor.

Dan

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Labor Day

Rev. Daniel England

September  4, 2017

Recently, my wife and I  took a couple of days in Mystic Connecticut for a getaway. (I love these small jaunts:  no airports, no planes, and when you get there, you already have your car).  Anyway, in the course of things, we decided to embark on a two-hour afternoon cruise aboard a three-masted schooner into Mystic Bay.  The weather was as fine as porcelain, with a Delft blue sky and a zephyr filling the sails.

At the end of the spa-level relaxing voyage, including occasional tales from one of the crew about displaced lobsters due to climate change, displaced Indian tribes due to the British, and secret coves for the delivery of smuggled rum, we headed back to port.  Now the town of mystic has two very interesting bridges.  The one is called a bascule bridge, meaning that it opens when two multi-ton blocks of concrete act as a counter weight to the iron of the bridge and it opens to let tall masted boats through.  The other is a tresses swing bridge that when locked in place allows Amtrak trains to thunder over the river and when turned 90 degrees also lets ships through.

As we approached the swing bridge on our return, we stopped because it was closed.  A train rumbled over it.  “Are they going to open it now?” I asked the captain, a woman of long experience on the water.  “Probably not, not this guy,” she said.  “Usually, the operator knows that they have time to open it and get it closed again before the next train,” she explained, “and so does he but he probably won’t.”  “Why not?” I inquired. “Too much trouble for him.  He can’t be bothered,” she said with a shrug.  So there we sat, gently bobbing, for a long few minutes, until the westbound train rolled through and the bridge slowly opened.

A verse came to me, vaguely, as these things do, which I looked up, Colossians as it turns out: “Whatever your task, work heartily, as serving the Lord and not men.”  If you treat Scripture as rules, I suppose such a verse could get you some way to doing a good job.  But if you saw your work, whatever it is, more broadly as having consequences for people whom God created and loved, it’ll change your work. Whether you’re a Colossians-savvy person digging a ditch (which will drain the puddle that the car would have otherwise splashed all over a dress that some young woman just splashed out for because of a to-die-for young man she met yesterday) or you’re a financial advisor (who spots a sound investment move that makes the now married couple with the unstained dress able to eventually retire a lot more stress free), you have done it as unto the Lord.  Over time, you develop what people used to call and now more often mourn, a work ethic.

I thought of these things as we bobbed there, waiting, the people queuing up for the delayed boat at the pier, the anxious captain, the waste of time.  Labor Day, like the creation, calls us to look back and to call our work, like God’s, to be “very good.”

Dan

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Redecorating our mind

Rev. Daniel England

My wife and I decided some time ago that the living room needed redecorating, in other words, painting.    We hired a painter.

The painter we hired was a moron on the level of a brick.  In the course of painting the room, he smashed the screen of the TV, which he then denied.  He also, apparently, failed painting 101, in which painters are taught to put down drop cloths which resulted in my wife and I having to refinish the hardwood floor -- how else? -- on our hands and knees.  We have learned much since.

I mention this because when a room in a house is seriously disrupted, everything in life seems displaced.  The dogs were disoriented.  I could not get anything written.  Meals were of the take out variety rather than something properly planned and cooked or zapped in the microwave which was housed, incongruously, in my study.

In some ways, I have long admired disorder and those who create it. There is something freeing about those who choose the alternative rather than the predictable. But I also realize that disorder is disturbing to people, that change is uncomfortable for humans.

In the course of our redecorating, my wife wanted to change the configuration of the living room and when I suggested that the way the room had been was logical and fine, she said that I was simply resisting change.  I said, in the heat of this discussion, that I could be very comfortable with change, such as changing wives if she persisted.  We both calmed down and the room is now in order again, minus many bits of clutter and I can write again.

Change is upsetting but necessary.  When we encounter notions of God or church different from ones we have held for a long time we are disoriented.  When God somehow breaks into our routine and points out that we have been wrong, or arrogant or unkind, we react with defensiveness.  But if we can hear what the scriptures teach, what Jesus said, what other people are pointing out, we may indeed experience temporary chaos. Yet in the end, we come around to a place that is actually more ordered and comfortable because our heart, like a finished room, is the way it is supposed to be.

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Outrageous Fortune

God, briefly by Rev. Daniel England

Outrageous Fortune

“Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Or to take arms against a sea of troubles. And, by opposing, end them?”

The “To be or not to be” soliloquy is, of course, about living or ceasing to live.  The proximate cause, though probably not the ultimate one, is outrageous fortune, that unfathomable conspiracy of seemingly chance events that inveigh against us.  But are there chance events?  That is a question way to deep for these few words so I am raising the question to get you thinking.  If you, as a God fearing person say no, then you see everything as either God’s intentional will (he means for it to happen) or permissive will (he lets it happen). Okay, so we can agree, I think, that God does not intentionally will evil or any of its cousins: sickness, disease, hate and death (described as the last enemy by Paul).  But there are people who seem to think that there are no chance events (mostly, I have found with a little research, because if they allow chance they have to allow evolution and that just upsets them terribly).

Now some people actually like chance (and games of chance) for the thrill of it.  Sober and smart and most religious people throughout history though have shunned it, preferring order, a la God’s creative mind and hand, bringing order out of chaos from the very beginning. Hence, the resulting wisdom of planning and law and right living (which, by and large, prevents people from taking a chance that they won’t get caught holding up the 7-11) are generally recommended.

But chance -- sometime in the form of outrageous fortune -- does intrude.  I have told the story of my meeting a former pastor who lived in the South where there had been terrible tornados recently. I asked him if he had been affected. “No he said, they missed us, but wiped out several houses on the next street.”  “That was lucky,” I said.  “No, that was the hand of God.” ?#!@%!  

When Jesus met the blind man in John 9, people asked, “Is he blind because he sinned or because his parents sinned?” In other words, somebody must be responsible for his blindness.  “Neither,” said Jesus, “but so God’s works might be demonstrated in him.”  Ah! So all chance is an opportunity to show God’s power.  Well, no, I don’t think so.  That poor family, a mother with her three children who were struck by a tree that suddenly fell over in Central Park recently wouldn’t say so. But I doubt they would say that God gave the tree a nudge, either.

Yes, chance events can be redeemed by God, often by eliciting the very best of human compassion and care. It is the self-righteous who are sometimes most unaware of the power of outrageous fortune (starting with where you were born, right though to your upbringing and the opportunities you did or didn’t have).  That is why God would have us look out for the poor.

“Leave nothing to chance,” the saying goes, but you can’t.  Outrageous fortune happens.  But with the presence of God in our lives, we are not alone when it does.

Dan

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A Coat of Varnish

In his book, A Coat of Varnish, C.P. Snow tells of two of the characters in a cafe talking when, suddenly, some hooligans crash the peace of the place and their conversation.  When it’s all over, the men are rattled.   One observes, “Civilization is hideously fragile… there is not much between us and the Horrors underneath, just about a coat of varnish.”

The recent events in Charlottesville are further proof, if any were needed, of the truth of this sentence.  They have shaken all of us and for good reason -- you could practically hear the slash and tear at the social fabric of the country as the Horrors of hate, bigotry and ignorance shattered the varnish.

Western civilization is largely built on the Judeo-Christian tradition, and we owe much we value to Jesus himself.  He further articulated what had long been established as the way of God.  “Do as you would be done by, pay no one evil for evil, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the merciful.”

It is hard to know how to respond to this disturbing outbreak -- certainly not with counter-violence.  In many ways, the church has stood courageously this summer in all kinds of potentially volatile situations. The UCC’s Traci Blackmon has been a particularly effective spokesperson and we should support her leadership with enthusiasm.

The real danger at the moment is that the onslaught of what was once considered unthinkable arrives daily, and it is as exhausting as it is disturbing.  There’s an old saying that even in an election year, most people don’t pay much attention to politics until after the World Series.  To political junkies, this seems incomprehensible.  But when you think about it, one of the main tasks of government is to provide stability in a society so that people can get on with their lives.  When everything is topsy-turvy all the time, and evil, disruption and the not-normal becomes normal, people find it hard to know how to maintain their lives without a foreboding sense of anxiety.  It’s hard to keep on keeping on.

But here’s the thing.  We must.  Paul in his letter to the Galatians says this, “Let us not grow weary in doing good for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.  So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”  

In other words, don’t let the hooligans grind you down.  Write, pray, talk; rage, rant, thunder if you must.  But don’t give one inch to hate or Horror.  Not one.

Dan

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The Violence on the Earth

This is a post I originally made on July 16, 2016 when I was writing for First Church Congregational in Fairfield.  Going forward, I will post original material but this seemed relevant at the moment.

The First Word July 19, 2016 Rev. Daniel England First Church Congregational

Are you getting a little numbed by headlines these days?  Never mind the slog to the Presidential election which seems intent on putting as many tears in the social fabric as possible.  No, I am speaking of violence.  In 1963, when four little girls were killed by a Ku Klux Klan bomb at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, the nation reeled and that evil moment was the catalyst for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  These days we, with more efficient killing machines on hand, we are reeling every day -- kids killed at their school, church people killed at a Bible Study, and so forth. Any one of these should lead to something but I fear it is only leading to fear.

There was another time like this.  It came before history even really got started and is recorded in the book of Genesis.  Everyone knows about the flood and the ark and the animals and all that.  But what people forget is the reason for God repenting that he ever made human beings in the first place.  Here it is.

Genesis 6:11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

Violence caused God to nearly give up on humanity.  But read on.  God had a better idea (he usually does, thank God).  He chose a remnant of people (Noah and family) who he covered with grace to be the beginning of a history of grace, first through the Jews and then ultimately through Christ.  It is not lost on anyone that Noah passing through the waters of the flood was an archetype for Jesus and his baptism in the Jordan and the baptism of his death before landing on the Ararat of the resurrection. And?  And this.  A few nights ago members of this church joined with the disciples of the First Baptist Church of Stratford in a candlelight vigil of mourning for those recently slain and to renounce violence on the earth.  There were about a hundred people there, not many perhaps, but enough to make the point.   And?  And so I tell everyone who will listen about that night, quietly, and wait for them to nod, which they will do.  And say something like we need to have hundreds of these vigils all over the nation to turn the tide from violence to reconciliation and peace.  It’s just planting a seed.  Will it do any good?  Of course it will.  Tell people about the vigil between a predominantly black church and a predominantly white church. Tell them that we were all there together. It’s what we all have to do to overcome an earth filled with violence. Dan