Interfaith Thanksgiving Eve Service: One Nation, Many Faiths

Theme for the Evening: Neighborliness

This year marks the third annual interfaith Thanksgiving Eve worship service on Phinney Ridge in Seattle. In the past two years, the service has attracted about 500 worshipers. It aims to make friends from strangers, to weaken growing tensions between religions, and to remind people that at the core of all major religions are shared values: compassion, justice, neighborliness, peace, kindness, and love.

More information about the service can be found on its facebook page.

I have been privileged to be part of the planning team for the past three years. I am proud to say that I have become friends with the other organizers. It is our goal to continue to build relationships throughout the year. We have been invited to worship at Masjid Umar Al Farooq and at Temple De Hirsch Sinai. And, at Woodland Park United Methodist Church this Advent, we are celebrating our anticipation of the birth of the Prince of Peace by inviting representatives from Muslim, Buddhist, and Jewish religions to come and teach us about the basic tenets of their faith, the role of peace in their faith, and the struggles in attaining peace that they face.

The service begins at 6:30 PM at Sakya Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism (108 Northwest 83rd Street) with spinning of the prayer wheels followed by a procession to Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church where the remainder of the service will begin at 7:30 PM. If you have mobility restrictions, feel free to attend only the service at Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church.

Cecile Hansen of the Duwamish tribe will introduce the offering.
The offering will benefit the Duwamish and Great Harvest Food Bank.

Sponsoring Organizations: Sakya Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism, Masjid Umar Al Farooq, Temple De Hirsch Sinai, St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church, Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church, St. John United Lutheran Church, Luther Memorial Lutheran Church, Woodland Park Presbyterian Church, and Woodland Park United Methodist Church.

The public is encouraged to attend. Dessert and fellowship will follow the worship service. Childcare is provided.

come out, come out, wherever you are

National Coming Out Day was Oct 11. This is a short note of encouragement for all who still live in the closet and who yearn to be fully known by family and friends. This is a word of comfort to those who have come out and have been shunned by family and friends. And this is a word of hope to all who continue to seek love and acceptance in their families, from their friends, and in their faith communities. Coming out never seems to be a finished process so take it easy and do it at your own pace. I know that I, despite not being in the closet for most of my adult life, find myself having to explain who I am all of the time. Not only do gay-identified Christians have to come out as GLBT but we also have to come out, if you will, as Christian in the queer community. It has never been easy to be Christian and GLBT. It also has been a struggle to be GLBT and a Christian. There are, however, faith communities of all denominations that welcome us openly and warmly. Please seek them out. What a wonderful step toward wholeness to be in a community that celebrates the wholeness of our creation!

the amish, violence, and christianity

The nation stood still in horror when a man attacked children at a small Amish school house. How could someone do that to children, to Amish children? Sister Joan Chittister writes about the experience in the National Catholic Reporter in an article called "What kind of people are these?" The school is now gone, to be replaced by a pasture. It was demolished by a people who want no monument to the violence that might invite gawkers or tourists.

Progressive Christians have the opportunity to stand firmly against violence and the enticing lure of retribution. When our hearts are wounded and our souls broken it is tempting to believe that coercion or violence will lead us out of the pain, but that road inevitably leads to more woundedness. Whether faced with nuclear arms build up in North Korea, a dead-end policy in Iraq (655,000 Iraqis now dead, over 3,000 Americans now dead), or school shootings in the United States we have options of how to repond. We do not have to respond to violence with violence. Will we continue to act from places that embrace violence or from places that embrace the gospel that has transformed our lives?

Joan Chittister: "The country that went through the rabid slaughter of children at Columbine high school several years ago once again stood stunned at the rampage in a tiny Amish school this month.

We were, in fact, more than unusually saddened by this particular display of viciousness. It was, of course, an attack on 10 little girls. Amish. Five dead. Five wounded. Most people called it "tragic." After all, the Amish represent no threat to society, provide no excuse for the rationalization of the violence so easily practiced by the world around them.

Nevertheless, in a nation steeped in violence..." (more)
________
Sister Joan Chittister is a Benedictine Sister of Erie who writes about women's issues, justice, and peace.

personal choice, mother earth, and the sanctity of (h)earth

despite my commitment to challenging the systems that create poverty, helping my glbt brothers and sisters find a home in the church and equal rights in their nation, and my yearning for peace, i believe that the most important and crucial issue facing us is the environment. thankfully, i don't believe that i have to neglect issues of poverty, personal liberty, and peace in order to address god's good earth. in fact, i believe they are all constitutive parts of god's peaceable kin-dom.

god commanded us to be stewards of the earth. we've done a pretty miserable job at it, too. as we move into stewarship season in our churches, a lot of churches will spend the time trying to increase the financial contributions of their members for the sake of next year's budgets. i am trying my hardest to get folks to make this "stewardship season" for their whole lives - at church and at home. i'm giving it a go in my home as well. i'm looking at ways that i can live more simply. i am reviewing all of the organizations to which i contribute money and i am making informed choices about next year's giving. and, i am looking at ways to make my home more kind to the earth and her inhabitants.

we can, one choice at a time, impact the earth in increadible ways. it is remarkable the amount of power that we have to heal the earth and to be the stewards that god would have us be - one house at a time, one light bulb at a time, one bleach free product at a time, one energy efficient appliance at a time. for those who live in the seattle area, there are financial incentives for making "green" choices in our homes. from solar powered hot water systems to tank free systems to the appliances that we purchase, the city has a program that encourages us to make ethical and moral choices that lay at the heart of good stewardship.

as a pastor who lives in a parsonage, i struggle with how much of my money i am willing to invest in a house that i don't own. for over a year, i have wanted to shift my hot water to solar power. it's almost financially possible, but it feels just out of reach - especially because the house is not mine. more and more i've been wanting to buy my own home so that i would feel more comfortable about the financial outlays that it will take to live as i think that i ought to. sometimes i wonder if this conflict is another excuse to maintain the status quo, though. is it any less good stewardship to leave this gift for the pastor who will follow me? i don't know where this internal conversation will lead...

if you are a home owner in the area, please check out the city's website that shows all of the ways they will support choices that make homes more friendly for the earth. some of the choices cost very little; some are very expensive.

however, not all personal choices to tend mother earth are expensive and prohibitive. we can, indeed, sanctify our hearths with small changes that require little expense. if everyone would just replace one light bulb with one that has an energy star label, we (the nation) would save $600 million in electricity bills and would prevent greenhouse gasses equivalent to 1 million cars(1). the epa's website contains a page where you can fill in a pledge to change just one light bulb and make a difference. please respond to the energy start change a light, change the world challenge and make the pledge. i encourage everyone i know to make the little changes because we all can. and, if and when we are privileged to be able to do it, we should make big ones.

the evidence is incontrovertible, the earth is dying because of our greed and misuse. the cure is also as clear: we can make a difference. we can heal the earth one personal choice at a time, and our mother earth will again be alive and vibrant along with all of her inhabitants. and, when we make these changes in our homes, we sanctify them and bless them with god's joy. that's why this blog is called personal choice, mother earth, and the sanctity of the (h)earth - the personal choices that we make at our hearth will forever affect our mother earth.

for more information about energy star, please go here.

jesus camp...what the? (finding good things for kids)

if you're like me, you've seen the recent media frenzy around the documentary on a cultic and abusive camp in north dakota called "jesus camp." i am not going to get into my rants and raves against the media who cower in the midst of abusive people who call themselves christian, refusing to ask the hard theological and psychological questions for fear of being called "anti-christian." it seems like people get a pass if they use the word "christian" to self-identify when really most who feel the need to do so are mis-using the faith that means so much to me. if you're reading this blog, then you already believe that it is anti-christian to scare young children into tears over things like abortion, gay marriage, hell, and the military. instead of giving credence to this group by giving them air space, wouldn't it be great it the media covered all of the christian materials that support healthy and whole children, that contribute to good psychological development, and that encourage children to grow into questioning, reflective and caring adults who are deeply committed to a god of love and justice?

church camp can be a tricky thing. camps often reflect the theology and temperment of the person in charge. before i send kids off to camp, i try to find out who's in charge, what kinds of things they'll be doing, how they will worship, and what they will be singing. as a child i attended a pretty fundamentalist and charismatic camp for a few years. it took a lot of work to undo the mess made of my soul. i also attended really wonderful united methodist camps in arkansas. i remember in high school attending a forum where pastors debated sin and hell and all of those things that people get hung up on. this was the first place that i ever encountered adults willing to say out loud that they didn't believe in a literal hell or a literal heaven. it was in this place where i first was encouraged to think about such things in terms of states of being rather than physical destinations. camp can be dangerous; it also can be a place of incredible spiritual growth and formation where life-long friendships are made.

there are lots of curricula and materials out there that seem really good on paper, but i have found many of them problematic to actually use with kids; they're just not practical. one of the difficulties of being a progressive christian is that we want kids to learn a process more than we want them to learn things - dogma, doctrine, rules. i want the kids in the churches i serve to learn to think about and reflect on god, to look beyond themselves and even their faith tradition to the gifts and goodness found in others, and to value the fragile earth which god gave us to tend and protect.

during easter, interestingly, "resurrection eggs" are a hit with my church's kids. there is a book that you can purchase that tells the story along with the eggs. it's a good mixture of kitsch and information. i see adults playing with them on easter as well. because they are funny, it takes some of the edge off of the difficult theology without leaving out the tough parts of the story.

spiritual formation curricula that are interesting to kids are difficult to find. kids also seem to like pockets, a monthly activity magazine (and web resources) published through the upper room. sprouts is a resource in the same series for younger children, but i've never used it. there is a curriculum in the companions in christ series just for children, but the kids that i know have found it a bit boring. by and large, we make curricula work for us at wpumc, but we have never found the "perfect" thing. however, it's clear that kids get more out of indirect learning than we often assume. it's important to engage children in the missions of the church and in the function of worship. i'm always amazed at what gets brought to my attention by the children of this church. they learn as much from how we do church than from what we try to teach them.

here are some books that i like to use with children. some are for small children and others are for older elementary kids. if you have materials that you have used and have found helpful, let me know. i'm always looking.

mama, do you love me? by barbara m joose, illustrated by barbara lavelle
in god's name by sandy eisenberg sasso, illustrated by phoebe stone
in our image - god's first creatures by nancy sohn swartz, illustrated by melanie hall
the harry potter series - by j.k. rowling
easter - by gail gibbons (the pictures are a little uniformly white, but a good book anyway)
claire and francis - by guido visconti and bimba landmann
jesus, the word - by mark francisco bozzuti-jones, illustrated by shelly hehenberger
the last supper - original spanish version by mada carreno, illustrated by bety fischman
on the day you were born - by debra frasier (this is one of my favorites! it also has a list of other really great books in the back)
the story of passover - by norma simon, illustrated by erika weihs
god created - by mark francisco bozzuti-jones, illustrated by jui ishida
creation - by gerald mcdermott
noah's ark - editor, victoria forlini (male language for god, but is a sound book so little kids like to push the buttons and make the sounds...)
becoming me: a story of creation - by martin boroson, illustrated by christopher gilvan-cartwright (my all time favorite!!!! hands down the best!!!)
the story of religion - by betsy and giulio maestro (good overview of world religions)
what is god's name - by sandy eisenberg sasso, illustrated by phoebe stone
god loves you - by kathleen long bostrom, illustrated by elena kucharik

these are just some of the books that i have found to be beautifully illustrated, theologically sound (for the most part), encouraging, and accessible. but my favorite books are all on loan (except for becoming me). as they are returned, i'll add them to this list.