We visited our granddaughter Hannah Marie last weekend and took some pictures. To see more click here.

Of course we got back in time for service on Sunday, and then in the evening went to Hartford Stage to see an impressive presentation of "I Am My Own Wife" at Hartford Stage. I will say more about this in my next post.

Wedding Anniversary

Last Friday, April 20, 2007 Kathleen and I celebrated our 38th Wedding Anniversary (that is her pictured above). We had dinner at the Gelston House and then went next door to the Goodspeed Opera House where we saw the opening night of Singing in The Rain. It was a wonderful experience, the first time we had been to the Goodspeed (or the Gelston House) since coming to Connecticut nearly 10 years ago.

I did not expect to enjoy the play as much as I did. Broadway Musicals are a form of entertainment for which I have less appreciation than Kathleen does. However it was a very different experience seeing the production in a very small and intimate house (about 300 seats). It was an excellent performance, and made even more fun by the fact that the production started before you got into the Theater. I don't know if this will happen every night, but for opening night they had spotlights and a red carpet lined with actresses contumed as reporters with flash cameras and big microphones contucting interviews with play goers as we entered.

I also noted with some satisfaction that people really dressed for the theater. Coming from the south I have been shocked to see people come so casual to plays at both the Bushnell and Hartford stage. In Louisville you would see men in tuxedos for opening night at Actors Theatre, and the director always appeared on stage in Tux for the opening remarks. I didn't see a tux at this opening night, but I certainly didn't see cut off jeans either. Almost all the women had on fancy dresses, most of the men coats and ties.

I guess I am old fashioned, but I appreciate that!

The picture says it, Marriage Equality. Yesterday First Presbyterian hosted a prayer breakfast for Connecticut Clergy for Marriage Equality. After breakfast and a keynote speaker, Bishop John Selders we walked over to the press conference at the Capitol. Here is my set of pictures from the event. Another set by Chion Wolf

I just finished reading Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill. Joe Hill is the pen name of the son of Steven King, although you would never know it from reading the book. I only found this out and discovered the book because I heard an interview on NPR. I enjoyed the book, it was more than slightly scary. While he is not his father he has great potential as a horror writer. He has published short stories previously, but this is his first novel. I got the book at Boarders, it is probably widely available.

The premise of the book is that Jude Coyne, aging rock star, buys a ghost off the internet, and what comes in the mail in a heart shaped box is a suit. Along with the suit comes the ghost of the old man, who is determined to kill Jude and his present girlfriend. We soon discover that he has been duped into buying this ghost; it was sold to him by the sister of a previous and now deceased girlfriend. For the next 376 pages we are off on a trail of near insanity, mayhem, close calls and a final ending surprise. If you like this kind of escapist reading (the cover describes it as “Dark Fantasy”) it is worth buying.

I have begun on Anne Lamott’s newest book Grace (Eventually). I have only read the first chapter so far, but it promises to be as funny, tragic, redeeming and inspirational as her previous writings. What ever she writes I read; her thoughts on faith or her fiction (often close to autobiographical) are a seamless piece of insight into the wonderful adventure we call life. The bonus for me is that she is Presbyterian, a member of a Multicultural Church and I have been privileged to meet her pastor and some of the “Church Ladies” she so often mentions.

I also bought Robin Roberts’ new book, From the Heart – Seven Rules to Live By. There was an excellent and favorable review and interview published by Essence.com. Robin is officially a member of First Presbyterian Church, Hartford, CT. She joined when she was living in Farmington and working for ESPN. Although she has moved to New York and is now Co-Anchor on Good Morning America she maintains her membership here and attends occasionally. In person she is a wonderfully gracious person, just as she is on camera. One reason we went to Camp Coast Care for our Summer Youth Mission Trip and in February for our Adult Mission was that most of their work is in Pas Christian, Mississippi, which is where Robin grew up. Her mother still owns a home there, which like the rest of Pas Christian was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

The next book I will be buying within the week (while it is 40% off for Borders Books members) is J.R.R.Tolkein's The Children of Hurin. I know he has been dead for 30 or so years, but his 83 year old son has edited this from other of his works, published and unpublished. It should be an interesting read.

Tragedy in Virginia

As I write on April 17 it is hard to think without thinking about the violence at Virginia Tech yesterday. We live in a violent society, a violent world. Despite admonitions in all of the worlds great religions against killing we know that murder has been welling up in the human heart from the very beginning. We find this expressed in the stories of our first parents how jealousy and hatred built up between their children and Cain rose up and killed Abel. We quickly learn two things from God’s dealing with this situation, first that God condemns murder, and second that God’s solution is not to murder (or execute) the murderer. The mark of Cain was given not to condemn him, but to protect him from others who might take his life.

While the problem of violence is not new, I believe that violence and particularly murder has become a greater problem in modern times than ever before. Despite the spread of education and “civilization” in our modern world the more civilized societies of modern times seem more violent than those of the more “primitive” past. The scale of the genocide in the Nazi holocaust was unprecedented in the previous history of the world; what is going on in Darfur is equally tragic. In a matter of days in August 1945 just two bombs killed thousands of Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an act of violence unparalleled in the history of the world. Yesterday we saw a single individual kill at least 33 people in a matter of hours. There may have been some motive for two of the killings that have been described as arising out of a love relationship, but the rest of the killings seem totally random.

What is the cause of such widespread violence; what can we do to change the direction of history?

I immediately think of three modern trends that contribute to the problem.

• One is the widespread availability of guns and explosives. It is much easier for a single individual or small group to perpetrate deadly violence with a gun or bomb than it ever was with clubs, knives, or the bow and arrow. While better control over the availability of firearms is not the sole answer (even today the mayor of Nagasaki, Japan was critically shot and Japan has very strict gun control) it is part of the answer. In a Presbyterian News Service article about religious reactions to the Virginia Tech tragedy the following comments speak to this concern: In Geneva, the general secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Rev. Setri Nyomi said: “We pray to God that the families, friends and colleagues of the victims will some day find healing, ... We pray also for the United States of America and all nations as they struggle to overcome the temptation to rely on arms and as they work to find true security for all their peoples.”
  In New York, National Council of Churches General Secretary Bob Edgar echoed Nyomi’s call for an end to violence. “The escalation of gun violence compels us to call for an end to the manufacture and easy distribution of such instruments of destruction,” he said.
  “A faith that expresses compassion for all God’s children is opposed to violence in all forms,” Edgar continued, noting that numerous U.S. faith leaders “have spoken up continually about the epidemic of gun violence in our country. Despite repeated calls from faith and community leaders to Congress and presidents nothing ever seems to get done to stem the tide.”
• A second cause of violence in our society is a whole culture that both glamorizes violence and promotes it as a viable solution to personal and political problems. From mainstream television and movies to video games and rap music the media glamorizes violence, makes it seem normative, and worst of all perpetuates the myth that it is an acceptable, even necessary way to solve problems. The wildly popular television series 24 (which I love as a drama and hate to miss, but at the same time I hate with a passion as a propaganda piece) is as guilty as is the president of our nation of perpetuating the myth that we can solve the world’s problems by resort to violence and warfare. If violence is the answer to terrorism, oppressive governments, and civil war then how can we tell individuals that it is not a legitimate way to deal with their personal problems?
• Third, all the stress of living in a fast paced, urbanized, highly competitive and anonymous world increase the likelihood that individuals will loose hold of their sanity, their good sense, and their moral inhibitions.
  
  Is it not the Church’s business to promote a counter culture of peace and reconciliation, love and understanding? This underlines the importance of the simple act of lighting a candle for peace to stand as a beacon of hope calling us and all the world from darkness to light, from violence to peace. It is our business to build community instead of anonymity, to teach people to live deeper than the stresses of the present moment, to get in touch with the basic values of life and with the one who brings meaning and value to all of our lives.
  

Vestments as Costumes

This is me on Good Friday in the street procession. It was one cold and windy day. I usually wear a black cassock and the stole shown above for this event, but I felt I needed my winter coat and the Chasuble was the only vestment that would fit over my winter coat. Actually it did make a rather striking image accompanied by beret and earmuffs.

Seeing myself made me think of a Unitarian clergy friend who would never vest for services in the Church but who wears a Roman Collar and stole in peace protests. I asked her why she did this, since even more than Presbyterians Unitarians believe in the parity of clergy and laity. She said that street demonstrations were a form of theater, and costumes seemed legitimate in that context.

I do admit that sitting in the meeting of the Judiciary Committee on Thursday with my Equality sticker on I did think it would have been good to have on a Roman collar to be identifiable as clergy. [for out of state readers, the committee voted overwhelmingly to send a bill to the CT Legislature establishing same sex marriage. If passed we will be the first state to have marriage equality by action of the legislature. Mass had same sex marriage also, but it was mandated by the court system.) I have pretty much rejected wearing a clerical collar as making a distinction I do not want to preserve between clergy and lay people; but there are times when one legitimately wants to be recognized as clergy since society gives certain deference to clergy as opinion leaders.

Follow this link for more pictures from the Procession on Good Friday and services on Easter Sunday.

This is the bread I baked for Easter. It is a Greek Easter Bread variously called Tsoureki or Lambropsomo. Literally translated Tsoureki means "braided; while Lambropsomo means "Easter Bread. I downloaded several recipes four years ago and amazingly this recipe is still on line at Fabulous Foods at the same URL as it was in April 03. The only variation I made in the recipe was to add 2 teaspoons of anise seeds from another recipe.

For dinner we ate a half a leg of lamb fixed Greek Style with lots of herbs and garlic, roasted potatoes, spring asparagus and a store bought pie. The pie did come from Trader Joe's, and their deserts are generally outstanding.

What a great Holy Week and Easter. We had services with Westminster Presbyterian on Holy Thursday, Good Friday Center City Churches organized a processional on Main Street, praying at significant sites for Peace and justice, reconciliation and healing. Despite an overcast sky and bitter cold winds 65 people participated.

Easter at First Presbyterian Church was great, 125 people attended, the church was filled with Easter Lillies, we had great music on trumpet, organ and piano along with the choir and congregation singing. I had a good sermon, and it was short, less than ten minutes! Follow this link for pictures from Good Friday and Easter.

We had no guests for dinner, but Kathleen and I had a wonderful Easter Dinner, we roasted a half a leg of Lamb (with lots of Garlic and Herbs) and served with roasted potatoes and fresh Asparagus, and had an apple pie for desert. (I didn't make it, but Trader Joes sells great pies.)

Hope For Spring

Despite the cold and a prediction of lows tonight in the upper 30s the first jonquils are blooming in the Church Garden. The sun is out today - on Sunday we celebrate the resurrection of the one we hail as the Hope of the World.

It seems nice to me that both the Western and Orthodox churches celebrate Easter on the same day this year, although a friend told me that his Orthodox friends were disappointed that they couldn't go and get their Easter Candy for half price on the Monday after Western Easter.

PRAYING FOR JUSTICE ON THE STREET CORNERS
On Good Friday March 6, 2007 we hope to have hundreds of people take a walk on Hartford's Main St. to pray on the street corners, following Jesus' Cross, praying for justice, for peace for reconciliation and for healing for our city. Check out and feel free to circulate our flier. If you want to see the liturgy before participating check it out here.

I have emailed this information rather widely and one response I received was from a person who is part of the Connecticut Network of Spiritual Progressives. I followed her link to their website and was tremendously impressed. I certainly felt a spiritual link to the values and ideas expressed. You might be interested also.

SAME SEX MARRIAGE
I listened yesterday to a part of the 12 hours of testimony for and against the bill before the Joint Judiciary Committee to authorize same sex marriage in Connecticut. I had testified two years ago, but did not this year, but as I listened I really wanted to say something. Again and again legislators seemed to be saying in one way or another that they didn't want to discriminate against gays and lesbians (no one mentioned bisexual or transgendered), but that the legislature had already given them all the rights of marriage through civil unions. Several of them kept on at Anne Stanback wanting to know why it was so important to call same sex relationships "marriages."

What this sounds like to me is the same old separate but equal argument that we rejected when it came to rights for African Americans. There were people in the 1950s who wanted to know why Rosa Parks was not satisfied to sit in the back of the bus. After all the back of the bus is going the same place as the front.

Why do LGBT people want marriages, civil unions get them the same rights.?

I just revised yesterday's post. I was being frustrated yesterday because one link was disappearing when I published the blog. Only when I reread it today did I realize that more than that one link was missing, most of the first paragraph had disappeared. Since I didn't save my first draft I may not have put everything in that I had said yesterday, but I did restore some of it.

Last night we saw the play Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. I laughed myself silly. Luis Alfaro has taken a hilarious look at some heavy subjects such as obesity and family/personal relationships. His dialog is excellent, at one and the same time it sounds like real people talking, and also like poetry. The play, with its all Latino cast of four excellent actors/actresses continues through April 1 at Hartford Stage.

A review in the Courant called the play a work in progress. I would agree with this. This is the first full scale production of the play, and the development director who came out and gave a pre-play talk said that is the course of rehearsals and even the preview performances that Alfaro continued to change lines, even some whole scenes were rewritten.

By the way, I really appreciate that a real person comes out on stage before the performance. This is live theater for crying out loud, it seems totally inappropriate that a disembodied voice does the opening announcements, even if those announcements are only reminders not to take pictures and to turn off your cell phones. Jon Jory, the long time director of Actors Theatre Louisville often did this opening monologue himself, at least on opening night. It is part of getting to know the people who ARE the theater, especially important in a residential theater.

The one disturbing thing was the very last scene, Minnie drifts away higher and higher, out of sight, then there is an explosion – debris like large confetti falls down on the stage and the stage goes dark. Kathleen didn’t like the ending because it wasn’t a neat or happy ending. I thought it was all right to end with the explosion like a giant balloon which Minnie had become by the end of the play. What bothered me was that for the curtain call Minnie (who just exploded) came drifting down from overhead, still of course in her fat suit. I would have liked to have her appear for curtain call either as herself without the fat suit, or at least reduced to the size she was when the play began.

FEELING GOOD - DOING GOOD
These thoughts will be published as my Pastor's Column in the April issue of First Thoughts, the newsletter of First Presbyterian Church. www.firstpreshartford.org

Back in January Jeannette Brown, president of the Center City Churches Board, shared an article from the New York Times Magazine entitled Happiness 101. I just got around to reading it and found it most stimulating. Early in the article a professor teaching a positive psychology class at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA makes the distinction between feeling good and doing good. Doing pleasurable things that make a person feel good does not really lead to lasting happiness, rather it leads to greater appetite for pleasure. After giving students an assignment to do something that gave them pleasure, then they were asked to perform an act of selfless kindness.

In this exercise the students learned the difference between feeling good and doing good. Almost universally they reported that doing good gave them a greater sense of happiness and satisfaction than did the more self centered pleasures. They learned that doing good is good for you.

I think of how much emphasis this congregation puts on getting involved in helping others through supporting the Souper Bowl Sunday and the Walk Against Hunger, volunteering at MANNA Community Meals, the Senior Café, the MANNA Food Pantry and Habitat for Humanity. We just sponsored a Mission Trip to help with hurricane recovery, we support Covenant to Care as well as visiting, encouraging, praying for our own members who are sick or in need. We do all of these things because Jesus calls us to these acts of mercy and human kindness; because our Lord commands us to feed the hungry and house the homeless, but the article suggests that we do benefit our selves from what we do.

My own experience as a volunteer echoes the findings of the George Mason Professor, that doing good benefits the one who volunteers; other involved Church members express the same experience. The girl scout leaders who traveled with us to Mississippi were talking about the real satisfaction that they felt in mentoring these girls from the time they were little and seeing them grow into responsible adults.

People looking at our service from the outside often think of “do gooders” as being dedicated, driven by duty to sacrifice our own pleasure to serve others without understanding the real joy that we feel in service.

If you are not involved in making the world a better place I would invite you, I would challenge you, to get involved, not just because you should but because you can, and because of the great benefit you will derive, as well as the benefit that others will receive from your service.

Sunday Hartford lost a great man, those of us who knew him lost a wonderful friend. John Hunt died on Sunday. John had volunteered at Sanchez elementary school for over 15 years, initially planning to do tutoring one afternoon a week, but ending up so in love with teaching that he was tutoring in the classroom four days a week, mentoring children, providing eye glasses for those who needed them, and promised three dozen students that he would pay for their college education. He has followed these kids through the years as a friend and mentor.

A front page article appeared in today's Hartford Courant and you will find links there to a previous story on John. His obituary also appeared in the paper today.

Also Saturday, March 17, 3:00-4:30 pm
Statewide rally to oppose the war
Old State House (800 Main Street, Hartford)
For details, see http://www.ctcow.org/.

Here is an excellent opportunity to hear an outstanding author and scholar speak about homosexuality and the church. Former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly Jack Rogers will be speaking and signing his book Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality at First Presbyterian Church in New Haven, at 7:30 PM Thursday, March 15. For all the details follow this link.

First Presbyterian Church in Hartford (136 Capitol Ave., Hartford, CT) is in the midst of a study of his book and anyone would be welcome to join in the last sessions of this study. Adult Forum meets at 9:15 AM on Sundays, Remaining sessions are March 18 and 25. Click here for details.

Follow this link for news coverage from the News conference I mentioned on Wednesday.

Yesterday we had a very interesting planning meeting for a Good Friday procession. This is the beginning of our planning. The procession will begin at noon on Good Friday, April 6, 2007 at South Congregational Church at Buckingham and Main Streets in Hartford. This is also the home for the Center City Churches MANNA food pantry; there we will read I THIRST. Our thoughts and prayers will focus on those who lack the basic necessities of life. A second stop will take us to Main and Park, an empty lot in view of two homeless shelters. There as we hear Jesus cry MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME we will focus on those who feel abandoned by God and by society. We will continue with stops at the Charter Oak Cultural Center and Betances Elementary, The Federal Building, City Hall, Central Baptist Church, and return to South Church.

All are welcome, signs and banners, vestments and costumes are all welcome.

Planners include Center City Churches Clergy, along with members of Plowshares Institute, and Episcopal Peace Fellowship.

Our beautiful granddaughter Hannah Marie had her first birthday last month. If you would like to see more pictures you may follow This link

I will be one of a number of clergy speaking at a press converence today in favor of a State Earned Income Tax Credit. This is what I will be saying:

My brothers and sisters, we have gathered here this morning as leaders of this State’s Mosques, Temples, Synagogues, Churches and other religious organizations to demand that our state do justice for the lowest paid working people of our state. We do not come here hat in hand begging the legislature to please throw some crumb to the poor, we come as a body united in demanding justice for the working poor.

One of the most basic and elementary principles of justice is that those who have been advantaged to have enough and more than enough of the material things of this life have a greater responsibility to provide for the common good of the community. In other words the burden of taxation should fall on the middle and upper class, not on the shoulders of the impoverished. Justice for the poor was written into the original fabric of our income tax system so that the more affluent pay a greater percentage of their income in taxation, and the less affluent pay a smaller percentage.

This system had become so riddled with loopholes that often the richest members of our society pay the smallest percentage of their income in income taxes, and without exception the affluent pay less of their income than do the poor for property taxes and sales taxes.

The Federal Earned Income Tax Credit is a basic first step to providing justice for the poor, it provides a tax credit for low income wage earners. It is not a benefit for those who do not work; it is a help to those who work hard to provide for their families, yet still earn low wages.

What we are asking, what we are demanding today is that our state do justice for the poor and enact a State Earned Income Tax Credit. Specifically we are demanding is a simple system that would provide that everyone eligible for the Federal Credit would also receive an additional one quarter of this amount as a State Earned Income Tax Credit. In a state where we are enjoying huge surpluses in the state budget, and where our rainy day fund is filled to overflowing this is not a budget breaker.

We are today calling on our legislators not to do something some day, but to do this one thing in this legislative session. Thank You.

Our Adult Forum for March promises to be a very interesting study of a topic that is a hot button issue in many religious bodies, homosexuality. What does the Bible really teach? Should we ordain Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and transgender persons (LGBT) as officers, as clergy? Should the Church sanction, forbid or encourage same sex marriages?

Adult Forum takes place at 9:15 AM most Sundays from September through May. Each Sunday in March the Adult Forum will be studying Jack Rogers' book “Jesus, the Bible and Homosexuality: Explode the Myth and Heal the Church.” Jack Rogers is Professor Emeritus of Theology at San Francisco Theological Seminary and was moderator of the 213th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). more details Professor Rogers will be lecturing at First Presbyterian Church, New Haven on Thursday, March 15 at 7:30 PM. Lecture details