IT'S REALLY SIMPLE LIVING a happy, healthy and bright Christian life. Simple yet hard! We forget in the midst of all the things we have to do today, to do the things that make and keep us well. Here are several key areas of Christian living and questions to help re-member your self in the risen Body of the Living Christ.

Ritual Worship Nike says, “Just do it!” and suddenly everybody is wearing the Swoosh symbol and feels cool. Why then when Jesus says “Do this in remembrance of me” is it now an issue, as if Nike were the God of victory over death, and not Jesus? Just do it! Indeed. There are other compelling reasons for just doing as Jesus commands, more theologically sound, but this should make the point. Do you attend Sunday services?

Shared Meals McDonald’s is the largest fast food purveyor in the world. Kids love to get Happy Meals. I know my kids loved theirs. Turns out this food isn’t doing it for the health of the peoples and nations of the world. Eat this food and one day you’ll wake up unable to recognize yourself in the mirror! It’s not a sustainable health diet, whatever the marketing spin doctors say.

The risen Jesus met two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and in the simple act of breaking bread in a shared meal they recognized their Lord. The command is obvious: have an occasional meal together so that the graces of hospitality and fellowship may re-form the faith community and help us re-member the Body of Christ in our daily life, and not just on Sunday morning. In a word, we need to broaden our table fellowship. Have you been to a church supper recently? Do you belong to a parish foyers group?

Common Values We don’t have to agree on all things to be members of an Episcopal parish. Actually over the centuries we’ve had serious disagreements with one another, occasionally even causing division and separation. Thankfully these moments in history have been for the most part only temporary. A recent parish “Holy Ground” pilgrimage to Gettysburg reminds us of one such a major Episcopal division over states’ rights and slavery. After the war, the bishops in the north invited the bishops in the south to rejoin their fellowship, and reconciliation ensued.

What do you value? Christ’s fellowship is very large and enduring, but not impervious to evil and death in this life. We need to mind our voices. A recent national controversy involving shock-jock radio talk show host Don Imus and the Rutgers University women’s basketball team has caused the entire nation to reflect on our core community beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. How are you imaging Christ’s values? Is your highest good the kingdom of God? Remembering that what the self describes, describes the self, how is your life showing forth the light of the Risen Lord?

Mutual Ministry “We all need someone we can lean on.” The lyrics are sung by Mick Jagger. I’m never quite sure what the Rolling Stones are singing about, but this much I get, we really can’t do it all alone. We need others.

The whole concept of re-membering the Body of Christ is premised in getting all the parts back together and working as God intended. No one person is more important than the other, all are interrelated and interdependent. Besides, it’s more fun as a group. Are you part of a small group doing ministry or mission in or through the parish? If not, then why not?

Collaborative Governance In the leadership culture of America the days of “My call, I made it,” are over. It’s all about working together administratively in small groups of enthusiastic people who share a common interest toward accomplishing a short term goal. Everybody has a voice that needs to be heard, and all voices must be spoken and listened to in cooperation with the spirit or purpose of the endeavor.

I remember my 14-year old son saying during painful exchange, “Dad, I’m trying the best I can but you’re not helping!” We’ve got to help one another. Learning how to speak with respect and value the voice of others is a good starting place and a skill all of us must develop further.

Collaborative governance requires true discernment and discretion to work well. Are you praying for leadership success in the parish? Are you supporting the corporate business and interests of the Body of Christ?

Rhythmic Celebration No, this isn’t about learning how to dance hip-hop or ballroom, although there must be something to this because so many people are enjoying “Dancing with the Stars"!

Here is meant the sanctification of time and experience over the course of a calendar year. The happy Christian celebrates life with deliberate joy and solemnity throughout the calendar year as part of the Body of God. What about your Easter holiday made you feel a part of Christ’s Body? What about the rest of the year? How can we help sanctify your daily life with offerings of thanks and joy, succor and support?

IT’S EASTER and school vacation week. This means many of our fellow parishioners are away around the country. Some are in the South where it’s unseasonably cold, but the flowers are up and the hint of spring is in the air. I know one of our families is on Amelia Island, in Florida. Never been there, but it sounds great. Then there’s us, celebrating Easter here in Central New York. What are we, nuts? It’s snowing outside!

You know, here in Central New York we don’t get to live off the fumes of springtime for our Easter faith. If we depended on Easter lilies or bright sunshiny mornings to get us closer to God, we would indeed go nuts! It just isn’t going to happen here in Central New York. But that’s okay. We’re all big boys and girls here. When we sing “Welcome happy morning” we have to mean it from the heart because Mother Nature isn’t going to help us. Snow on April 8 in Central New York – we’re happy, but it ain’t easy!

During Holy Week I walked into the parish office before the Good Friday service and met a young friend. He’s four years old. His mom is our new parish secretary and he was in the library. I said hello and he said, “Can you make my pirates come to life?” First the weather, and then “Can you give life to my toy figures?” from a four-year old. You need to know that this is the same kid who stood by the baptismal font several days ago, and said, “This is where God baptized my brother and me!”

I’m telling you. It’s Good Friday, and I’m getting down into the gloom of things, and that’s okay. We’re supposed to get down on Good Friday, but then there’s this kid who thinks I’m God heaping the resurrection of his pirates on me! It’s bad enough when adults amuse themselves by pointing out that clergy not God, as if that actually needs saying, but here’s this kid desperately wanting me to be God. And he wasn’t asking “Can I bring his toys to life?” He was asking “Will I bring his toys to life?” The weather, the questions, the expectations, the disappointments, the surprises, this is Easter, Central New York-style! It ain't easy.

What would you have said to my young friend? I looked right at him and said gruffly, without hesitation, “No, I can’t bring your pirates to life! That’s your job!” The truly bewildered look on his face was precious, and I knew I was over my head.

“But I can’t bring my pirates to life!” he pleaded.

This is where the story became our Easter homily. His brother who was also in the library, looked up at this point, and smiled the all-knowing smile of a six-year old, big brother. He pointed at his head and said, “Yes, you can. You can use your imagination!” I felt like I was inside the Guinness Stout commercial, you know, the one where two characters say and do crazy things and then exclaim, “Brilliant!”

My two young friends and I had brilliantly come to the end of a wild conversation and out of it came an understanding of how we can practice resurrection in our own lives. Jesus had it right when he said, “A little child shall lead them.” Kids at play imagine a great many things that you and I as adults have long since forgotten. Kids don’t have the doors of fear and anxiety and doubt closing them in yet, not as we do. They’re still wide open to the visible and invisible, the outward and visible and the inward and spiritual. For them the veil is still gossamer thin. They still live in the thin places of the Spirit, while we’ve become thick to the conversation.

Our job today is to recommit ourselves to practicing resurrection in our lives again. We need to use our heads in this life, yes, but we’ve also got to rediscover the imagination in our hearts, not in the prideful way that characterizes so much of life today, but in a way of humility that leaves room for the Spirit to come and bless us with new life. The point isn’t that Jesus is raised from the dead, although this is true and central to our remembrance. The point is that because Jesus is raised from the dead, we now can think and act and behave differently. We’ve got a whole new reference point, no longer the grave but now the Empty Tomb.

Easter morning is all about running to the place where the stone has been rolled away, letting go of our selves and letting God come back into our lives with new hope and new glory, especially through strange and fearsome changes. It’s easy to get old and think that because the sun refuses to shine over our region this day, there is no sun to shine at all when in truth the sun is shining all the day, whether it’s dark and gloomy or bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Whatever the circumstances of our day or night, God, our God is there overcoming evil and death.

Easter 2007 is a call to practice resurrection as our Presiding Bishop encourages us to do in her Lenten book, “On a Wing and a Prayer,” and to be joyful about it. Stop looking for things to be just the way they have always been or only how you want them to be, and start allowing again the possibility that you can do something great and wonderful, even if it’s only a little bit of playfulness in the parish library on Good Friday. Bring the awe and wonder, the glory and majesty, the beauty and the blessing back into play. Happy Easter!

HOLY WEEK MESSAGE – 2007. There’s a lot going on in your life today, and in the parish and world, indeed more than enough for most of us. For me it all comes together in the recent birth of a new parishioner. A new baby born to parishioners on St. Patrick’s Day! Just imagine the adventures that await her and her big brother and their generation in this century.

Yes, there’s a lot going on out there today. For some of us, okay let’s admit it, for all of us it gets pretty overwhelming at times. It takes faith, family, fortitude, and hope for the future, in combination or all together to get through it all sometimes. How can we help little Chloe prepare to meet all these goings-on well and fully, as a mature Christian person, in the spirit of the saints of God? Remember, we want to be one, too!

In the mysteries of Holy Week and Easter I encourage you to remember your Baptismal Covenant and especially the prayer offered for the newly baptized. You know the one, the one where the rector walks the baby down the aisle, reciting holy words. Here are those words –

Heavenly Father, we thank you that by water and the Holy Spirit you have bestowed upon this your servant the forgiveness of sin, and have raised her to the new life of grace. Sustain her, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit. Give her an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. Amen.

We all need to remember the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We all need to be sustained, enlightened, emboldened, both loved and loving, and enthused in life. It’s a great adventure, life and to truly celebrate life in all its fullness, we must admit unto ourselves the rest of the story, and never be afraid to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Only if we are ready and willing to own the truth including the dark side where evil and death have dominion, will we be truly empowered to practice resurrection.

This Holy Week begins with a Friday Al Jezeera Lecture as part of the Cazenovia Forum, a great recent addition to Cazenovia’s intellectual life, established by new St. Peter’s parishioner and friends. On Saturday, parishioners are invited to join our Peregrini on a solemn tour of the Peterboro Civil War Cemetery. Then there’s Palm Sunday including an afternoon workshop for our confirmands who are helping to design an Area-wide Youth Anti-Racism Event in September. On Tuesday afternoon the rector will share in a Cazenovia College Symposium on Conflicts and Differences. On Wednesday evening our Faith Adventurers and Teen Peregrini will enact their interpretation of the traditional Stations of the Cross. Other liturgies follow on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and finally, Easter Sunday.

Yes, there’s a whole lot going on in your life, in the life of the church, and in the world today, and it can be pretty overwhelming. In the face of it all, we might be tempted to back up and deny the reality in which we live or said differently in biblical words, to leave the Garden of Gethsemane be things get really out of hand. This is not our religion and practice however. We have been taught by our Lord that the way of life is the way of the cross. We press on knowing that God, our God is there, already there wherever it is that we find ourselves. We can never fall out of God’s everlasting Arms. Do not be afraid, therefore. Be of good courage for God, our God is here, there, everywhere. He is Risen!

A PRIMER ON CURRENT CHURCH CONFLICT – Part 2 (for Part 1, see preceding blog entry). Now, what’s all this about, anyway? Are all the conflicts and divisions and litigation in the church really worth it? We’re losing market share in this current ongoing conflict because other churches especially the non-denominational churches are sitting on the sideline, either not taking a stand on behalf of the rights of gays and lesbians or are themselves violently opposing them. Their appearance of peace and growth is in part premised in our just cause conflict. Yet no one stands outside of this action because it involves all of us. Conflicts and differences, where do they come from, what gets us into them, and how do we can go about resolving them. In a word more importantly, how can we relate better with one another?

First, I would argue that the absence of conflict is not necessarily a good thing or said in different words, peace is not simply the appearance of the absence of conflict, and not all conflict is all bad. One of you for example, might come forward and put your foot on my throat and demand, “Peace! Be still! Do as I say or I will hurt you.” I can assure you if your foot is big enough I will give every appearance of being at peace. Yet in the presence of such persuasion, coercion, hostility, violence or abuse there can be no real peace. These ways of imposing one person’s will or one group’s will over another are evil, plain and simple.

Peace can only exist where there is social justice and freedom of will and respect for the dignity of every human being at work in the relations of society and among the people, and peoples and nations of the world. Here in America, the Episcopal Church realized gays and lesbians deserve to live in true peace, or at least deserve the full support and empowerment of their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to seek and demand peace. We acted as a matter of social justice, and I say this in all humility because it was a thing long overdue.

Some in the church would have us pause over this action and think about it some more, or hopefully in their way of thinking, disown this action altogether. And they have tradition and scripture to support them. They quote the bible, especially the Old Testament. This is the core of the problem for the church today. This is the root source of our predicament. We all don’t read the bible in the same way, and this makes all the difference in this current and forthcoming religious conflicts. Stay with me here.

Whatever your moral compass in life is, it comes from some authority or power or relationship outside of yourself. We are not born as moral beings. We become moral beings. In the church our primary moral authority is the Bible. Now, if you read the Bible literally, literally word for word, you will get one outcome of moral directives. “The Bible says it, and I believe it, end of conversation.” If however you are a literate and not a literal reader of the Bible, you will get another entirely different outcome of Biblical directions for decision-making. I once told my son when he was young and took everything I said literally, “Here, take this hot pan of frying grease and throw it on the side of the house.” He did, literally throwing it on the side of the house! We’re on to something here.

Both you and I can say we believe the Bible contains all things necessary to living a moral life, but because we read and interpret the Bible differently, one a literate reader and the other a literal reader, we will disagree on the ways and means of what constitutes a moral being. This applies also in a larger sense to how members of other religions in the world today read and interpret their own sacred scriptures. This is a very important point I am making. It explains both current conflicts and differences in religion, and why they will remain intractable globally well into this century and beyond. It is a problem we ignore at our own risk.

This all is not just a squabble over differences between conservative and liberal Episcopalians here in America. This action resonates throughout global society, as evidenced by the virulent reaction of primates in Africa and Asia to alternative lifestyles. Our greater problem has to do with culture and religion, and our common humanity.

In a world of six and a half billion people, with two billion of those people Christian and one billion Muslim, and another three-quarters of a billion Hindu, nearly half of the world’s population today is triangulated by embedded differences in culture and religion, and therefore in world view. Conflicts and differences, we haven’t even begun to own the underlying tensions out there today, coming to a head in our time, threatening hope for the future.

We’ve got to find a way forward. The good news is many people of good will in all world religions are awakening to their responsibility and duty to step forward and be heard for justice and righteousness’ sake, for all people, everywhere.

The bad news is many really bright people still think and act as if religion is irrelevant to the future, as if religion is not an integral part of humanity. They treat the global world as a political or social engineering problem to be solved, and seek to reduce the world to manageable parts. Absolute truth and ultimate reality however, the stuff of religion and the mystery of humanity, transcends limited and flawed human governance and polity which tends to focus only on what is attainable and practical. In this pragmatic, even cynical approach the rest of humanity, those who are not part of the elite ruling order become problems to be solved or if necessary, eliminated.

True religion sees the global world today as a mysterious, beautiful, complexly harmonious mix of ethnicities and identities, regions and locales, genders and orientations, theologies and ideologies. We’re not objects to be fixed or commodities to be brokered in the market place or infidels needing to be converted. We’re people with differences that need to be respected and treated with sensitivity and understanding; having different needs that must be addressed because we’re all in this together.

In the past at the table of world dominance nation states like the U. S. and Russia have had national interests foremost in mind in their decision-making. Trans-national corporations like Microsoft and British Petroleum have had profit and market demand in mind. World organizations like the U. N. and the World Bank have had human law and protocols foremost in mind in their decision-making. True religion alone has mystery and beauty and harmony in mind for theirs is the vision of God. This voice must be also be heard in the future at the table of world decision-making if we are to progress toward world peace.

For an authentic voice, the leaders and peoples of world religion for their part must be truer to their divine call to worship God and to become the compassionate presence of God for one another and the people they are called to serve. Governments and foreign policy leaders for their part must admit religion matters and take counsel equally from world faith representatives. Whereas before politicians and their diplomats simply denied religion has any practical place in world governance matters, they are now realizing that peace in our time can only grow in a soil that has representatives of the world religions in the mix, all working together.

A PRIMER ON CURRENT CHURCH CONFLICT – Part 1 (for Part 2, see next blog entry). The Episcopal Church of the United States of America, of which I’m a priest, is passionate about human rights and therefore has become expert at conflicts and differences especially of the cultural, ethnic and identity kind. This may sound strange to hear. Think about it though. In this century of conflict much of the conflict is at origin ideological in nature, and ideology is based on a commitment to absolute truth and ultimate reality. Where else then would you expect conflict to arise but in religion whose business, whose stock in trade is absolute truth and ultimate reality.

We were there in Selma, Alabama. One of our seminarians was martyred in the South, a killing shotgun blast to the chest as he sought to protect a young black woman from an angry white man. In the 1960’s our clergy marched against the Vietnam War and thereby alienated and divided many congregations. Much later, against the first war in Iraq, our Presiding Bishop picketed the White House where one of his parishioners, the first President Bush, had residence. Conflicts and differences, we know all about them.

We ordained women priests when it wasn’t canonically legal to do so in 1974. Our House of Bishops, all men at the time convened an emergency meeting and declared the ordinations invalid. Three months later, the illegal women priests celebrated their first public Eucharist at a church in New York City, and the rest is history. One of those first eleven women priests, from right here in Central New York, got into an argument with her bishop and sued him in court.

We know conflict and differences. And when push comes to shove, we don't respond to bullying, we won't back up, we stand up for what is right. Some churches run when the going gets tough. The Episcopal Church of the 21st century holds to the truth even when it's not popular, even when our read on the truth changes and causes us to change our position or the practice of tradition and biblical interpretation.

Sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe, indeed it’s been said, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” Sometimes you have to be willing to sacrifice yourself for a greater good. If your cause is just you may end up having a far-reaching effect for the betterment of society. If your cause is not just, even if it enjoys wide support, it can have long-lasting detrimental effect. Think of past justifications for slavery and the oppression of women. You better get good therefore at knowing the motivation of your heart, what your reasons are for doing the things you do, and be sure that you’ve got more than only you and yours in mind. Only then, if we’re willing to step beyond our own selves and tribal loyalties, and see the greater ties that bind all together in our common humanity, will we ever get closer to the elusive ultimate good, what we in religion call the reign of God.

Most of the time though, it’s a matter of a little bit of advocacy here, a little bit of support there, a good deed done without credit, a word of encouragement spoken in private, a little stroll in the other person or group’s shoes. Over time, combined with hundreds and thousands of others, things eventually change for the better. Sometimes though, you’ve simply got to make it happen, now not later and damn the consequences. If the cause is just, there sometimes comes a time when one must press on even if it involves conflict. You might accomplish some lasting good, however lamentable the pain and suffering in the short run. Think for example of the American Civil War. What would America be like today if the Abolitionists and Unionists had compromised their commitment to equal justice and the greater good, and instead let evil continue to rule over our nation?

Today the Episcopal Church of the United States of America has a woman for presiding bishop, only 30 years after the great conflict over women's ordination. She’s got a doctorate in oceanography and is a licensed pilot. When Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was elected over four men a year and a half ago, on the floor of convention delegates appeared wearing buttons declaring, “It’s A Girl!” As our chief executive officer in the church Jefferts Schori gets to go around the world now and meet with other presiding bishops or primates, all men again by the way, many of whom don’t feel comfortable with a woman as their equal, much less a woman at the head of the richest, most powerful church in the Anglican Communion.

The Anglican Communion for the reader who don’t know these things, is a fellowship of 37 national churches or provinces as we call them who all have a common bond in history, having all come out of the Church of England. We call ourselves Anglicans, people of the English church heritage. Our history goes back to the first century of the Common Era. Things really took off for us after the Reformation with the global spread of the British Empire, when the Church of England became the Anglican Church in countries as close by as Canada and colonial America, and far away as Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa or Nigeria. In all today there are 87 million believers in the Anglican Communion. This is our background and working environment.

Right now the Episcopal Church is in a huge conflict with a small but vocal minority of fellow Anglicans, both here and around the world. This is where the story gets interesting, and relevant to our time. In recent years the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, meeting every three years as a national representative legislature to do church business, has advocated for gay and lesbian rights. We even approved the election of an openly gay man as bishop of the diocese of New Hampshire.

Many celebrated this moment, like the ordination of women and the election of a woman presiding officer, another step forward in respecting the dignity and freedom of every human being regardless of race, ethnicity, gender identity or orientation, theology or ideology. Others screamed blasphemy and damnation, and all hell broke loose. The archbishop of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, with a membership of 17 million, has stated publicly that he believes gays and lesbians are animals, a poignant remark from an African and not a little ironic as one recalls several recent centuries of prejudice, discrimination and racism by whites in global relations especially in Africa. He leads a hostile opposition to our General Convention, which opposition includes the Archbishop of Canterbury who thinks he trumps the self-autonomy and self-governance of a province in the Anglican Communion. These primates may choose to dis-invite the Episcopal Church from the Anglican Communion, but if the terms of party attendance include having to let the hosts and their best friends run or oversee our Episcopal Church, the filial fun of belonging isn't worth the price.

Think of the Congress of the United States in Washington, D. C. after which our church governance was modeled in 1789, and imagine the English today trying to change our acts of Congress to suit their own interests and you’ll have an idea of what the Episcopal Church is facing around the globe today.

We’re not alone in this fight, though. Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa for example, perhaps the greatest Anglican of our time and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize agrees with us in this current conflict. Of all people in the world today, he knows about conflicts and differences, and oppression, and the cost of social justice. Just this past week in another instance of solidarity 32 members of Congress petitioned Secretary of State Condolezza Rice to bring diplomatic pressure upon the Nigerian parliament which is considering making a whole new set of draconian laws against homosexual activity, making it criminal for gays or lesbians to even have a dinner together in public. We think such legislation would be a reprehensible human rights violation in the world community.

Here in the United States small pockets of dissenters have become violent in their opposition to our recent actions. Because they don’t like what a majority of fellow Episcopalians decided in a democratic vote duly enacted as part of our General Convention, they have declared themselves no longer responsible to our bishops or any Episcopal Church governance. They have tried to create a new Episcopal Church polity by aligning with African bishops in Nigeria and Rwanda of all places, and seeking to take Episcopal Church property away with them as they go. The matter is now in the secular courts. (Continued - Part 2, next blog entry)