Thoughts on the Eve of Palm Sunday

Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion,
 and turneth the shadow of death into the morning,and maketh the day dark with night;
 that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth:
The Lord is his name... Amos 5:8

Tonight, after dinner and a movie with Rebecca, I walked up to the barn with the terriers to take care of the evening chores.  High and off to the south shone my good friend Orion, the hunter.  Since we acquired this property, he has been my constant reminder that some things, the important things, never really change.  When I was a boy, my nights were filled with dippers and bears and pole stars.  We watched meteor showers and even got out our telescopes to view the occasional passing spacecraft.  There were fewer lights then, and we saw and knew so much more about the rhythms of the night.  Now, sandwiched between the lights of Lancaster and Columbus, much of my boyhood heritage has passed from sight.  But Orion is still there, defiantly resisting the waste and congestion of modern urban evening illumination, and reminding me that in spite of all which has passed, those things which really do matter are constant in my life.

When Tristan went to Afghanistan, I would look up and remember those days when we looked together at the great Hunter.  When Ashley moved away to start her own family, I found great consolation in the fact that the Hunter was still there, with his great club raised and his shield in position to stop the ravages of lion and dragon.  I still see Orion's presence as God's gift to me, ever telling forth the permanence of those things which are eternal.

So much has changed.  The Republic to which I dedicated my life is not the same place I so gladly served.  The Church into which I was ordained is scarcely recognizable on most days.  But Orion is there, reminding me that God is still in control, and that all the forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil will never triumph against Him or his Holy Church.  Kingdoms may rise and fall.  Economies may prosper or languish.  Ecclesial bodies may serve faithfully or lose sight of their calling.  But through it all I remain an incurable, if sometimes rather jaded and cynical optimist, for God reigns and my salvation is secure in Jesus Christ.  Orion helps me to remember these great truths, and to recall a simpler time when being in touch with the rhythms that God has established in creation was perhaps a bit easier, at least for me. 

And so in closing, may God bless my wife and children and grandchildren.  May he bless St. John's and his faithful people throughout the world.  May he bless the idea that America has been and still struggles to be.  May he bless those deployed and those who wait for them.  And may he bring peace to Jerusalem, and to all the world.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  AMEN.

My Public Declaration Against Ignorance, Tyranny, and Coercion

Zerubbabel: by Guillaume Rouille

Some years ago, I assumed the dramatic personae of Zerubbabel, a prince of the house of Judah.  In that noble character, I was invested with a sword, to remind me "to deal justly by all men."  As I write tonight, that sword rests in the corner next to our family altar.  It still reminds me that all men are created in the image of God, and that I ought to respect that image in them, even when they obscure it by bad choices and worse actions.

Over the past few years, I have noticed a growing trend in the world to coerce people to behave in certain ways, and even to adopt certain opinions.  It occurs all across the political spectrum, and is especially noticeable in religion.  People observe others who do not share their opinions or ways of doing things, and withdraw from them.  Then they believe things about them which may have a grain of truth, but are largely built on unfounded suppositions and untested data.  Then they slander them publicly without ever speaking to the objects of their scorn or mistrust about their motives or actions.  They ridicule or question the faith or goodwill of any who will not join in the boycott of their perceived enemies.  They reinforce their mistrust by talking amongst themselves and reproduce their hateful attitudes in their children and ideological disciples.

Great institutions crumble as one ideological party excludes all others, and as opinions become increasingly extreme.  Control is determined to be the only way to security.  Security is valued to such a degree that liberty is curtailed in the name of safety.  And one day we all awake to discover that Orwell and Huxley were the true prophets of the last century.  We find ourselves slaves, who when asked by those in control "What is the sum of two and two?" sullenly reply, "Whatever you want it to be."

Across the centuries, many good men have assumed the character of Zerubbabel, and of Constans, and Hiram, and others.  Those men have included George Washington, Benito Juarez, Simon Bolivar, Aleksandr Kerenski, Emilio Aguinaldo, and Guiseppe Garibaldi.  They came from widely differing backgrounds, but they all believed in liberty and in the dignity of the individual human being.  They were willing to take a chance that good people working together could do great things without being forced or bullied.  I am glad to stand today in their train, and to publicly decry the growth of despotism around the world.  I am glad to publicly disassociate myself from the common practice which seeks security at the cost of liberty.  And I am glad to publicly reaffirm with them the belief that all people are worthy of respect because they are made in God's image. 

Even if a person is wrong, even if he is dangerous, our common humanity demands that we respect him for who he might become and what he might be if he lived into his creator's image.  This is not to say that the evil and the destructive should not be resisted and made responsible when they are a credible and present danger to others.  But it is to say that even the worst of us are made in God's image, and ought to have the opportunity to live into our potential via the responsible exercise of freedom, which is liberty, the birthright of us all.

This is the reminder of my sword, the sword of an Irish Knight Mason.  It is at the very heart of Freemasonry, my fraternity and that of my father.  Today, we masons are under attack by many well meaning people in the name of religion.  They repeat conspiratorial half truths, and in some instances outright lies about us.  In their fear and search for certainty and stability, they blame the Craft, or the Jewish bankers, or the opposing political party, or the foreign menace, or some alien religion or culture.  Although I count many such folks as my friends, very few of them have ever asked me to explain why I am a Mason or what we teach and believe.  I imagine my experience is not that different from that of others in many groups which have been singled out for marginalization or exclusion by members of some other group.

"The School of Athens"
by Raphael
Where the study of truth and honest inquiry led to wisdom.
An example for all of us.

In closing, I would issue a challenge to everyone who reads this posting.  Find a person who is identified as a member of a group you say bad things about.  Engage them in a spirit of honest inquiry.  Learn what they really believe and what they are really like.  Then refrain from spreading falsehoods and half truths about them.  I predict that if we all do this thing, it will be a better world, and we will learn to respect each other again.  While our differences will remain, we will not be so quick to hate or devalue each other.

What is Truth?

We are again at that time of year when the Gospel lessons remind us of Pilate's famous question, "What is truth?"  It came up last week in our youth meeting at Nick's Pizza, and I've been thinking about how to explain it to the young people of our parish in a less confusing manner.  I thought it might be helpful to share some of my as yet unorganized thoughts here as we all prepare to engage a culture where everyone seems to believe that one truth is just as good as another.

I begin by positing that "truth is a reflection of the Character of God."

• Sometimes this comes through the book of creation, which we often call "nature," or "science."
• Sometimes it comes through direct revelation in the person of Jesus, or in the Bible, which is the record of his person and work which the Holy Spirit inspired and verified through the canonization process of the Jews and the Christians.

Truth is different from "opinion."

• Truth is factual, like math or physics, or the law of gravity or of thermodynamics.
• Opinion may be possible, and on rare occasions may even be probable, but because it is based on our personal experience, perspective, and feelings (there is that awful word again!), it is unlikely to be demonstrably factual.
• Truth is the same yesterday, today, and forever- and it is binding on all men in all places.
• Opinions change with our situations and vary from culture to culture.
• The form of truth tends to follow function and actuality, while opinion tends to be of a more ideological or theoretical nature.

A few observations.

• Some day, given my family history and lifestyle, I will probably face some sort of heart surgery or angioplasty.  When I do, I want the best doctors with the best available science.  I do not intend to tell the doctor what I feel might be helpful based on my layman's understanding or based on what I think might be fair or what might make me feel the most comfortable.
• Many years ago, when my beloved in-laws used to occasionally disagree with my wife-to-be about her choice of clothes, her mother would say, "Rebecca, if everyone else were lined up waiting to jump off of Mount Pleasant, would you get in line too?"  The statement was based on the shared community experience (sometimes called scientific method) that everyone who had ever jumped or fallen off of Mount Pleasant had messed themselves up pretty badly.  Truth is often in a very real sense rather "self-evident" to steal a phrase from Thomas Jefferson.
• If I am so sure about what constitutes predictable and logical outcomes in terms of medical or other scientific truth, then why am I willing to completely change my way of understanding what constitutes truth when I consider metaphysics or religion?  Either the creeds are true and Jesus is the resurrected Son of God or he is not.  If they are, and if he is, then I ought to accept his teachings and their logical implications and act accordingly.  (If they are true, then having premarital sex or aborting a baby because it has Downs Syndrome or stealing from my employer or underpaying my employee is something akin to jumping off of Mount Pleasant!)  If they are not, then I really should just chuck this entire thing we call religion and traditional morality as a charade designed by old white men to enslave people around the world and throughout history.  By staying in the Church when I consciously reject the verity her basic teaching, I am living a lie and allowing the detractors of the Church to have a real reason to say she is filled with hypocrites.
• A word about feelings: While they are very real, and impact us in ways that are most serious, they often seem to be the personification of illogic.  What seems "fair" or "right" to me, when it grows out of my own feelings, experiences, or relationships, has in my experience led to increasingly difficult complications and eventually to bad decisions which seek to re-define the clear expectations of God revealed in Nature and Scripture, and ultimately elevate my own ego and understanding to the place of God.  In the end it becomes the idolatry of self-worship.  I can easily imagine that my friend or relative who engages in theft, murder, sexual immorality, or gluttony is different than all of those others, because his or her education or experience is tragic and relieves him or her of personal responsibility.  But such rationalization does nothing but enable more tragedy and more brokenness within our family circle.  To ignore God's revelation in science or in Christ Jesus, whether it involves jumping off Mount Pleasant or receiving sexual partners to obtain drugs, is always destructive of who and what our loving heavenly Father made us to be.

I'm out of time, and must go, but I hope this little rant helps you to frame your Holy Week considerations as it has helped me.

Mount Pleasant from the fourth turn of the Fairfield County Ohio Fairgrounds
To jump or not to jump? The choice is ours! The consequences are eternal.

Uncle Tristan! Uncle Tristan!

Last week while home on spring break, Tristan spent a couple of days with his sister and her family at their farm outside Newark.  Here he is with George, the newest addition to our family.  I thank God that all of our children and grandchildren are back here in Ohio, serving God and working hard every day.  May God bless them richly as only he can do.

For those who are interested, here are a few more shots of the Canters at home.

Pappa and George after a hard day in the oil and gas fields

the girls and Pappa at his birthday party

a tractor ride at the top of the big pasture