Month: April 2019

Recently, on my daughter, Meg’s birthday, I posted a piano song I wrote for her in 2016. I had missed posting a piano song I wrote for my daughter, Beth’s birthday on January 11th. However, I had a good excuse, we were still celebrating her wedding which was held on January 6th. So, I thought I had better make things right in this new year of 2019 by posting Beth’s song. This catches me up … so to speak.

Beth is intelligent, articulate, dedicated to serving others, and fearless, Beth reminds me most of my sister, Mary Ruth. Though she has received her Bachelor Degree in Psychology (with honors, I might add), music has been central in her life. From the time she was very little, she had a way of setting everything to music, including her song for Ruthie, “Mommie, good girl!” Early in the morning before school, she and Meg would sing and sing, knowing full well it would irritate the hell out of her brother Luke. I remember her singing Gershwin’s aria, “Summertime” from the opera, Porgy and Bess, at her high school senior choir concert. Dressed in a long black gown, standing alone in front of the curtain, the audience was spellbound as she sang that beautiful song. I just sat there, a big smile on my face, as tears streamed from my eyes. Oh, how proud I was of her!

This Psalm Offering originated in a musical sketch I initially composed as a setting for Psalm 45. It is composed in simple three-part form. Both the A and B melodies are what I would describe as sweeping, dramatic melodies moving over a range of two octaves. The song has the quality of an operatic aria. Perhaps, that is why it seems so appropriate for Beth (and, in case you might be thinking it, Beth, I am not calling you a Diva). Love you, beautiful girl!

I stated at the beginning of Lent, that the Paschal Season allows us to focus on the Paschal Mystery at play in our lives. There are three parts to the Paschal Season, namely, Lent, Holy Week, and Easter. As much as I bemoan that the only thing left of Palm Sunday anymore, e.g. the blessings of palms and a procession, the fact that this is combined into one Sunday with what once was Passion Sunday is apropos to human life.

The torture and execution of Jesus, and his subsequent resurrection from the dead, plays a major part in the lives of all who have been baptized in Christ. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, spells this out specifically. “Brothers and sisters: Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.”

This week is a time to prayerfully reflect on the Passion and Death in our lives. What Passions and Deaths are we currently experiencing? Are we battling a chronic or terminal illness? Have we been seriously injured? Are we suffering the loss of our relationships with others through a falling out, a separation and divorce, a death? Are we currently experiencing betrayals in our lives? Are we suffering from economic worries and losses in our lives? Are we experiencing a sense of God abandoning us during this critical time in our lives and find ourselves crying out with Jesus, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

Whatever the Passion and Death might be in our lives this year, it is important to know that they were a part of Jesus’ Passion and Death. As the poet Denise Levertov expressed, “One only is ‘King of Grief’.

The onening, she saw, the onening with the Godhead opened Him utterly to the pain of all minds, all bodies, sands of the sea, of the desert – from first beginning to last day. The great wonder is that the human cells of His flesh and bone didn’t explode when utmost Imagination rose in that flood of knowledge.” Jesus assumed our Passions and Deaths at his death, so that we may rise with him on Easter at his resurrection.

I am hunkered down today in the land of April snow and ice. Not much is moving outside. I was to have done a Word/Communion service at Mala Strana, the nursing home and one of the assisted living facilities in New Prague. Because of the weather, I am not going to be able to do that Word/Communion. The following is the homilette I was planning on doing for the residents. Here are the scriptural readings for today.

Genesis 17:3-9

When Abram prostrated himself, God spoke to him:
“My covenant with you is this:
you are to become the father of a host of nations.
No longer shall you be called Abram;
your name shall be Abraham,
for I am making you the father of a host of nations.
I will render you exceedingly fertile;
I will make nations of you;
kings shall stem from you.
I will maintain my covenant with you
and your descendants after you
throughout the ages as an everlasting pact,
to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
I will give to you
and to your descendants after you
the land in which you are now staying,
the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession;
and I will be their God.”

God also said to Abraham:
“On your part, you and your descendants after you
must keep my covenant throughout the ages.”

John 8:51-59

Jesus said to the Jews:
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever keeps my word will never see death.”
So the Jews said to him,
“Now we are sure that you are possessed.
Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say,
‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’
Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died?
Or the prophets, who died?
Who do you make yourself out to be?”
Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing;
but it is my Father who glorifies me,
of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’
You do not know him, but I know him.
And if I should say that I do not know him,
I would be like you a liar.
But I do know him and I keep his word.
Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day;
he saw it and was glad.”
So the Jews said to him,
“You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you,
before Abraham came to be, I AM.”
So they picked up stones to throw at him;
but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area.

The central concept  upon which our Judeo-Christian faith rests is the Covenant established between God and humanity. A Covenant is different from our notion of a contract. Contracts can be broken and are broken all the time. A Covenant exists forever. God entered into a Covenant with Abram. The sign of Abram’s entering into a Covenant with God was circumcision. Upon entering into a Covenant with God, Abram was utterly changed. He received a new name, Abraham. His wife, Sarai was renamed Sarah.

A Covenant is not a static agreement. Rather, a Covenant is more a fluid relationship between the participants as their understanding of the Covenant grows and changes. I love Sr Joan Chittester’s definition of God. She writes, “God is changing changelessness.” This sounds paradoxical, for how can one be changing and changeless at the same time? However, it makes total sense. God does not change, but our understanding of the mystery of God is always changing as we enter into  deeper relationship with the mystery of God’s changeless nature.

We see this at work in Abraham’s relationship with God. At the age of 76 years, God leads Abram away from his father and the city of Haran, into the unknown. Abram places his utter trust, his wealth, his future into the hands of this God who called out to him. The mystery of God gradually unfolds for Abram as he journeys with God. At 86 years, at the urging of his barren wife, Sarai, he enters into a relationship with Hagar, Sarai’s servant. Hagar gives birth to a boy, Ishmael, and her relationship with Sarai deteriorates. Sarai becomes physically abusive toward Hagar, and demands that Abram abandon Hagar and Ishmael in the desert, literally condemning Hagar and Ismael to death. God reassures Hagar that she and her infant son will be taken care of by God and will thrive. Islam will trace the origin of the religion to Ishmael, and consider Abram their father.  At the age of 100, Abraham enters formally into the covenant with God, and Sarai, at the age of 90, gives birth to Isaac. Abraham’s understanding of Covenant is not static, but ever changing.

The people of Israel’s understanding of the Covenant they have with God will also continue to change. With Moses, it deepens at the Covenant renewed by Moses with God on Mount Sinai. And, even though the people of Israel drift from the Covenant over history, God remains always faithful to them. The understanding of the Covenant that Abraham cut with God always remaining fluid up to the time of Jesus, who we hear in the Gospel, reveals to the people that he is the embodiment of God’s Covenant with the people of Israel. And, as we hear in the Gospel, the Jewish religious authorities are less than receptive of Jesus’ teaching, calling him possessed by Satan, and seek to execute him for blasphemy.

We can listen to all this and say, “So what’s the big deal? What should this mean to me?” I ask you to ponder this question. “How has my understanding of God changed for me over my lifetime? What in my life’s experience has revealed more deeply the mystery of the God I say I adore and follow? Is my faith static and unchanging, or have my faith different today than when I was 6 years old, 16 years old, 30 years old, 50 years old, 70 years old?” If our faith is vibrant and alive, we will have found that our faith has changed over the years. It is not the faith of our childhood, nor our adolescence, nor the years when we were working and raising a family, nor as we were approaching our retirement.

The years are not cyclical, with us statically going around the same circle wearing a rut in the same ground over the passage of time. Rather the years must be spherical and evolving. With the passing of every year our relationship with God must be evolving, changing. This is what these scriptures speak to us today. Abram went from being Abram to Abraham. Israel’s understanding of God changed over the years until the Covenant established by God with Abraham was born in the person of Jesus, who wedded Divine nature with human nature.

We never “graduate” from God. Our relationship with God must never be a static one in which we foolishly think we know everything we need to know about God. Rather, with the passing of each day we should discover something new about the God who loved us into existence. What is true in our human relationships (Do we ever really know everything about our spouses? Never!), is true about our relationship with God. I am going to conclude with the best scriptural passage I think describes our Covenantal relationship with God.

From Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, he writes, “Everything indeed is for you, so that the grace bestowed in abundance on more and more people may cause the thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God. Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4: 15-18) God is “changing changelessness.”

Over my 42 years of church ministry, almost 25 years as an ordained deacon, I have had the great honor of ministering with and to Latino families. Less one is tempted to lump all Latinos into one basket, the cultures of Latin America are as distinct as the cultures that separate Bostonians from New Yorkers, Alabamans from Chicagoans, residents of Los Angeles from those of Minneapolis and St Paul. Ecuadorians are not the same as Mexicans. Though they both speak Spanish, the way it is expressed and the colloquialisms are unique to their culture. Not all Latinos like hot, spicy food. Ecuadorians, in fact, like rather bland tasting food. The one thing I have found consistent in ministering with the Latino communities I have known is a work ethic that puts mine to shame and a faith in God of which I am truly envious.

One of my closest relationships has been with Jorge, Monica, and their daughter, Julissa. Jorge always called me DE-con Bob. I helped Jorge with his English and he helped me with my Spanish. Jorge and Monica were both from Acapulco. I remember being at their home after a 12 inch snowfall. Monica expressed to me that when she lived in Acapulco, she though snow was just “movie magic.” She hadn’t known how real it was until she moved to Minnesota and had to drive in it.

Julissa, Jorge and Monica’s daughter, was born approximately the time my first grandchildren were born. Julissa played with my grandson, Owen, and my granddaughter, Alyssa.

I have lost contact with Jorge, Monica, and Julissa. While here, they were supporting their families in the Acapulco area and saving up to start a law practice in Mexico. They are both lawyers, and met each other in law school. Julissa would be 17 years old now.

I think of them often as I see the plight of many immigrant families on our southern border. I pray for these families just as I continue to pray for my good friends Jorge, Monica and Julissa. The prophet Jeremiah once prayed that Israel’s heart is turned from that of stone into a heart of flesh. I pray that the same can be done in our own nation.

Recently, I discovered AXS TV. On this cable station are interviews, old taped rock concerts etc of the “rock heroes” of my past. As I watch Dan Rather interview people like Stephen Stills, David Crosby, Eric Clapton, I think, “What happened! You guys are all old and decrepit!” It is clear that not every rock star can age as gracefully as Paul McCartney. It is equally clear that the popular saying from the 60’s, “Die young and leave a good looking corpse”, is nothing more than a hopeful sentiment. Regardless of our age, it is always tempting to live in the past. The past is not a good place to live one’s life. W. C. Fields aptly observed, “The good old days, may they never return.”

Augustine of Hippo once wrote that there is no such thing as past, present, and future. There is only the present. Within the present is what once was. Within the present is the hope of what will be. We hear this being expressed in the scriptures for this weekend. Through Isaiah, God exhorts the Israelites not to dwell on the past, but to live in the present looking to the future. Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, describes all the things of his past as nothing more than rubbish. He writes,” I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.” In the story of the woman caught in adultery, Jesus abrogates the old Law’s call to stone the woman to death by introducing God’s “new law.” Only those without sin can cast the first stone. When alone with the woman, Jesus demonstrates the tremendous depth of God’s new law of love and mercy by forgiving her sin.

Throughout all four gospels, Jesus warns us not to live in the past, e.g. to not look back as we plow the field, to not put new wine into old wineskins. The Church teaches us that we are always evolving and growing into something new. Yet, from the time of the apostles to the present, there is always a segment of the Church who refuse to evolve and wish to dwell only in the past. Neither present nor future is found in the past. Are we a Christian community who live to what we will become, or stuck in what we once were?

My daughter, Meg’s birthday is coming up on April 6th. I am posting this early because I will be in Chicago officiating at my brother, Bill’s funeral that day.

Meggie is my third child. From the time she was born, she was strong, independent, smart as a whip, and compassionate. Ruthie’s pregnancies were largely uneventful, but it was when she gave birth to our children that things got complicated. The night before Meg’s birth, Ruth started to hemorrhage. We got her to the hospital and discovered that Meg was a partial placenta previa. We didn’t know whether Ruth would have an emergency c-section or not. Our doctor was on the phone throughout the night with a specialist from Children’s Hospital. It was a very long night and fortunately Meg was delivered safely late afternoon, April 6th.

The one quality of Meg that I have always felt present in her is compassion. I remember Meg, about 4 years old, sitting on my lap and watching the Disney cartoon movie, Dumbo. When it got to the part of the movie where Dumbo’s mother is imprisoned in a cage, and baby Dumbo is mourning the loss of his mother. Dumbo’s mother sings the song, “Baby, Now Don’t You Cry.” Poor Meg. She buried her face in my shoulder and sobbed her heart out. Of course, as we know, things eventually get better for Dumbo and for his mother in the movie. However, to this very day, I still tear up whenever I think of that one moment Meggie and I shared.

 In high school, Meg sang in the regional competitions, I was so honored that the song she sang for the judges was the one I composed for my ordination, “Abba, Yeshua, Ruah.” I also had the honor of  accompanying her on the piano. As I recall, Meg received an “excellent” score for her singing.

In some ways, Meg and I are very similar. We have a similar sense of humor (a wee bit twisted), cynicism, joints (Meg and I both have what my Aunt Mary Jernstrom refers to as the “Swedish” joints), heart problems (we both have had ablations for aventricular taca cardia), and so on. Meg keeps observing what is happening to me physically so that she can ward off some of the effects of the negative genes she inherited from me. However, Meg possesses many of Ruth’s wonderful qualities, and those are so numerous they are hard to list.

In 2016, I decided that on my birthday I was going to gift each of my children with a song. Below is the song I composed for Meg. Surprisingly, the composing went very quickly and smoothly except for the Coda (the ending) of the songs. I spent 6 hours over two days composing that Coda. I must have tossed out 8 different endings before I finally got the Coda I wanted. Here is the song for you my beautiful Meg. Your compassionate heart, your wry and raunchy sense of humor, and your dedication to those you love and serve, this song was well worth all the work. (And, incidentally, Meg, with some practice, you will be able to play this.)

This week, in our Lenten journey, we are called by Jesus to reflect on “forgiveness.” Forgiveness is one of Jesus’ central themes. In the gospels, we hear Jesus tell the apostles that they must forgive not just 7 times, but 7 times 70 times. In the numerology of the Jesus’ culture, 7 times 70 means that  the forgiveness we extend to others must be “infinite” in number. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, we are given 3 different approaches to forgiveness: 1) The unconditional forgiveness of the Father toward his sinful son, 2) The prodigal son’s belief that he is unable to be forgiven, and, 3) the self-righteous brother’s resentment and refusal to forgive his sinful brother.  Which one of these do we model in our own lives?

Let’s start with the behavior of the self-righteous brother.  It is very hard to forgive others who have hurt us unjustly. It is documented that Ann Landers and  Abigail Van Buren, sisters by blood, and authors of self-help newspaper columns, were angry and bitter to each other the entirety of their lives. The forgiveness they advised others to practice, they were incapable of doing themselves. The refusal to forgive can consume our lives and rob us of any happiness. Do we really want to live the bitterness the self-righteous brother feels toward his prodigal brother?

Unless we are narcissists, we all have done something which fills us with regret. It may be something cruel we have said or done to another person. In learning how badly we have hurt another person, the punishment we inflict upon ourselves spiritually and emotionally, can often exceed that of the hurt we caused. We believe that the hurt we caused can never be forgiven. This is what we see in the behavior of the prodigal brother. Is it a life of despair we want to live?

Finally, we come to the unconditional love and forgiveness of the Father. The Father is not chained to the bitterness and anger of the self-righteous brother nor the despair of unforgiveness felt by the prodigal brother.   There is only joy and love that is felt by the Father and extended to both. We can choose  lives chained to anger and bitterness, chained to the despair of ever being forgiven, or living the life of God’s unconditional love and forgiveness. In which will we experience the most happiness?

I received some sad news from my cousin, Kathy, a couple of weeks ago. Buster, the pride and joy of my cousin, Cheryl, died suddenly. Cheryl loved her Buster. I remember when visiting Cheryl, seeing Cheryl prepare a royal feast of steak and other fine food for Buster, and hand feeding Buster the food. Buster, as you can see from the photograph, was a French poodle and was very fussy about what he would eat. Given his French lineage, and the notoriety surrounding French cuisine, this might explain his dietary fussiness. Tragically, Cheryl died in January of 2018, and, since her death, Buster has been living with my cousin, Kathy and her husband, Frank.

It is a phenomena that when two people live long lives together, when one of them dies, the other often dies in the 18 months following. I think, perhaps, this might be the case with Buster. He missed his momma so much, that he wanted to join her in heaven.

People often wonder whether we will be reunited with our beloved pets when we die. There are some hard nose theologians who are appalled at the idea of animals sharing heaven with humanity. The idea of animals having souls is an aberration, a sin against the law of God. I disagree strongly with this sentiment. The idea of not being reunited with our Great Pyrs, Floydrmoose and Henri is an aberration to me. And, I am not the only one who thinks that our beloved pets possess souls. Even John Paul II believed that because all animals were created by the breath of God, they possess souls. Pope Francis I wrote in his encyclical, “Laudato Si”, ” Eternal life will be a shared experience of awe, in which each creature, resplendently transfigured, will take its rightful place and have something to give those poor men and women who will have been liberated once and for all.”

For those of us who look at our animals as pets, rather than as a commodity, we experience their personalities, their emotional palate, their joys and their woes. Our relationships with our animals challenge our self-notion of superiority. For those of us who have dogs in our homes, what better way is it to experience unconditional love then when we come home? I am generally greeted by our current dog, Belle E Button, a Boxerdore (boxer/labrador mix), with great enthusiasm and her favorite bone.

I plan on being cremated when I die. I was joking with our local funeral director that if one of my kids mixed the cremains of my Great Pyr, Henri, with my cremains, would I arise on the Last Day looking like the character, Barf, the Mog (part man, part dog) that John Candy played in Mel Brook’s movie, “Space Balls”? But I digress …

In memory of my cousin Cheryl, and her beloved companion, Buster, I composed this music. My cousins, Cheryl and Kathy are half Polish (my dad was their uncle). To honor the Polish blood that runs in our family, I decided to compose the music as a Mazurka, a Polish dance in 3/4. The Polish composer, Chopin, was very fond of Mazurkas, and composed many of them. Now you might note that Buster was not Polish, but French. To that I would say, though Chopin was Polish, he spent most of his professional life in France and is buried there.

Here is the music for Cheryl and Buster.