A few days ago, I was doing something at my desk, when my ears tuned in to hear Vice President Biden talking about women marrying women, and men marrying men. I tensed as I prepared myself to hear some sort of “Children of a lesser God” comment at best. I was pleasantly surprised when he whole-heartedly endorsed same sex marriage. It made me take him seriously again. I reminded myself regarding his gaff a few weeks ago about the President and a certain big stick, that seniors are not dull, that just don’t always keep up with pop culture. When they tune into the concerns of the day, they, having lived longer and seen so much change, are often more focused and compassionate than younger people.

 However, Mr. Biden’s support in no way prepared me for the 44^th President’s interview with Robin Roberts. Actually, after reading the “Audacity of Hope,” I pretty much thought that the President’s views were secretly positive regarding same sex marriage. However, I have been aware that his position in the government on most issues has been centrist rather than radically left or right. I think that as a former junior senator, a media rock star, a Harvard graduate, and a man of color, there may be many who think of Obama as the Ken doll/Jackie Robinson of the presidency and therefore not to be taken seriously.

 But his simple, straightforward endorsement of same-sex marriage, before the election is extremely gratifying. Obama has gone where theologians in our own denomination have feared to tread. He has kept the conversation going at the table by taking a firm stand. In the international halls of power, the most powerful leader in the free world has moved homosexuality from a place of shame to a place of diversity.  As early as yesterday a huge African-American pastor on the east coast whose father is a bishop in the same denomination issued a statement saying that he didn’t agree with the president on this one issue, but people of color must still get out and support him in huge numbers. Aha! Conversation rather than condemnation leads to collaboration and cooperation and support. 

Politics is a chess game. Whether Biden indeed scooped the President or whether he was intentionally positioned, like the great and fearless Rosa Parks, to test the waters, we may never know. But of one thing we are assured.  Both the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Intersexed, and Questioning community, and the Heterosexual community have been affirmed by President Barack Obama’s savvy, courage and vision. May God’s church, straining at the bit,  hurry up and follow.  I’ll say it again: Oh-Bama,  Go-Bama! 

In the late 80s or early 90s I was leading a portion of the worship for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Regional Assembly in the Pacific Southwest. Dr. C. William Nichols, Acting General Minister of the Christian Church was present. After one service, he approached me and asked me if I would consider becoming music leader for the General Assembly, which was to take place in St. Louis the following year. Thus began a year of clearing out of town planning meetings with my Hollywood theatrical agent, and entering another part of my life.

 In the summer of 1993, St Louis was hot and muggy. In addition whole sections of the city were underwater as a result of the huge flood the city was experiencing. The Disciples decided to hold their meeting there anyway. At the previous Assembly in 1991, in Tulsa Oklahoma, the Disciples had at the last minute been “flooded” with an influx of conservative voters as it moved to elect the progressive scholar and preacher Dr. Michael Kinnamon as its next General Minister. The brilliant man was soundly defeated. So Disciples came to St Louis, soggy and forlorn, used to being overrun and flooded.   When we weren’t in worship, we were out in the community, doing what we could to minister to the needs of the local inhabitants. My mother flew over from Ohio.

 I recall a young lady, who had been the music leader for an earlier assembly, who hurled in my face that she was not a “professional,” and apparently now the church would be using professionals to lead its worship. She seemed to be hurting from not being asked to come back and lead worship.

 I never remember meeting or seeing her again. Not her face nor her name.  However, during my time with the General Assembly Team, I have had the opportunity to work with many, many amazing Disciple musicians. I have seen General Assembly move from traditional worship, to Ministers dancing with African drums, to Assemblies being picketed on opening night by the extremely conservative Westboro Baptist Church, whose website is entitled “God Hates Fags,” to joint Assembly-Synods with the progressive United Church of Christ, to an invitation to invite the Assemblies of God to return. (The Assemblies of God was formed when the Christian Church declined to integrate after the Civil War.) I have been on the assembly stage with the likes of Bishop Desmond Tutu, Peter Gomes, and Marian Wright Edelman. I have shared hilarious asides with the sage of the church, the venerable Dr. Fred Craddock.  On the Assembly Stage, I have directed the music of other prominent musicians, and been privileged to premiere some of my own music. I have run the gamut from painstakingly planning music for worship for over two years for each Assembly, to hurrying on stage at a moment’s notice, to spontaneously lead fun camp songs. I have selected hymns on the spot to refocus anger and assuage and attempt to ameliorate hurt feelings.

On April 25, 2012, in Indianapolis Indiana, I sat in a meeting co-chairing, along with our vice-moderator Dr. Susan Diamond, worship for the entire 2013 General Assembly. Our sitting General Minister and President, Dr. Sharon Watkins was called away to speak at the homegoing of the one who first thought I could be part of the Assembly team: the same Dr. C. William Nichols. After nearly ten years of graduate education, I have gone from being the professional music leader to finishing up my own Doctorate of Ministry Degree in the Christian Church. We are all spiritual beings lighting the way for each other as we pass through this particular part of our existence. Thank you for your light C. William. We travel in the light of God. 

A child of Jewish and Christian parentage, she found herself incredibly angry after the Days of Remembrance ceremony in Burbank. She came to me saying: “I question my faith in God. How could God let such a horrible thing as the Holocaust happen?”

I took a breath, reflected for only a moment upon the fact that I mostly seem to be called upon to speak for God when people are questioning the Divine, and not usually when they are happy with the Deity, and I responded with a question of my own. I asked, “isn’t it possible that people caused the holocaust rather than God?” “I suppose,” she said. Then, I continued, “wouldn’t a more accurate question be perhaps how did people let the holocaust happen?” “Okay,” she exclaimed, “but why didn’t God stop it; why didn’t God prevent it?” I asked her another question: “Do you believe that God exists in all humans?” She countered: “Oh a new age thinker, I see!” I said to her, “Actually, my position is ancient Hebraic thought.”

 Many scholars teach that the reason that the ancient Hebrews did not even say the name of God, (YAWEH is an approximation of a name that was not easily pronounced)  was because God was in constant communion with God’s creatures, and when God’s name was called, even, in passing, God came. In fact, using certain letters of the ancient alphabet meant that humans were co-creating with God. Praying long prayers asking God to intercede or effect this action was often seen as humans co-creating, and co-directing the universe with the Divine. God and humans working together to bring something into being. The Apostle Paul, who was a Hebraic Christians went a step further: “Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col 1:27).”  Aged, and not new thought by any means. 

Theodicy is the study of the relationship between God and evil. God is good but evil exists. There are many Theodicies.  Some people see Theodicy as proof that no God exists; some people such as Augustine explained Theodicy as evil being the corruption of God’s good.

 There are weather conditions,  movements of the earth, and epidemics,  that humankind ha had to face. These have often wreaked great havoc resulting in huge loss of life. To my way of thinking these tragedies are different than the willful destruction of one human being by another in order to prevail. That is saying there is a right way, and only I know what it is.  That is the evil existing in spite of the goodness of God. That is the destructive instinct happening outside of the Creator. That is human evil. Whether it is the decimation of the peoples and the cultures of the continent of Africa, whether it is the withholding of food or medicine from people who need it, whether it is the persecution of one group by another, or whether it is the systematic attempt to destroy the Jews, while God weeps, this is evil done in spite of the goodness of God. Humans, by their actions or their indifference, must take responsibility.

Arguably the most well known Christ follower these days in the Western world is not an Apostle or even a preacher, but New York Jet, Tim Tebow. The Quarterback has an unusual approach to football, and an unusual take on witnessing. Rather than talking “smack” to his opponents he has often been heard to encourage them to do better in the next scrimmage. Professional football has a rule now that forbids putting messages in your “eye black”, largely because Tebow has been known to write Bible verses in his. Interesting isn’t it, at a time when hardly anyone one might say that large numbers of people are Biblically literate, when Tim Tebow put John 3:16 on his face, the beloved scripture became the most googled Bible verse of all time.

 Many famous people are spiritual in some way, and Tebow is not the first personality to publicly witness to his religious beliefs. In 1988 pitcher Oral Hersheiser knelt at the mound to thank God when he threw the pitch that clinched the World Series. Actors and musicians aplenty have been known to give God accolades when they win awards.

 Tebow has said that his prayer is not to prevail over other people. He has said that he prays to do his best in challenging situations. That could be said to be the prayer of many faithful people regardless of religious belief. Tebow does do missionary work under the auspices of his father’s evangelical association. That group believes in young world creationism and seems to frown on ecumenicity. Therefore this young wide eyed all American athlete might be said to be associated with organizations that refuse to tolerate forms of religion different from theirs. When young people are desperate for role models, it is easy to pick a popular physically strong one that does not support tolerance.

 I applaud Mr. Tebow’s methodology. He uses the location of his celebrity to stand up for his deepest faith beliefs. I am leery of what seems to be his message, namely that there is only one way to God. Let’s take the time, like Tim Tebow, to locate ourselves, whether differently abled, seniors, White, Black, Latino, Asian, single, married, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, or Questioning, or of any other descriptive, and realize that we too are profoundly special, because God loves us as we are. With enthusiasm and respect, lets tell our stories to each other. Lets tell our stories to our children. Lets teach them to take great pride in their own stories. From our own amazing location, lets stand up for God’s open table where everyone is welcome whether we agree with them or not. 

During this Holy Week, the Elders of Little White Chapel met with some of the young people who have been coming to the church to collaborate on the Good Friday Service.

Energy was high in the room. The young people were reading the scriptures, and the Elders were telling the imagined back-stories to the scriptures. The Elders had it doubly easy. First, they had had their scripts ahead of time so that they could look them over. Secondly, they didn’t have the difficult Biblical names to pronounce that the young people struggled with as they sight read the scriptures.

Watching the seasoned leaders of the church work together with the youth, it occurs to me, how preparing a service is one thing, creating more ways that the church can interact intergenerationally is another.

 New York City Psychiatrist Dr. Janet Taylor says that young people measure confidence in some equation of ratio of success to expectation. Therefore if they can’t meet the perceived demands of others, or of themselves then they consider themselves immediate failures. It takes a lifetime of experiences, both good and bad for us all to realize that we can be self-authenticators. Always seeking to live peaceably with our neighbors, we none-the-less must take time to realize that we have opinions and perspectives that are of value, simply because they are ours.

 Oakland resident Moshe Kasher in his new book “ A Kasher in the Rye” describes himself as a young man who was in and out of reform school because he couldn’t walk away from a group of young boys who seemed to be the only people in the world who cared about him, the only people in the world who expected anything of him, the only people in the world who held him to any kind of standard. Although he was not intellectually challenged he was placed in special needs classes because of his need to be with his friends. His perspective about his life potential began to change the day that he realized that those boys whom he loved, and who loved him were toxic to him, at least in their present state.  One day they said do you want to walk down to the liquor store? He said: Not today, and walked the other way, into new frightening, challenging, but ultimately rewarding relationships.

 Doing an intergenerational Good Friday service is one thing, maintaining relationships with young people as friends, mentors, and role models is quite something else. Holding tight to them until they regard us older folks as something of value, worth holding on to, is the way that we continue to generate God’s love into the future. Our job is to give young people other places to go besides only to each other. Our mission is to make sure that they understand that skills like reading, working hard, respect, meditation, constructive criticism, failure, then starting again, and having one’s own opinion, are not outmoded values in the 21^st century. These are the very foundations of survival, and the very way that self worth and creativity continues.

Little White Chapel Intergenerational Good Friday Observance: 7pm April 6.

Little White Chapel Intergenerational Easter Worship Celebration and luncheon 10:30am, April 8

Little White Chapel Ministry until Christ returns.

Bea Arthur is my favorite Golden girl. She was the queen of forbearance with her roommates and their hilarious environment until some innocuous thing would make her suddenly furious. In one episode she is borrowing a library book for her mother and when the librarian says that her mother’s card has expired.  The ever long suffering Dorothy replies: “No problem, I’ll put the book on my card. I come to the library two or three times a week, and my books are always returned promptly during regular library hours, rain or shine; WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE ME!?!” 

 In compliance with the Pan African Seminarians Association of Claremont School of Theology, and in solidarity with many who are aggrieved over the death of Trayvon Martin, I wore a hoodie to school today. I certainly want all of the facts of the investigation to be assessed and judged fairly, and I did not want to be judged by other students as being insensitive or uninformed. University President Jerry Campbell and I posed for pictures in our hoodies in front of the Claremont University sign

 When any person is killed, all of the facts should be promptly and impartially investigated. In the United States because the effects of slavery still inform relationships between African Americans and other races, whenever there is violence between races, authorities should always anticipate that the smoldering anger of racism will be a major contributor to the conversation. Whenever something is not settled to the satisfaction of both parties, it will always recur in confrontational situations. Slavery and the effects of racism have never been settled to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. It was deeply heinous horrible crime perpetrated against Black people and all of humanity.  Even though race relations have come a long way since the Emancipation Proclamation of 1865, no one should assume that the effects of slavery are not still a huge part of American life. In addition, those effects are intermingled with cultural backgrounds. Different people of the same race perceive and process events differently because of their cultural location, and because of the fact that each individual is different.

 There is no doubt that all of the facts of the Martin/Zimmerman case must be investigated. There is no doubt that this case has the possibility of having even more huge and dangerous repercussions. There is no doubt that interested parties have the opportunity to wait and observe all the facts before making up their minds. There is no doubt, that spiritual and educational institutions should always include an ongoing discussion on racial reconciliation and racial justice as part of its ethical educational track for the validity and strength of the institution, rather than waiting to address race or orientation against the backdrop of confrontation and possible violence. There might be more room for learning and compassion, and less need for polarizing judgment.

We were riding in the car and from out of nowhere she said: "I just hate that the Somalis are taking over our neighborhood." Mildly startled, I managed a: “really?” She said,  “Yes! They look strange, and they wear strange clothing. This is America. They are not Christian, you know. Those Muslim head coverings all over their head, and they don’t socialize with anybody and they wont let their kids play with any of the kids in the neighborhood.” She continued, warming up to her subject, “one of them has moved in the apartment next to mine; we share a common wall. Yeech.” I said to her, “are they noisy?” She said, "No, they are very quiet." I said, “Does their cooking come through the wall; is it offensive?” She said, “no more than mine probably does.” I replied, “Then why do you dislike them so much?” She replied, “Because they just look so different. They are not like us.  I don’t want them around here.”

 My differently abled sister had waited on such a long list to finally get an apartment that was tailor-made for her needs. She could deal with neighborhood juvenile delinquency, she could deal with the loud music blaring from cars as they passed, but she wasn’t prepared to deal with the culturally “different.” The fact that, ten years after a stroke, she was finally able to live independently among people with whom she had a lot in common, made her happy. The fact that through her organizing, her picketing, her phone calls, and her writing, she had been part of a group that caused her city to allocate in excess of 25 million dollars for handicapped improvements made her fill immensely fulfilled. But the fact that people from another culture were also living in her neighborhood, made her feel anxious, and powerless. I took a breath and I said, “what if you lived somewhere where people didn’t want you there because you were in a wheelchair?” She sat in silence for only a short time, and then she replied: “I guess I’m not treating them like God’s children am I?”

 At the time I thought that she changed her mind so quickly because she didn’t want to offend me, and that could have indeed have been a small part of it. But as I look back on her life, I realize that she knew that she had less time than most people think they have to “get it right,” and to the best of her ability she did not want to be bogged down in pettiness. She didn’t spend a lot of time feeling sorry for herself and she never bore a grudge. No matter what you gave her, you could never outdo her in showing gratitude. She was always kind, and always lived up to her name, Janice, which in Hebrew means: God is gracious.

 My sister passed on ten years ago today March 13, 2002. I am thankful that she is out of that body, I am thankful that she is out of that pain. I have do doubt that she is with her son Matthew, and with God. I still struggle to connect the dots and learn as quickly as she did, without a trace of ill will toward anyone.  I wish I were as smart as she was. I thank God for her.  I will love her forever.  

Chink is an 15^th century English word meaning a slit, fissure, or soft area. “Chink in the armor,” means a weak spot in ones protection or plan. It comes from the time when warriors wore metal to protect them from the arrows, rocks and other weapons propelled at them in war. Chink also is a derogatory insult used to attempt to put down people of Chinese extraction. While the phrase “A Chink in the armor” is pretty widespread, the use of the "C" word as an insult is rather dated. Its possible that the young sports writer who lost his job commenting on basketball sensation Jeremy Lin did not know that “Chink” was a racial insult. Other reports say that the article did not have time for an editor’s scrutiny, so a second pair of eyes did not read it and catch the offending word before it was published.  However, it still remains the responsibility of journalists, especially because they deal in, among other things, the historicity of words,  metaphor and irony, to acquaint themselves with the variety of meanings of words and phrases. Words, names, and even actions are loaded with meanings that impact various communities.

Being aware of the power of words, it is even more important for those about whom these critiques are written, to not be monitored by someone else’s appraisal of them. For instance, with regard to the 2012 Oscars, what  criteria could any set of judges come up with to measure the technical wizardry of the towering actress Merrill Streep in “The Iron Lady”  against the unbearable pathos elicited by Viola Davis in “The Help?” Insiders say it was a tight race. However,  Miss Streep won the Oscar, and she seemed to receive hearty applause and on-screen support from her colleague Miss Davis. Streep’s award speech was humorous, self-deprecating,  and also humble as she reflected on her extraordinary career. 

Critical praise has its place, but the perspective of the these talented ladies with regard to their ability in their profession is the determiner of their ability and longevity and not what others write about them. So it is for Jeremy Lin. He doesn’t need to be hurt or fight back. His skill on the court will speak for him.  If Lin is focused, he will concentrate on doing his best, accept what comes with grace, and be thankful that for a while, he gets to do what he loves in such a rewarding venue. Someone once said, rather than responding to your critics, the best revenge and the best reward is living well. Do what you do, then stop speaking.  As we move through Lent, isn’t it interesting to reflect on how quiet Jesus became when his work was done? 

I love movies. Movies bid you suspend your imagination and ask you sit attentively as the actors, under the leadership of the director, (often after consultation with several producers!) spin you their yarn. Unlike books, we don’t envisage the scenes in our imagination: cinematography does that for us. Unlike books, we don’t conjure up what the voices of the characters might sound like; movies do that for us. Unlike books we don’t experience film in silence, even silent movies have music scores.

I especially lose myself in well-written older movies. They may present contexts and social situations that are no longer socially acceptable but looking through outmoded models of social interaction we can still see eternal truths.

Last week I caught the end of a very famous and very magnificent 1931 movie called “The Champ.” It starred among others, Wallace Beery and the very young Jackie Cooper. Beery plays a drunken over the hill American prizefighter who is raising his son outside of the U.S. in a way that would not be socially acceptable for the boy in today’s society. However there is a lot of love between the father and the son and when the son is taken from him, the boy runs away back with his father. The father, the Champ, is so glad that the boy is back, he decides to provide a better life for his son doing the only that he knows how to do: boxing.  The Champ goes back into the ring to win the love and respect of his son, and also earn enough money to buy back the son’s beloved horse.  He triumphs in the ring but nevertheless receives a fatal blow. The Champ is carried to his dressing room where he dies exhorting his son to remember his father as victorious, and to remember how much he loved his son.

The son is devastated. No one can console him: not his late father’s trainer, not his late father’s friends not even the boy’s best friend. All the boy can do is say: “I want the Champ, I want the Champ!” It is a wrenching scene where authoritative boundaries between adults and children, and people of different races are all suspended as everyone, including the grieving son, tries to comfort each other, and all of them try in vain to console this son, this child whose parent has died trying to prove his love for his off-spring. Suddenly the only love that can reach him comes through the door; it’s the love that shared equally in his creation: it’s his mother. And even though the tears are still rolling down the child’s face, there is also a smile there as he looks at her and allows himself to be lifted up and carried away in her amazingly strong arms. What we realize is although his father is gone; the love that created him is still there; it will never die. Love never does. It is the lesson to which our journey beginning today on Ash Wednesday, and winding through Lent, Holy Week, Good Friday, and finally Easter leads us: in spite of everything, Love never dies.

In the eighties I was performing in La Cage Aux Folles in New York, and a friend of mine said that we should go uptown to a club to see the first show of a young singing sensation from Newark New Jersey. A young girl named Whitney. Her mother’s was the famous Cissy Houston, founder and lead singer of the Sweet Inspirations. Sissy and a west coast diva Marni Nixon were also doing a Broadway show. So after my show we raced uptown and crowded into Sweetwater’s. My friend Glen, had gotten us a great table right in front of the little stage. The band began to play and out came a young girl who looked to be about the same age as the young teenaged girls in my youth choir at the Stuyvesant Heights Christian Church across the river in Brooklyn. She was attractive enough, and she sang a lot of songs that recording artists had made famous. What knocked me out was when she let loose with Aretha Franklin’s “Ain’t No Way,”  her mother Cissy sang the same operatic obbligato behind her daughter that she sang on the Franklin recording.  I remember thinking that Whitney was very talented, but I also remember thinking that she was a church girl, as so many inner city famous singers from the inner city were in the 70s and 80s, singers like Delores Hall, Stephanie Mills, and Jennifer Holliday to name a very few.  I also rather jealously thought there were two or three girls in my youth choir that I nurtured and played for, Elease, Doreatha, and Rene, who I thought were nearly as gifted and could also do this.

But that night at Sweetwater’s, her preparation was introduced to her opportunity. The array of talent gathered in that small space was formidable. There were record executives, other famous recording artists, Broadway stars; so many famous faces. They were all gathered to cheer her on; all gathered to help her impress the recording company, or like me to just simply see what they could see.

            That night, nobody could predict that she would become the internationally famous diva superstar selling fifty million records and singing for Nelson Mandela both in prison, and on the occasion of his election to the presidency of South Africa. Nobody could predict that she, like other great beloved artists before her, would have a powerful, public, life long battle with personal demons. Judy Garland was 47 when she died. Dinah Washington was just 39. Amy Winehouse, 28.

            I pray that her family, friends, and her fans remember what a remarkable light shown forth from that powerful voice coming out of that petite presence. I pray that her daughter and her family hold up their heads, and carry on the remarkable family business that they do so well: making music that moves the rest of the world. And I hope and pray that God’s church will hurry up and understand that as it produces these great talents, it is not just its job to send them off with blessings and then wash its hands of them, but to understand that just like everybody else, they need lifelong strong connection and special nurture, not special judgment. We are all in someway gifted from God. What a foretaste of heaven if we continue to grow, change, and expand our theology in the church to make a strong welcome intentional space for everybody.

             The Little White Chapel Christian Church is a healthy vibrant congregation located in Burbank California. It is also host to several other congregations of various faiths. Upstairs in one of our larger classrooms one congregation has placed a Yamaha G2 grand piano in excellent condition. The minute I saw that piano I began conniving a way that my gifted pianist friends could give a concert on that piano. I already had the title in my mind: Upstairs at Little White Chapel. Sounded like a cross between a New York cabaret and getting closer to heaven! But wait, it gets better! The Korean church was so excited about the recital on their piano that they volunteered to pay for the tuning. Great! My dear friend and colleague pianist Dr. Vernon Snyder was contacted to play a program of Chopin and we were all set to go.

          The only problem was how to get some of Little White Chapel’s beloved seniors and differently able people up those stairs. When some hinted that the stairs might be a problem, I cavalierly brushed them off saying, “Oh our husky deacons will carry you up!” I even joked about it in worship.  In my mind the problem was solved. What I hadn’t counted on was human dignity.  Independence is a precious quality of life. Plus, nobody was jumping up and down to be man-handled up and down those stairs by a bunch of guys who might not be all that experienced in transporting human cargo from one level to another. What seemed to me like a simple solution might have been a reminder to someone else of his or her delicateness. 

This week the venerable young Dr. V came to Little White Chapel and I took him upstairs and showed him my, er, the Korean’s prize possession: the Yamaha G2. He agreed with me that indeed it is a wonderful instrument, and he told me that although the space was intimate Chopin preferred playing in salons rather than concert halls. An affirmation from our musical guest as to the soundness of my plan! As we went about our work in the church we were blessed by the beautiful sounds of Vernon playing Chopin wafting all over the not so small Little White Chapel. Did I mention that as he practiced, some of the ladies who had spoken to me about the stairs were holding a Christian Women’s Fellowship meeting in the library?

After an hour and a half of good solid practice, Vernon was all set to leave, but I detained him saying, “I want to get your opinion on a couple of other grand pianos in the church.” I showed him the grand on the stage of our social hall and then I showed him the Hamilton grand piano in our sanctuary (right next door to where the ladies were meeting).

Dr. Snyder played a few measures, and then said, “I love this piano and this sanctuary space will be perfect for my recital. What do you think?” I remembered Doris’ love of classical music. I remember wonderful Annabelle’s concern about safely coming down the stairs. Then I understood in my gut something that an old preacher had taught me: people are more important than anything. Upstairs at the Little White Chapel is an event for another time; Dr. Snyder’s recital is now going to be downstairs in our beautiful sanctuary on Friday February 10 at 7pm. The suggested donation is $10, every penny of which will go to the music fund of Little White Chapel. Like heaven, no one will be turned away, and EVERYONE will have unrestricted access. 

“Sackcloth and Ashes”

During Little White Chapel’s 8:45 Sunday morning Bible study as we read of Mordecai tearing his clothes, putting on sackcloth and ashes and going out into the city weeping bitterly, I said to our group knowingly: “Well you can tell that Mordecai wasn’t gay. If he had been he would have gone home and changed into sackcloth and ashes! Someone else in the group chirped in: “Knowing you, designer sackcloth and ashes, no doubt!”  We all had a good laugh, and then we began to examine what wearing sackcloth and putting on ashes meant. Sack cloth was uncomfortable clothing not made of burlap but made generally of goats hair (itchy!) and meant to convey to the public and to God how sorry one was for a particular state of affairs. We recalled that in our earlier study of Job, we read that Job’s friends, when they heard of his misfortune, had approached him wearing sackcloth and ashes. We continued to read the book of Esther, and we pondered what it meant to fast. One person in the class said that she had fasted for health reasons but had received no spiritual benefit from it. Another talked about how fasting had focused her on what she praying for. Bible study which lives in the tension of people reacting with their modern day experiences while at the same time examining the context in which the text is written, makes for a continual lively learning experience. It also makes for great community among believers seeking to learn more about their spiritual heritage. Why didn’t somebody think about this before? Oh, they did….