Loose Change

ALL THE POWER YOU'LL NEVER REALLY NEED

2010-07-04T22:26:00.003-04:00

I was not preaching today, so we visited a church just to see how the other half lives. We were real live, bona-fide visitors. Wondering where the bathrooms are, parking in the wrong spot, coming in late...

Met some lovely people and learned a lot about walking into a place of worship cold. Recommend it to everyone.

One of the drawbacks of being a preacher though is how hard it is to listen to someone else. You start taking the text in the direction you want to go, and I can be talked out of it if the preacher is good, but if not, I get annoyed and that is my problem, my sin of pride. I'm working on it.

The preacher I heard this morning did a wonderful job reading the Gospel, about Jesus sending out the 70, giving them wads of authority to shove around demons, and evil spirits in the name of Jesus! Wow, who wouldn't want that?! Where the hell was I when they were giving that power away? I didn't get anything like that in ordination, I'll tell you. Oh I got the poverty part of the instruction in spades... The church is very good at helping us pastors out with that. But as for the rest of it, I'm still waiting.

But then, the way the preacher read it, I realized that so much of the instruction was about when the townspeople reject those whom Jesus sends out, with all this atomic spiritual POWER.

If the townspeople reject you, Jesus says, shake off the dust from your shoes as testimony against them. Having just recently shaken the dust off my shoes, I can tell you the experience is nothing to write home about. Sort of anti-climatic really. An obscure little gesture that leaves people scratching their heads if they even bothered to stick around to see it.

"Why is he taking his shoes off in the street?"

"I don't know, I never knew what the hell he was doing when he was here, I don't expect I'll start now. That's why he had to go..."

What kind of power is this? Sure, you can kick Satan's ass, but don't mess with the little old lady who runs the altar guild. Sure, cast out demons in the name of GEEEZZZUSS, but don't piss off the old fart who never learned to deal with his life and don't want to see no Spanish in HIS church.

Because if you do, you'll be standing there in the middle of the street like an idiot holding your Crocs in your hand.

Here's what I wanted the preacher to say this morning...we are given all sorts of power, more than we will ever realize, except the power we most crave...the power to defend ourselves from being hurt. This power Jesus withholds. For when we exercise it, we become less than human, unworthy to be the bearers of grace and good news.

We love the "Mighty Fortress" God. But we don't fulfill our mission as bearers of Christ's love until we're standing in the middle of the street with our shoes in our hands...

THE GREEK FESTIVAL

2009-05-28T22:05:00.000-04:00

It’s a cold, rainy weekend at the end of May. Must be time for the Greek Festival. Every year, those poor Greeks pick the crumbiest weekend of the year for their baklava, gyros, and souvlaki.

I went tonight, an annual tradition since coming to Long Island. This is my sixth Greek festival. I don’t know why I look forward to this like I do. While I was eating my Greek sausage, with grapes and bread and drinking Greek beer, watching the mist dripping off the blue and white canopy, I thought about that.

The only thing I can come up with is the Greek Festival represents all the good things I had hoped for in moving to Long Island. Coming home to NY and the city, feeling like I was among my own people again finally. Sitting among the Greeks, celebrating the diversity. The world was big here. It was generous. How easily it made room for you, for your few bucks all in a good cause. I could breathe. The Greek music, the raffles, the food and the drink. You would never see anything like this in PA. In PA, they would have the vapors and condemn this as immoral, especially for a church to do.

The first festival 6 years ago was about 4 weeks after we moved here. The boxes unpacked and put away, we were finding our way around and at least the immediate blocks were familiar. The call was still new, and hopeful. I didn’t know the full story of Epiphany yet. There was only promise, and hope and here I was, the newest member of the neighborhood taking part in my community.

Every year the Greek Festival rolls around as a reminder of those times. A little bit of the freshness, the wonder of this new place taken as it presents itself, none of the subtext visible yet, is there for the taking again, served up along with my gyro, an Athonos beer, and the baklava I will carry home in the white Styrofoam container.

+++++

They give tours of the cathedral, and the cathedral is absolutely gorgeous. Telly Savalas was a member of that parish, and gave the large narthex window. Just a bit of local color.

Seriously, I could be Greek Orthodox in my next life. I love the richness, all the missing bits of this weird American Bapto/Methodo Protestantism that you can never really completely escape here, filled in and fleshed out, and it’s like hearing a symphony live, after listening to a transistor radio plinging in your ear the rest of the year.

The Orthodox bring the whole cast of heaven along with them on the journey of faith. A rich raucous mob that sweeps you up and wants you to eat, eat. My sense is that the Orthodox are never lonely. There is always some heavenly ne’er do well at your door to be entertained.

Still, I had to smile, overhearing one of the tour guides, a typical lay person from the church, leading a group on a tour through the sanctuary. Very admirable. I stood apart, because I know I am a pain in the neck about this stuff. There I was, standing in the richness of glittering icons, the sacred chanting coming through the speakers, the faint traces of incense from the vespers liturgy, while the woman obviously trained not to assume anything at all about the people who would be coming through on the tours, explained about all the mosaics. They depict scenes and events from Jesus life she explained patiently.

I loved the woman’s explanations. She literally had explanations for everything.

She explained that Jesus didn’t go to school. He worked with his father as a carpenter until he was in his 20’s. We don’t know anything about Jesus from 20 to 30. We know that he was in the desert. Then, he started preaching when he was 30, and the first thing he had to do was prove to the people that he was the Messiah, so he did lots of miracles and things. He healed people, like this woman, who is Peter’s mother in law. Then he had to prove he was the Son of God to the apostles too.

Here is where Jesus walks on the water and Peter says, “I can do that too!” and he does, until he starts to drown and Jesus has to save him and that proves to the apostles that he is really the Son of God.

Ah, the sweet mystery of it all. I lit a candle, left a dollar offering and walked home in the mist. I’ll be back tomorrow for the baklava.

Empty House

2009-05-01T11:20:00.002-04:00

Footsteps echo
all the doors ajar
showing their black seams
bright squares hanging
on the bare walls
what do we take
when go?
what do we leave behind?

266, the Sum of Democracy

2009-04-23T10:53:00.003-04:00

In the April 20 edition of the New York Times, the front-page headline over a one inch column of print declares that two terrorist detainees were waterboarded 266 times by the CIA, according to declassified CIA documents. One detainee was waterboarded 183 over a span of 30 days. That breaks down to 6 times a day.

Here’s what I continually come back to, in the mind numbing brutality of this…some one counted. Someone, after each session, recorded it, faithfully, dutifully. 266. Not 265. Not 260. Not more than 100 times, not more than 200 times, not even less than 300 times. 266. Thinking it important. Thinking that someone would want to know.

Did they write this in a notebook? A little black book with spiral binding? Did they develop their own shorthand? Did their language grow more spare as the number climbed, no longer words but simply letters and numbers, gasping for breath, W B 8/15/02?

Did they stand off in the corner, scribbling the details, a few drops at a time, while the events were still fresh, the floor still wet? Or did they wait until the end of the day, sitting alone at a computer in a dark room with a single bulb burning above the keyboard, and blurt it all out at once?

And, what did they want from those who would read it? Praise? Understanding? Pity? Admiration? Respect? Gratitude? Protection?

After 266 times, does any of that matter?

Everything Overlooked (a poem in one try)

2009-04-14T22:45:00.008-04:00

I have turned off the TV
to write this
and now the night's neglected children;
the ticking cuckoo clock,
the refrigerator humming,
the traffic hissing on Fulton,
the spattering rain on the windows,
the sighing floorboards,
the walls shifting the change
in their pockets,
the dried yellow ficus leaf
dropping to the blue rug,
step into the room from out of the
blaring shadows
stand here blinking,
shifting noiselessly
from foot to foot
"we have someone for you to meet,"
they say
and this scrawny thing steps up
looking defiant and lost
and they say, "it's your life
we've done the best we could with him
take him now, he belongs to you."
But I'm not falling for that again
what do they take me for anyway?
I grab the remote
it's 11:03 and I'm missing the news.

Copyright: Charles Oberkehr

REFLECTIONS

2009-04-02T10:58:00.000-04:00

When you look into the mirror
You are not alone
Every year someone else is with you
Relatives you never knew
In ragged wool coats from the old world
Big dreams and lint in their pockets

Who am I? you will ask them one morning
In a moment of weakness
Do not expect an answer
Beyond the nose on your face.

copyright: Charles Oberkehr

POEM A DAY FOR APRIL / POETRY MONTH

TWO GREEKS

2009-03-31T11:51:00.002-04:00

Jesus realizes that his hour has arrived, when two Greeks seek him out. That always seemed an odd bit of trivia to me, more suited to Jeopardy than the Gospel of John. Jesus spoke with Samaritans, lepers, women, tax collectors, Roman soldiers, religious and community leaders. What’s the big deal about a couple of Greeks?

Then this text was read at our bilingual contemporary worship Sunday night, the appointed text for the 5th Sunday in Lent, and I realized what a big deal it was. Here we were, navigating the fault lines between English and Spanish, Black, White and Brown, Young and Old, Traditional and Contemporary; all in an effort to embody a larger reality. Something more true and foundational. We felt like a flame clinging to the match in the teeth of fierce cultural (even congregational) winds.

For the first time, I heard this little reference, which acts almost like a throwaway line in the narrative, as a critical marker at the intersection of the Kingdom of God and the Powers That Be. These two Greeks seeking Jesus out is the reality of the Kingdom’s presence that breaks into the world like a raging flood, washing the flimsy pilings out from under the houses of fear and isolation the world builds on the shore of diversity, in order to take advantage of the lovely view.

Of course Jesus knew that the end was near when these Greeks came looking for him. How could he not know? He was beginning to transcend the barriers of culture, the boundaries between communities---the inviolate borders that exist between people and which serve the interests of those in power.

Jesus threatened to make all of that irrelevant not by slicing and dicing people up into new groups, but by drawing a big circle around all of them: Jew, Gentile, Samaritan, Greek, Male, Female, Gay, Straight, Sinner, Redeemed.

It struck me how tone-deaf we are today in the church toward this marker of the Kingdom. We still treat it like a throwaway line in the Passion narrative, while we collude with the Powers That Be to preserve our institutions as much as the Scribes and the Pharisees ever did.

The world draws us to it like iron to a magnet. We drag our faith along with us, and the world turns our faith into traditions and gives it back to us de-fanged and de-clawed. Traditions are faith tamed and made manageable. They are to faith as the cardboard cutouts of celebrities we stand next to like tourists having our pictures taken.

Can we hope to be the church and ignore this central component of the Kingdom that breaks down our Us and Them world into the Family of God? Can we continue without understanding that our faith, by its very existence, calls into question the Powers that Be every single day.

These Greeks coming to seek Jesus out were the down payment on a new world order that unites instead of dividing, by holding up the one thing that trumps all else. The all en-compassing Love of God that transforms everything, even the judgment of the cross, and makes us new here and now.

A CLEAN WHITE PAGE

2009-03-16T11:17:00.005-04:00

We all begin here:
the silent enormity of
eternity’s bored stare;
the wish before the candles
are lit,
the pointy hat,
the elastic cutting your chin.
One morning you stand before the mirror
fogged with steam
a rainbow of clarity
rubbed in with a towel
and the familiar face
you’ve been attending to for years
hands you a note from your father.

The clean white page
is the measure of the universe
it is E=MC2
it is every pair of socks you packed
and carried from place to place
and never needed.
You are as inconsequential
between the margins and the faint blue lines.
Your pen is filled with smoke.
The angels will fly through the words you write
blowing them apart
like the wise gray heads of dandelions
muttering their little pronouncements
straight from the mouth of God.

Copyright: Charles Oberkehr

Parentheses

2009-03-11T09:41:00.001-04:00

When my wife left for work this morning
I bolted the door,
(a dead bolt it just occurred to me)
because out of the blue
(or maybe not)
the click of the cylinder
reminded me of dying.
I went back to the kitchen
to finish my breakfast and coffee
considering that maybe my life ends
just this easily
a flick of the wrist
and eternity is as inconsequential
as a bowl of half warm oats
and a newspaper forever waiting to be read.
And then my father
(dead eight years)
sat down in his checkered robe and slippers
his hair going in a thousand directions at once
and took the Sports page.
I started to object
but who knows when forever
actually starts
everything immutable is in parentheses
the rest is up for grabs.
Tonight my wife
will turn her key in the lock
with a flick of the wrist
and (God willing) announce “I’m home”
(at least that’s what I’m expecting)

Copyright Charles Oberkehr, 2009

The Big Night Finally Arrives

2009-03-02T22:58:00.000-05:00

Last night, we held our first bilingual contemporary liturgy, getting it in under the wire before a major winter storm hit. Today there’s a foot of snow on the ground, and I am letting the flu-ey bug that I held at bay with varying degrees of success yesterday, have its way with me.

Even with forecasters calling for a violent nor’easter to hit just about the time the liturgy was supposed to begin, we managed to have about 30 people there. Not bad for a first try.

On Thursday, we took out a section of 5 pews to make a place for the musicians and singers to be in the nave on the same level as the congregation. The young people loved it, the older folks…not so much. At the 10:00am service there were a lot double takes, smiles and frowns.

During the sermon, I said that some people will love this and some will hate it. But whether you love it or hate it is really beside the point. The point is whether arranging the sanctuary this way helps us to further the mission of our congregation. Will we be able to reach people with this liturgy and this arrangement that we wouldn’t reach otherwise? That’s really what it’s all about. If it doesn’t do that, we put everything back and try something else. I can see some people are going to have to chew on that awhile.

We had two keyboards, a teenage girl on the drums who insisted that her grandmother get her there so she could play, two guitars, and four singers. Being on the same level with the congregation lent a sense of intimacy to the liturgy. The whole thing lasted about 50 minutes. Snow was just beginning to fall as a few of the people were leaving. Two widows who live in the same building were beaming as they left. They said how exciting it was. I watched them cross the snowy street to their apartment building. Of all the people I pictured coming to this service, I never would have imagined it would be someone like them. God always has something to surprise you up his sleeve.

Inside, most of the people were talking in the aisle. There was a sense that the wind had shifted, and there was a kind of freshness in the air, like after a rain. We still have a lot of wrinkles to iron out, but there was a sense in the sanctuary that something unique had happened and even the imperfections were part of it. Maybe the most important part.

PUTTING THE BLOCKS AWAY

2009-02-24T11:07:00.004-05:00

I used the word confused
With my grandson
While we put the blocks away
Sorting the yellow triangles,
The blue circles and the red squares
Through the corresponding outlines
In the container lid
Like a crime scene on Sesame Street.
He repeated the word
Not knowing what it meant.
In love with the sound I suppose
Rolling the syllables joyfully
With the soft dexterity of the tongue,
Ka-foooosdid
Again and again
Until it grew large enough
To contain his delight.
This is how we learned
Before we stepped back from our lives
and stood before consciousness’s long mirror
Adjusting our collars and smoothing down our hair
Before what we loved
Became complicated with meaning
And eclipsed by our own reflection.
Back in those sweet days
When one thing followed another
As easily as these blocks
Slip through the empty space
Made especially
With them in mind

COPYRIGHT: Charles Oberkehr 2009

Nuts and Bolts

2009-02-17T20:05:00.001-05:00

We have swung the publicity campaign into full gear. Posters are going up around the neighborhoods, and an email campaign has started. It’s time for some of the nuts and bolts decisions to be made.

The biggest so far is where to have the liturgy. We have a large, gothic sanctuary, which is beautiful but not very flexible. Pews are fixed and the altar is against the wall. There is really no room for instruments. They never envisioned anything more than the organ when they designed the space. Those are just some of the minuses.

The pluses are that the sound system and the piano is there already. The drums and the guitars are portable. There has been some grumbling about drums and such in the sanctuary, but that’s been isolated. We can always set up a free-standing altar for the liturgy.

I guess my biggest concern is expectations the sanctuary imposes on the liturgy. The idea for this liturgy is to help all of us relate to our worship experience in a new way. That includes how the Good News is communicated in a new way and how we might be an inclusive community through this liturgy. Some sacred cows are sure to bite the dust here. Trying to do all that in the sanctuary may be the equivalent of new wine into old skins.

My inclination now is to set up the auditorium downstairs into a worship space. That poses a different set of logistical challenges, but at least it puts everyone on equal footing. Everyone already has an experience and an idea of worship in the sanctuary. Whatever happens will be judged against that experience. No one knows quite what to expect from a liturgy in the auditorium though.

As March 1st draws nearer, I am feeling more than ever how important this initiative is for our congregation and our community. There is so much division, fear and isolation in our communities, and it can be so strong, even within our own congregation, the resistance to something new and unknown. Still, the Spirit blows where it will. I pray our sails are set in the right direction on March 1.

Charting a new course in bilingual ministry

2009-02-12T09:41:00.005-05:00

We've set a date to begin our new bilingual ministry "Somos El Cuerpo de Cristo" "We are the Body of Christ" Sunday, March 1st. 7:00PM. Keep your fingers crossed and please keep praying for this fledgling ministry.

The idea is to use music to bridge the language barriers, and make the liturgy active, culminating in the action of gathering at the table for the meal. The key for this liturgy will be interaction and participation. I imagine us trying to develop a sort of liturgical sign language, focusing on music, dance and the visual arts as the universal platform for the spoken word.

There have been so many false starts in attempting bilingual ministry here. The prevailing two church model, or tenant/landlord, has been a bust, twice. Trying to fold a new model of a unified diverse congregation into an old envelope has been disappointing. But there have been glimmers of hope from that attempt. Sparks to cup with your hands so that they may grow to a new flame. So, I think it is time for a new approach. New skins to hold the new wine of a bilingual inclusive congregation.

I'll keep you posted on how things are developing. Especially on the "demons" in the form of unexamined expectations this brings up in the "established" group. There has been a lot of that, and its not really surprising. It's sort of like the kick when you fire a shot gun. Enthusiasm in whatever form it takes, digs squarely into the shoulder of the one who pulls the trigger. The bigger the blast of enthusiasm, the bigger the kick.

All I can say so far is for a leader to expect that and know how to exercise self care so that you can keep the vision moving forward. Keep your shoulder loose, so to speak, so the kick back doesn't set you down on the seat of your pants. The biggest thing you can do is to keep standing. Whatever that takes.

Krugman in the Times today

2009-02-09T10:41:00.002-05:00

I agree with Paul Krugman on this. I hope Obama is listening.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/opinion/09krugman.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

A Journal entry

2009-01-26T09:09:00.002-05:00

I am lost. It makes no sense to pretend otherwise. I have been walking in circles for weeks. My mouth is full of bitterness. My eyes burn. The ground gives way under my feet.

I don’t know how to get my bearings. All the old tricks have been exposed. I try to read, but the book in my hands is a mirage, the words shimmer and dance with neither meaning nor nourishment.

I have nothing to say for myself. It all sounds like the muttering of derelicts wandering the fluorescent-lit grocery aisles among the bright boxes of oatmeal and detergent at midnight.

I have no baptism to account for this. The heavens have not opened. There has been no heavenly voice. There has been no wild man with reservations. No devil to grant permission; no stones and no bread.

There is no justification for any of it. No ransom note, no telltale sign.

There is only the clock unwinding on the mantle, one thundering tick at a time, and this long scarf of smoke outside my window, unraveling in the crimson January sky.

A New Beginning

2009-01-20T23:33:00.002-05:00

The American savior machine is rolled out and cranked up. Bush and Cheney they seemed so small...bugs out from under the magnifying glass. We give and we take away. They scurry off into the future, and when they return, it will be in the rosy glow of our collective short memory.

Important perspective

2009-01-08T09:59:00.001-05:00

Given the one sided nature of coverage around this issue, I think this is an important perspective for us.

http://tinyurl.com/7gl33u

Thoughts for the day of Epiphany

2009-01-06T09:11:00.001-05:00

Here's the thing I just don't get. You'd think a star that could literally point out a baby in a haystack would be pretty hard to miss. And yet, everyone is oblivious to it except our three travelers from the East.

Is everyone so caught up in the daily grind of life in Bethlehem that even a star moving through town goes unnoticed? How could the majesty of God be so obvious to foreigners while the citizens of Bethlehem could be so oblivious?

I can't help but wonder, what stars are shining in my life right now, that I am too dense, preoccupied, oblivious (fill in your own adjective) to notice? Prayer may be nothing more than opening our eyes to the shining wonder of God's presence in the present moment.

A little doodling

2008-12-29T23:58:00.001-05:00

Jesus doodles in the dirt as the Pharisees bring a woman accused of adultery, a capital offense, to get Jesus opinion. Lives hang in the balance here. The woman's life of course, but Jesus life too in a manner of speaking. This is a test, and if Jesus assents to the Pharisee's verdict, things will go much easier for him. If not, they have evidence against him.

No wonder Jesus starts to doodle in the dirt. Was he giving himself time to think? The Pharisees time to reconsider?

Whatever Jesus was doing, it worked. Jesus arrived at the perfect answer. And, he gave the Pharisees time. To their great credit, they dropped their stones and walked away. Other mobs have not.

Be conscious about how you reach decisions today. Is there space built into the process for the Holy Spirit? Truth seldom arrives on a time table. If you're not sure, maybe a little doodling is in order?

help Obama stop torture

2008-12-29T23:48:00.001-05:00

Take action now, through the National Religious Campaign Against Torture

click here

The season's first snow

2008-12-19T11:26:00.001-05:00

It’s starting to snow here. The first predicted snow of any appreciable amount this season. I am sitting in the kitchen by the window with my coffee, watching the tiny flakes dropping from the sky between the winter-stripped forsythia. Falling with a certain urgency in light of the forecast of up to six inches of accumulation.

It’s strange how quiet everything suddenly becomes now that I am aware of the snow. As though some small wheel of the cosmos is back on its rail. The snow will continue to fall, regardless of how I conduct my day, just as it arrived of its own accord. The snow falling never lets me get too far away from now and the accumulations of the present moment. We are on two parallel tracks, companions and adversaries at the same time. We share this day, whatever this day brings. It’s challenges and its blessings are happening at this very moment. I am content to see how it will all unfold.

GM exec makes more than the top 37 Toyota execs combined

2008-12-16T14:26:00.003-05:00

We've been hearing about the UAW auto workers needing to take a pay cut to help out GM. The Republicans have laid a large share of the responsibility for GM's trouble at the feet of the UAW. And yet the difference between the hourly wage of the average GM auto worker's wage and the average Toyota (and Honda and Nissan for that matter) is negligible.

However, the combined wages of Toyota's top 37 executives is 121 million... or, to put it another way, the equivalent of the yearly salary of GM's CEO. One GM exec gets paid as much as 37 Toyota execs.

Clearly, the UAW and the GM autoworker is NOT the problem here...

http://tinyurl.com/64qcfx

HMO apologizes for phone sex mix up

2008-12-12T23:12:00.002-05:00

Do I still need to be pre-certified?

http://tinyurl.com/6xn9mj

Smiling banned in Indiana

2008-12-09T14:58:00.002-05:00

Whatever you do, don't say CHEEEZ!

http://tinyurl.com/5l6vgw

A FAMILY PORTRAIT

2008-12-09T14:47:00.002-05:00

My father is singing
in the photo on the refrigerator.
It’s an impromptu portrait,
the last time the family was together
and, as is almost always the case,
no one knew it at the time,
but you know it now
so you feel like God
when you look at it
on your way to a midnight snack.

There are dishes waiting to be cleared
from the table in front of them
empty glasses, glittering forks.
My father’s hand rests on the shoulder
of the sister who took him in at 14.
She is not singing,
she is almost smiling
gazing off to the left.

My father’s younger brother
and an older sister
are singing with him.
Their arms are linked
at the elbows,
mouths in perfect O’s.

My mother and my aunt are smiling
standing by their husbands
as though they’d just decided
at that very moment
their lives had been good.

Rudy is dead now,
Lois (the one smiling) is dead,
Uncle Chickie is dead,
two of the sisters
dissolving into laughter; dead
and the one still singing; dead.

My father is dead too.

There is this terrible line between
is and was
and it moves so swiftly
you can barely see it
and maybe that’s why
we love photos like this
why we plaster them on our refrigerators
and invent ingenious things with magnets
to hold them there.
They are emblems of what could not be spoken
and what should not be forgotten
they are talismans of the sacred
wadded in the pocket of an old coat.

A family
standing shoulder to shoulder
side by side
hands tentatively resting on each other
like small blessings,
singing a German song
from the immigrant childhood
that marked each of them
in different ways
and there is a sense of reconciliation
you come to see in time
that thing which comes after hope
the moment someone sings the first bar
of something
and the rest join in.
In photos
as in the heart that cherishes them
they do not stop singing
until the song is finally done.

Thanksgiving Eve Thoughts

2008-11-26T23:21:00.001-05:00

I just got back from our community Thanksgiving service. It was held this year at the African Methodist Episcopal Church. I always enjoy being together with the community, being able to worship without having any real responsibility for what happens. And I always feel vaguely like an imposter among my “amen-ing” “thank you Jesus-ing” black colleagues. Coming from a catholic, liturgical tradition, we speak a different language. Or at the very least, a different dialect.

Everyone there tonight was black, except for me, and I was glad that I was there, my whiteness exaggerated by my white alb and stole. It was a reminder of how deeply segregated our religious life is, and I felt my being there was a sign of hope. And, I think the worshippers appreciated my being there too, for the same reason.

The worship was right out of the AME order, I suppose. I don’t want to criticize. I was more grateful to be able to worship tonight than ever. And there was a sense of warmth there tonight that I appreciated. It helped me ease some of the heaviness of spirit I came there with tonight.

But I felt like the proverbial Martian, seeing practices for the first time and trying to make sense of them. For instance, the point in the service where everyone was invited to come to the altar and leave their worries with God.

“The altar is now open,” the presiding minister declared, and two ushers promptly closed the rail around it. Then people came up and knelt at the altar rail, where pumpkins and squash, and apples, and bananas from last Sunday’s harvest Sunday, (for us Christ the King) were still lined up and people came and knelt at the rail with the pumpkins and the fruit and scrunched up their faces because they were at the altar and thus where praying harder.

I wonder, what was here at the altar that was not there in their seat? Is God MORE present here than there? The practice seemed to mimic the Eucharist, yet it was all up to me. Meaning that I had to come forward and FEEL something. Something only I could feel, and in that it was very private. No wonder there was all that scrunching of faces.

In the Eucharist, you come and gather around the table of the Lord for the sacramental meal. You receive the bread and the wine. The experience is outside of me. Sure it means something different at different times. Sometimes it is deeply moving and sometimes your mind is thinking of other things. But the point is, the experience of taking and eating, taking and drinking, is not a private emotional concoction. It comes from outside of me, and in that sense I can only receive it. I can't control it. Which to me, says something very important about God.

God is intimate, as near as my own heart beat, my own breathing, and still God is other than me. I come into the presence of God, and am fed by God in the process. God is not my thoughts, my emotions, my feelings. God is a piece of bread placed in my hand, a cup lifted to my lips received in the context of faith.

Right now

2008-11-25T09:38:00.003-05:00

Right now, the rain is clattering down the wall outside my study window, where the downspout is missing. It gathers in a puddle in the yard, and it sounds like a deluge, but I don' think it is really raining that hard. As I contemplate the start of my work day, trying to decide where to begin, I wonder if there isn't a downspout missing in my psyche, as the tasks seem so difficult to plow through. Is it really raining that hard, or am I just standing in a puddle?

My prayer right now, thanks to an old John Prine song that just came to mind:

That's the way that the world goes 'round
You're up one day, the next you're down
It's a half an inch of water and you think you're gonna drown
That's the way that the world goes 'round

2008-11-24T07:24:00.000-05:00

This photo was taken by Joe Hodges at our 110th anniversary celebration, October 26, 2008. More to come on the e Star.

-- Post From My iPhone

Sunday night

2008-11-23T22:27:00.001-05:00

Sunday nights are usually quiet for me. I wonder, how many other clergy feel a kind of let down on Sunday nights? As I reflect on the day, there was so much to feel good about. New people in worship again this week. The Spanish and the English combination is finding its own level in the liturgy. It was good playing the guitar after worship and developing ideas for a new bi-lingual liturgy. I am grateful for having music and the guitar back in my life again. I wish I could just play on a Sunday morning. Maybe I’ll join another church incognito, and play in their praise band or something on a Saturday night. There’s an idea.

Here at the end of the day, I feel the clashing needs of people, like a great wash of tides, or water in a bucket sloshing up against the sides. It feels unending and ungainly. We come before God to worship, lifting up our hearts to the Lord, dragging the weight of who we are like a ball and a chain along behind us.

What happy people don't do

2008-11-21T09:37:00.004-05:00

Interesting article about the habits of happy people. Or more precisely, what happy people generally steer clear of. I wonder though, does their happiness lead them to these choices, or do the choices produce happiness? My sense is that happiness leads one to make choices, but an unhappy person making those same choices will not necessarily make a happy person.

If so then, what is happiness and where does it come from?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/health/research/20happy.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

I am not ready...

2008-11-19T15:28:00.003-05:00

I am not ready for this:
the cold
the dark at 4:30
exaggerating the sense of refuge
in this room where I write this.
I have gone through this entire day
tailed by something like sorrow.
In the twilight it crosses the threshold.
The wavy glass in the window
drifts closer without the light behind it
to hold it back.
Soon there will be nothing
but HERE.
The clock ticking on the wall
is final and unforgiving
NOW, NOW, NOW,
The lamp on my desk
burns brighter
with each thunderous stroke.

copyright Charles Oberkehr

The evil still among us

2008-11-14T09:38:00.003-05:00

As hopeful as the last week has been, evil sends a reminder that it is still present among us, and will have its say. I am wondering how to deal with this story in church on Sunday? One thing, it shows how important kindness is. How those that take on the task of reconciliation and choose the difficult work of living together are desperately needed now. We must look evil in the eye, even when we see our own worst selves looking back at us.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/nyregion/14immigrant.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

What is wisdom?

2008-11-12T13:30:00.001-05:00

Sent from a friend, an intriguing study....

http://tinyurl.com/6xpav5

If only it were so....

2008-11-07T09:44:00.004-05:00

Bush asks, "Can I go home now?"

http://tinyurl.com/5s6eqk

And then overnight, the world changed...

2008-11-06T11:12:00.002-05:00

As I do most mornings, I went to the gym the morning after the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States. I was going up the stairs to the locker room and a black guy was coming down on his way to work out. We passed each other and our eyes met for just a moment. We nodded, exchanged a brief howyadoin and continued on our way.

But there was something different about our exchange now. We both knew it. In the space of even those few seconds you could measure easily just how much the world had changed. It had happened literally, overnight. In the space of a casual glance, an innocent pleasantry that happens without a second thought a million times a day between strangers, we both had an “aha” moment. Everything was different now.

It felt like getting a pair of new glasses. I remember when I would put a new pair of glasses on and the first thing I would see was how much I had been missing. The edges around everything were suddenly sharp enough to cut. The world is wavy in its clarity and your legs feel wobbly until your brain acclimates to the flood of visual information your eyes are feeding it. A new world bursts open and while the brain struggles to process it, the eyes can’t get enough. Everything is there in its glorious splendor and it’s all waiting to be seen.

With the election of Barack Obama, the country and the world have just gotten a new pair of glasses. We are all walking around now marveling for a moment at how much we were missing. New maps need to be drawn to accommodate this new territory. New assumptions need to be made about each other and most importantly, about ourselves.

In time, we will acclimate to the new world that has blossomed right before our eyes. The ground will firm up beneath our wobbly legs. But for now, every casual meeting is full of a spontaneous humanity and a marvelous potential. We have stepped out from behind the tedious roles of our history. We have lowered the familiar mask of expectation behind which our humanity is demeaned and dismissed and for this one moment at least, we have seen each other. Who are we now? What will we become? The question in all its glorious potential, is asked now even in a casual nod. A routine howyadoin?

This is where the work begins and yes, this is where the fun starts…

Silly CNN election stunts

2008-11-05T22:28:00.001-05:00

Obi Wan Blitzer calls the elections

http://laughlines.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/wolfman-vs-princess-leia/

Dog eared newstand video clip

2008-11-05T22:17:00.001-05:00

I think I saw this guy in Penn Station

http://laughlines.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/dog-eared-magazine-stand/

Victory Speech from Grant Park.

2008-11-05T17:06:00.003-05:00

In case you went to bed before the victory speech, you can enjoy it here.

http://tinyurl.com/5s39g6

Go down to the bottom of the page.

Laugh Lines: ‘Endorsements Are Important’

2008-11-04T20:12:00.001-05:00

Aired Monday night on CBS: Congratulations to everybody who ran the New York City Marathon yesterday. And a special congratulations to this year’s winner, Joe the runner.Tomorrow marks the end of the presidential campaign, and Sarah Palin decided to celebrate early by charging one last $1,500 blouse to the campaign.By the way, they’r

read more | digg story

Samuel Wurzelbacher Vs. CNN's Rich Sanchez

2008-11-04T20:08:00.001-05:00

Sam Wurzelbacher, AKA "Joe the Plumber", gets grilled by Rick Sanchez after weeks of essentially stumping for John McCain.

read more | digg story

Waiting for results...enjoy this Daily Show clip

2008-11-04T18:25:00.000-05:00

Voting Report

2008-11-04T11:36:00.006-05:00

My wife Gloria and I had about a 30 minute wait this morning to vote for Obama. An eclectic group of people were on line with us. Many first time voters. Touching to see how they dressed up for the occasion. The man in front of me wearing a new black cord shirt with fresh jeans and a new black Nike baseball hat to match. ANGEL was tattooed in faced blue ink on the back of his neck under the collar.

An elderly man in a blue suit and tie, with a brown knit ski cap and snapping his fingers by the ear of a little Hispanic boy, looking away when he turned around. He is holding a brochure in Spanish for new citizen first time voters.

Epiphany is right across the street from the polling station, so I put out our welcome table, some chocolates that didn't go at Halloween, and information about the church. Oh yes, and our torture banner was moved front and center.

The world is changing. (The banner is part of our participation in the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. It reads, "EPIPHANY LUTHERAN CHURCH SAYS: TORTURE IS WRONG"

Something scary for Halloween

2008-10-31T09:50:00.001-04:00

Interview with John Updike

2008-10-31T09:18:00.007-04:00

Follow this link for wonderful interview with John Updike. The celebrated author shares his thoughts on the candidates, the presidential election, and his home state of Pennsylvania. Many valuable cultural insights...
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2008/10/30/multimedia/1194829741569/a-conversation-with-john-updike.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

On a dark rainy morning...

2008-10-28T12:56:00.008-04:00

BEFORE WORK

The day starts in darkness
No clear beginning
Thunder, a surprise guest
Dragging its heavy bag across the sky
Rain fingers drumming the windows
Keeping time with the wind
There is something pleasing
About all of this
About the lamp burning above the sink
Ricocheting light in the stainless steel
The cream of wheat simmering on the stove
The newspaper folded on the table.
Something the bright sun
In a clear uncomplicated sky
Cannot compete with
The interior landscape lingering past
Its appointed bounds
The night’s dreams perched
Like a snail’s
Spiral button on your back
If there is something missing
Something more to need or want
There is coffee
And there is Mozart on the radio
And there is an hour
Before you must be
Somewhere else.

copyright Charles Oberkehr 2008

what if things were switched?

2008-10-22T07:45:00.012-04:00

I received this in an email from a friend. It touches on something that has been bothering me throughout this election season, but haven't been able to articulate. The email follows below:

Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five?
(The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer distribution?

What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call.

Bill Maher and religion...

2008-10-20T10:48:00.003-04:00

The least interesting thing about the comedian Bill Maher is his take on religion. He's against it. There, that's about all you need to know.

But Maher can't leave it at that. He feels compelled to attack religious beliefs and the people that hold them. His attack barely rises to the level you might expect from a 7th grade confirmation class.

Maher even goes so far as to make an entire movie about it. "Religulous" a documentary style film along the lines of "Borat" is in the theaters now. Some are wondering about its impact on evangelism. I figure the people who would find this appealing beyond its comedic entertainment value are not going to be prime targets for evangelism anyway.

There is more than enough to criticize about religious beliefs, and the way those beliefs are practiced. Especially in America, where Christendom as Kierkegaard skewered it so effectively, is alive and well. (See Attack Upon Christendom). Maher offers little in the way of insight. His critiques are as infantile as the beliefs he is ridiculing.

Maher simply offers the flip side of the fundamentalist coin. He seems unable to conceive of a truth beyond the level of "fact". A fundamentalist seeks to establish the literal truth of scripture, which is as silly as the atheist (Maher) seeking to establish the literal falsity of it.

Truth, at its most profound level, is not found between the fundamentalist bookends of true and false. That's the stuff of a pop quiz. Let Bill Maher slug it out with Robertsons, the Dobsons and the big box churches. That argument produces more heat than light.

The truth that transforms hearts and lives is found in the "fabrications" of poets and painters, writers and storytellers who understand that truth is never the servant of fact. Fact serves the truth.

Truth lives where hope embraces doubt, where faith requires a great leap and while you are hanging there in mid air, before you land on the other side, truth is what you have to say.

Interactive state-by-state prediction map says Obama wins

2008-10-18T09:43:00.001-04:00

An Election Map but it's not a poll. It's based on 50 underlying prediction markets that respond in real-time to breaking news, so the forecasts are continually updated, and proven to be accurate. And they're predicting that Obama will walk it.

read more | digg story

Life in Hempstead

2008-10-15T22:50:00.000-04:00

Rate Tonight's Debate

2008-10-15T20:25:00.001-04:00

Get involved, add some weight. Rate tonight's Presidential debate. Sign up here.

read more | digg story

McCain & Palin Twins Found [PIC]

2008-10-13T10:57:00.001-04:00

Finally, the story can be told. The long lost twins of John McCain and Sarah Palin step into the spotlight.

read more | digg story

What's REALLY at the end of the rainbow...

2008-10-10T08:53:00.001-04:00

Ok, so it's not a pot of gold, unless you're selling I suppose. But the price looks good anyway.

read more | digg story

Next Stop...Hempstead

2008-10-09T17:35:00.001-04:00

We’re getting ready for the final presidential debate here in Hempstead. Newsday ran a story this morning that no one, not even VIP’s, will have much luck in getting into Hofstra Wednesday night. I guess we’ll be watching on TV.

Demonstrators are getting organized. I get a few emails a day about the various demonstrations being planned. I think Hempstead Turnpike is going to be lined with people, shoulder to shoulder, from Hofstra right on down to the front of the church for most of the day. I imagine the Island is going to be one big grid-lock Wednesday.

Every day that passes now, there is the sense of momentum, an air of inevitability to the election. McCain is fading fast. He is morphing into a character out of Grumpy Old Men. Not even one of the leads; a supporting grumpy old man. He says anything now and contradicts himself, many times in the same sentence. It doesn’t matter. No one is paying enough attention to him now to bother correcting him. The conversation has moved past him.

Watching him is like watching one of those dubbed foreign movies. The mouth stops moving and the words keep going. Facial expressions flash across McCain’s face at random, unconnected to anything. More like tics really. Especially when he is trying to exude warmth. I remember him standing there at the beginning of the last debate, expressions cascading across his face like all the circuits in there were booting up. It was a little creepy.

What’s going to be interesting now is the future of Sarah Palin. Does she have a legitimate political future out of this, or does this constitute the sum total of her 15 minutes of fame? The comedy writers will be sorry to see her go. She is a gift from the comedy muse. It’ll be back to work for them once she rides off into the Alaskan sunset. The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live should give her royalty cuts.

Existential Algebra

2008-10-04T11:41:00.006-04:00

Here's a bit of existential algebra. How much difference can one person make in the world?

I have tended to underestimate that, I think. As an artist, I have eschewed the role of 'activist' as being too limiting. Besides, my sense of anger too easily ties my tongue in knots. I wind up writing embarrassing rants that collapse at my feet under their own indignant weight.

Activism seems more goal driven. Art requires a willingness to end up in a different place than you intended when starting out. Which is to say, a willingness to be surprised. Art requires a certain detachment (from outcome) and paradoxically a sense of passion (translated hope). Therein lies the creative tension. How does one manage to maintain passionate detachment? It is easy to get out of whack. Writer's block, depression, cynicism step in to fill the gaps.

Underestimating the impact of the individual is one of those gaps. Everyone rushes in to proclaim a hero, and the artist hangs back. There are no heroes, how much difference can one person make? The hero walks hand in hand with the anti-hero. The sun casts its long shadow.

There is undeniable truth in that observation, as long as you recognize the limitations of it as well. It is not an excuse to do nothing and retreat into cynicism, or quietism, or defeatism. Instead, it is the opportunity to lay hold of your own destiny and not place it in the hands of someone else. Hero or villain.

How much difference can one person really make in the world? My answer. George W. Bush.

In eight years his incurious incompetence has changed the world in astounding ways. Mostly for the worst. Now, if one person's incompetence and unresolved father issues can produce such disastrous changes, isn't the opposite, the capacity for positive change, just as possible at the hand of one person? I believe it is.

If one person can be responsible for so much devastation, one person can also manage to turn it around. Which makes me hopeful for the coming election. Which moves me to be part of my world, with all its shortcomings. Which is to say, shoulder my share of the activist load.

I was never very good at algebra. But, in the midst of the terrible destruction and devastation of Bush years, I can be grateful to be coming out them with this measure of hope still in the social equation. No small feat.

VP debate...it's history

2008-10-03T10:25:00.003-04:00

Well, I watched last night, and I saw Biden provided substantive answers. Palin provided an energetic presentation of scripted talking points and Bush slogans. She blantantly refused to answer questions for which she had not been prepped. She was completely thrown by the last question about what her shortcomings might be. Biden answered it with grace and humor, which led to his most effective and human moment of the night.

Palin did not make any huge mistakes like her previous interviews. But she never rose above the level of discourse you might get from a used car salesman (Can I callya Joe?). One trying to move a real clunker off the lot.

VP Debates / What's at stake?

2008-10-02T08:56:00.004-04:00

Roger Cohen, a columnist for the NY Times reports this morning that the actuarial risk, based on mortality rates, of Palin assuming the presidency should McCain win the election is about 1 in 6 or 7.

Cohen writes, "That’s the same odds as your birthday falling on a Wednesday, or being delayed on two consecutive flights into Newark airport. Is America ready for that?"

Good question, don't you think? I know I'll be thinking about that tonight while I watch the debates.

The elections

2008-10-01T23:09:00.003-04:00

Take a look at the video bar, especially the interview with Katie Couric. It's painful to watch. I start to squirm watching it. There is a mad dash here to lower expectations in advance of the debate tomorrow night between Palin and Biden. I think it's too late. I've maintained all along that this election will not be as close as people have been predicting. McCain is selling his soul in desperation in a last ditch effort to win the big prize. And there is something unsettling about even looking at him now. He looks disjointed, like he's coming apart before our eyes. Sarah Palin makes him look sad and pathetic...and old when they are together. There is something unseemly about their sugar-daddy relationship. I guess I learned something important about myself, watching them. I can still be embarrassed.

ADVENT POEM

2006-12-13T16:59:00.004-05:00

Our writer sits lost
Late one afternoon
There is a blue sky outside
Filled with cold and bitterness.
Inside an old clock ticks drunkenly.
He remembered to wind it
Right after he hung up his coat
That was hours ago
When he was filled with hope
He’s started many poems since then
And rejected all of them
Or had they rejected him?
It’s hard to tell anymore
tick TOCK TICK tock tick TOCK
He sees a lame horse
Racing down a broken hill
Its rider carrying an urgent letter
Or maybe a note
of belated thanks
For many small favors.

© Charles Oberkehr

Happy Birthday to me

2006-05-19T17:23:00.001-04:00

I turned 50 this week. The statement sits on the page like an awkward pause, unwieldy despite being only five words long. You have no idea how long I’ve just spent staring at it. One of the blessings of the written word, for which, you can be thankful.

I remember writing a newsletter piece, breezy and upbeat, if you can imagine such a thing from me, about turning forty. Then, I was in a new parish, newly re-married, we’d just bought a house, my sons were finally living with us, and I was feeling the flush of new beginnings.

So far, turning fifty has none of that. At fifty, there is a vague sense of foreboding. A panic overwhelming and futile, like remembering you left the water running…twenty years ago. How much of this is actually turning fifty and how much is the present context, who knows?

I do know there was still a sense of anticipation that went with turning forty. Forty was the unconscious bar I’d set for myself in my twenties. I was under the crazy impression that most of the questions and apprehensions of adulthood would be ironed out by then.

Yes, the missing letters on the puzzle would be turned over, the vowels bought and paid for, and I’d have a pretty good handle on the answer. All that’s left was spinning the wheel and wracking up big numbers. Fifty is the realization that the vowels mean nothing, because the puzzle is in Polish, and you still haven’t a clue.

At fifty, the flaw of your life plan suddenly dawns on you. You never really thought ahead this far. Until now, everything after forty was a vague, emotional etcetera. Now at fifty, the after thought becomes the starting point. Ground Five-Zero. Fifty is the breath drawn before every word, the finger poised above the keys on the keyboard. Here you begin to sense the limits the way an outfielder chasing down a fly ball senses the looming centerfield fence.

Macabre little equations keep edging into my thoughts. I find myself trying to calculate the time I might have left. 20 years, maybe 30---maybe 10? That’s roughly the amount of time between my birth and my first call, or roughly the amount of time we’ve been married.

Fifty brings with it a new sense of urgency and a strange complacency as well. I have less to prove at fifty. My impulsive and idealistic schemes have a certain gravitas. I am content to let myself be. In a way I suppose, I have become less important. To sense the limits of life is also to sense the vastness of it as well. There is something irrefutable about getting this far, and of still being at it; whatever it is.

On the Day You Were Born

2006-03-23T15:24:00.001-05:00

for Solomon Elisha Evans

The trouble with stories
about the day we were born
is how much gets left out of them.
Like the hopeless, loose snowflakes
that fell on the morning you were born,
melting as soon as they hit the ground.
I was having breakfast
in a Gaithersburg McDonalds,
and the flakes that landed
on my shoulders and back
survived an extra 20 seconds
until I got inside.
They are as much a part
of the day you were born
as your mother diligently climbing stairs at the mall
ten days past her due date,
or the check up she almost didn’t go back for,
but did,
or the ambulance, the emergency C-section,
and the cord that was
wrapped around your neck.
Those extra 20 seconds
no one could have predicted,
drifting unbidden from the sky
are the binding that holds
the pages of a life together.

So let me add then,
that I ordered a Number 2 meal that morning,
splurging with both coffee and juice
and sat among the regulars,
a random community of retired men
with no where better to be,
who gather in places like this
to discuss the aches and pains of history.
I took a table by a window,
waiting for news of you,
wondering if today would finally be the day
and watched the brief, furious snow
draw a gray curtain over the parking lot.

When you are waiting for someone to be born
you can sense things shifting
around inside you like loose change
in a pocket of your heart.
The snow is sticking now
all around the edge of things
and quickly losing interest in itself.
I’m enjoying eavesdropping on these men
while I eat.
They will sit here all morning
nursing coffees, sharing the same newspaper,
telling the same stories,
stories meant to set a lost world straight
and these stories too
in their own way
are all about the day you were born.

copyright charles oberkehr 2006

Looking at old photos

2006-03-21T15:10:00.000-05:00

In the photo we’re shaking hands, my father and I. Both of us dressed in albs after worship and obviously posing for the shot. I’m looking at the camera, about to make some wisecrack, judging by the expression on my face. My father’s eyes are closed, smiling gamely, about to say something too. What he’s about to say is anyone’s guess now. He appears self-conscious and eminently uncomfortable as the center of attention.

This photograph was taken at my formal installation in my second parish. I didn’t take my father’s advice and stick it out longer in my first parish. I lasted just two years. In my defense, it certainly seemed a lot longer though.

My first call out of seminary was to the coal regions of Northeast Pennsylvania. I landed in a typical ‘first call’ parish. Small church, well past its heyday, such as it was, with little prospect for growth. Black lung and disability benefits were the largest source of income and funerals outnumbered baptisms something like 20 to 1. No one expected longevity in place like this. You came here to get your pastoral feet wet. While I was thrilled to finally be out of seminary, I also remember being confused and feeling so out of place among people I had so little in common with.

My father kept telling me to be patient.

"This could be a peach, a real gold mine, if you give it a chance," he’d say.

"The only thing coming out of this mine is coal," I’d snap back.

He’d shake his head and that would be the end of it, until the next time. What I didn’t know then; what I didn’t understand about my father and his advice was that it was too much for him to come right out and say that even stubborn, small-minded, difficult people deserve a pastor.

"Yes dad, they do indeed." I want to say now, "perhaps more than most folks, they need a pastor. But, that’s an awful lot to ask of the young man in this photo."

Looking at this photo today, it’s easy to see what my father must have seen then. How green I was! I burst out of seminary with my degree and ordination papers under my belt, and all I wanted was to set the world on fire. It wasn’t until I hit my first parish that I realized something very important. They don’t give out matches in seminary.

I suppose it comes as no surprise that my first call was a colossal flop. My father continually telling me to stick it out inadvertently magnified my sense of responsibility. When this photo was taken, I remember feeling like it was all my fault.

Now, I’ve gained some perspective. Some of it was my fault. My inexperience, impatience and unrealistic expectations took their toll. But realistically, the ending of my first pastorate was just the latest in a string of short-term pastorates in that parish. The guy who followed me didn’t even make it as long as I did. I out-lasted him by 3 months. (How do you like them apples!)

As I look at the two men in this photo, I believe it was hard for both of them to fully grasp how much the church and ministry had changed. My father, at the time this picture was taken, was coming up on his 30th anniversary of ordination. I would celebrate my 3 year ordination anniversary in about 2 more months.

The ministry he’d come into and the ministry I was coming into were worlds apart. The problem was, the only way I knew how to do ministry was the way I’d seen my father do it. I couldn’t understand why, what I’d seen work so well for him, fell flat on its face whenever I tried it!

It took me a long time and a lot of black eyes, to learn the importance of context; the Kairos of being in the right place at the right time. In this photo I see two men, one not knowing how to ask for help and the other, not knowing how to give it. Tangled in something sweet, and precious and not knowing exactly what to make of that either. Fairly typical of fathers and sons I suppose.

Today, I understand the young man staring back at me with the wisecracking expression, about to tell his mother (I assume it was her taking the picture, no one else could have made us stand that way for so long) to ‘put that camera away’ if I can read my own lips. My distaste for the center of attention comes honestly, I suppose.

Little did I know, the fiasco of my first parish would be nothing compared to what I would experience there in my second, where they’d run my predecessor out of town on a rail, so to speak. But, no one has gotten around to telling me that yet and sometimes, when you are looking at photographs, it’s best not to know more than the people in the photo know. And, in this photo, I am confident, exceedingly hopeful and secretly beaming inside. You see, my father is beside me, shaking my hand, and for that moment, I’m on top of the world and anything is possible!

Looking at these old photos has become a bit of a ritual for me lately, especially after my father died unexpectedly in 2001. I find it comforting. A photo gives context to the unknown, and there is something reassuring about holding the past in your hand while trying to guess what’s ahead.

For what pictures like this depict most clearly is the mystery of a grace that is hidden within the most ordinary circumstances. It seems we live most of our lives oblivious to the grace that surrounds us like air. And, sometimes I think, if we had the eyes to see it, what these old photos actually add up to is a kind of composite snap shot of God. Ha, I wonder what my old man would say if I told him that!

These old photos remind me how much I miss not having him to bounce ideas off of late at night around the scotch bottle. Occasionally, I’d like to tell him what these 17 odd years of ministry have amounted to since the night that picture was taken. Maybe he’d be surprised, maybe he wouldn’t. But that begs the question.

See, in the picture, my father has his left hand on my shoulder while he shakes my right hand. It’s a pose you’ve seen a thousand times. I always thought he was clapping me a hearty congratulations, sort of typical for these kinds of PR photos of oversized checks and oversized smiles. But this year, I see a tenderness I’ve never noticed. A gentleness you wouldn’t expect from a meaty paw like his.

It’s easy to want more; a more attractive figure, more money, more luck, and yes, even one more chance to say what should have been said then. The true treasure in these old photos though, is the witness they bear, that everything you’ve always needed has been right there in front of you all the time. You don’t need more because now is enough.

But look, I bet that’s just what my old man was about to say.