St. James…We’ve got a lot of stuff!
I know. I saw it boxed up, loaded, moved and stored. It was hard to see
All those memories, hopes and dreams. Some of them mine. Lots of them yours. Even more from the generations who went before us at St. James.
‘Odd how we didn’t get to go through everything: Throw out. Give away. Organize. Pack. It wasn’t because we didn’t want to or try to. In fact a wonderful group of parishioners worked at it for two days, but then they weren’t allowed to finish. ‘Building Inspector thought it was unsafe.
My personal M.O. when I move is to go through everything thoroughly: Polish, repair, and organize. Then I take only what I really want and need. So this “leaving before the bread had time to rise”, so to speak, was really weird for that compulsive part of me. I keep thinking about how someday someone may unpack an office trash can full of dirty Kleenex and phone messages from July 2008.
It was overwhelming to be there. ‘So overwhelming that the Altar Guild folks, who had permission to be there and to pack up the Sacristy, decided it was probably better just to let the movers do it. I think it was better because it was all just so hard.
Fortunately the crew of six professionals who did our move were really sensitive to how emotional and overwhelming it was for us. If movers can be “pastoral”, I’d say the folks from Billy’s Trucking of Pittsfield were “pastoral”. I will always remember their kindness. I’m still exhausted from this, profoundly exhausted.
But I think today’s passage from Jeremiah has a word of real HOPE for us. An old Credence Clearwater Revival song tells us, “Jeremiah was a bullfrog”, but he was also one of God’s Prophets! ‘One of those extraordinary people God calls to be God’s mouthpiece, to say the things God’s people need to hear, whether they are ready to hear it or not!
In the early part of Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry, he speaks words of JUDGMENT and WARNING to God’s people. He said the people had gotten “too far from the basics” and become too obsessed with ritual and temple worship. In those early days, Jeremiah’s word to the people was to return to the Law of Moses and God’s Covenant. For our day the prophecy might be something like, “Get back to the Gospel and loving God and neighbor. “ Jeremiah’s message early on was to get back to the basics of the faith.
Today’s story from Jeremiah, however, is from the latter part of his ministry. It happens after years of strife. While God’s people were off being overly precious about their temple rituals, they became an oppressed vassal of Assyria. Then after Jeremiah had a little surge of hope that the people might return to basics, the Babylonians took over. They destroyed the beloved city Jerusalem. They desecrated and destroyed the sacred temple. They sent many of God’s people into exile in Babylon. God’s people lost most of what they knew, loved, and cherished. Their identity had been wrapped up in their city and in their temple.
During that horrible time, instead of seeking the relative safety of exile, the prophet Jeremiah chooses to stay back in Jerusalem to try to help a remnant of God’s people rebuild their lives. It was nearly a hopeless situation, and God’s people had little chance of surviving the Babylonians—either in Jerusalem or in exile.
So it’s against these dreadful conditions, against all odds, that we come to today’s story. Jeremiah himself is pretty much under “house arrest” in Jerusalem when the “word of the Lord” comes to him. In the middle of the ruins of his city, God sends a message to Jeremiah. Although life will never be like it was before, God tells Jeremiah to buy a parcel of land…in the middle of a war zone! So, much of today’s story is really the details of a real estate deal!
Now, I doubt the lectionary writers actually had our situation in mind, but today your Vestry and St. James Place are all too familiar with such transactions. And we’re learning the importance of making sure all the “T”s are crossed and the “I”s are dotted! Like Jeremiah, we’ve got to get it right to insure the future. God’s message to Jeremiah to buy the land is indeed a message of HOPE.
Hope that somehow, someday (and although everything would be different), the people of God would be able to live on and enjoy their own land again. It reminds me of that phrase in our BCP Burial Office, “Life is changed, not ended.” Their lives were changed, not ended. Our lives are changed, not ended.
This makes me think of how survivors of natural disasters and war must feel. After seeing their lives as they knew them totally destroyed, could they ever possibly have their own home again? It must seem nearly impossible to hope. And when God told Jeremiah to buy the land in Jerusalem, it must have seemed like a totally crazy thing to do…probably even a bullfrog wouldn’t do that! But Jeremiah does it because God tells him to. And in doing it, he shows real HOPE that life under God’s Holy Laws—although changed—might someday go on…even in Jerusalem.
So at this time of such great crisis in which much of what Jeremiah had warned about had come to pass…at this critical time, Jeremiah has gone from being a Prophet of DOOM to being a Prophet of HOPE. His buying the land is a sign of hope, an investment in an unknown future that God promises the people with these words, “Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.”
As we look at our world, at destructive situations far away and near, and as we look at ourselves at St. James, I wonder if we can hear from Jeremiah a word of grace, courage, and hope for our changed lives. What is the “land we can buy” for our children and our children’s children? What are the things we can do as acts of faith in the future? Certainly our support of Jake in Honduras, of the Heifer Project, of ERD’s rebuilding in areas struck by hurricanes and war, of our mission at Gideon’s Garden—especially with the children from WIC and BRIDGE, and even our support of the parish budget in uncertain times…Certainly all these are signs of HOPE. It’s the Hope God calls us to even when we feel we have little reason to hope and even when the situation is so overwhelming we can’t envision a way out.
At these times of darkness—At exactly these times—God makes lavish promises… "Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.” Life is changed, not ended. Given God’s promises, we are called to be faithful and to live in Hope.
Let us pray.
God, give us Hope for our futures that we might live with Joy each day of our lives. Amen.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Party Time: Honduras Style from Jake Pinkston on teaching mission in Honduras
It is hot. Really hot. Every shady spot along the street is crammed with lawn chairs, occupied by mothers fanning squirming toddlers and grandparents waving flags. Vendors walk the winding paths, hawking their offerings of cold drinks and patriotic paraphernalia Teenagers roam in packs with no real destination in mind, eying their peers of the opposite gender. The parade moves haltingly down the main street in the glaring sun, public officials flanked by military personnel. The high school band follows in full uniform, pounding drums, blasting “I Will Survive” while staff members towel beads of sweat off their brows. Is it the Fourth of July in September? No way. Happy Honduran Independence Day (and every other Central American country)!
While I am often surprised and puzzled by the plethora of holidays Honduran government sanctions, I must give them some appreciation for bunching them all together. Within a week, we celebrated the Day of the Child, the Honduran Independence Day, and Day of the Teacher. Translation: about a week and a half of special programming, parties and vacation. Here we go!
The festivities began last Thursday with the Señorita Independencia contest as part of Month of the Patria, sponsored by the city of La Ceiba. A hybrid of a geography bee and a beauty pageant, almost every school in the city had a senior class representative in the competition, 20 participants total. Dressed in flowing, sequenced gowns adorned in jungle motifs, the ladies gave speeches and answered trivia questions pertaining to Honduras’ past and the students future aspirations for themselves, their school, and their country. They also struck their favorite poses, a la Project Runway for the cheering crowd. Performances of pop hits, ethnic Garifuna drumming, and Christian rock music filled in between events.
It was a well run event by all accounts. The only issue was the timing. The entire secondary school attended the event to support our contestant (it was required). So did every other school, which meant that there were easily 700 people packed into a gym with no air conditioning or fans at the hottest time of the day. The snack shop, which made an absolute killing on the day, ran out of cold drinks in the first half hour. Needless to say, I spent most of the day playing bounty hunter, trying to find the students who decided they had had enough of the spectacle and took off. Probably would have been a better evening event instead of losing the entire school day, but why would the government want us to have school?
Day of the Child, celebrated on Friday, was another resounding success at Holy Trinity. Instead of just throwing a party for themselves, the students planned a party and brought it to a less fortunate community. The 10th grade did such a great job last year that we expanded the program to the entire secondary school. The 7th, 8th, and 9th graders returned to the squatter community along the old Standard Fruit rail line known as La Linea. I joined the 10th and 11th grade to the Clinica, which is a Trinity sponsored health center that provides medical treatment for local families at a reduced cost. The majority of their patrons are poor teen mothers with young children, and those were the kids who came.
The students were on the ball serving a snack and organizing activities as soon as the kids arrived. Everyone then gathered outside for the inviolable smashing of the piñata. We found some shady trees and I climbed up to set the string. This particular piñata was super reinforced to the point where even after every kid beat on it with all their might, it had minimal damage. Hoping to avoid mixing young children, free candy and a violently unpredictable broom handle, I elected to climb the tree again with the piñata and do the much safer “rain of candy”. The added benefit was I could control the flow and distribution so that the less aggressive children got a good haul of sweets. My climbing of the tree produced plenty of laughs and pictures and resulted in a minor splitting of my pants. All part of the job.
The party continued for another couple hours and included musical chairs, steal the bacon, cake and coca cola and a dance-off where I was properly “served” by a precocious ten year old with more dance skills in his right pinky than I have in my entire body. It was hilarious. I was happy to see the students taking initiative and connecting with the children at the Clinica, dancing with them and encouraging participation in the games. We returned to school where the students busted open their own piñata then took off for the weekend, a job well done.
Monday was another party day, this time celebrating the Independence Day (don’t we have vacation for that?). Every class put on a skit for the school that celebrated Honduras’ folk and literary heritage, which I found educational once somebody explained to me what the heck was going on. I never get tired of watching the elementary children dress up in cowboy hats and long skirts and dance with each other. They are too cute. Thanks to the 10th grade, I learned that Honduras has its own version of the headless horseman tale, which is especially entertaining when the “horse” is covered in globs of ketchup (blood?) and the horseman’s head is a pineapple. I also learned the folk tale of the witch, “La Sucia”, a woman jilted by her lover who haunts the riverbanks in her wedding dress. One of my 8th grade boys played a very convincing witch to the delight of the primary students. Following the assembly, the students had a traditional meal of boiled yucca and fried pork skins with ketchup (not in my top ten). As for class, neither the students nor the faculty seemed particularly interested so I folded my tent and enjoyed the company, while discretely avoiding the food.
Tuesday classes were cancelled to celebrate the Day of the Teacher (Ironic? I agree). The administration sponsored transportation and food for an all day barbeque at a local park for the staff. It was a great opportunity for everybody to mingle and relax in a beautiful environment, which had a stream full of fish flowing through the middle and was a short walk from the ocean. There were tons of trees heavy with fruits I had never seen before that many of the teachers picked by the bag to take home. The grilled chicken and pork were accompanied by tortillas, refried beans, salsa and lots of soda. A true feast. Most of us retreated to the river and the beach to avoid the burrowing flies that were chasing everyone from the shade. From the beach, we watched an afternoon storm system crash into La Ceiba, while we remained completely dry. My favorite highlight of the afternoon was throwing bits of fruit rinds into the river and watching the fish ferociously swarm and fight over them. It was like vegetarian piranhas feeding. A great trip to bring the staff together.
September 15th, the actual day of Central American Independence, was the first day of the five day vacation. Most schools participated by marching down the street in their school uniforms, walking in a sort of shuffle step and performing coordinated salutes whenever the parade got backed up (Trinity got a reprieve this year but will be on the march next year). The public high school band played an eight song repertoire without music in sweltering heat and looked like they were having fun. I was so impressed that I followed it all the way to the downtown. I checked in at Holy Trinity on my way home, and enjoyed one more round of Honduran barbeque to support their fund raiser.
After a relaxing week, I am excited to get back to school on Monday and begin the second half of the first term. While I have enjoyed the break, it will be nice to not have to worry about which holiday we are celebrating and how many of my classes will be disrupted. Hopefully, my students will return to class refreshed and motivated and not quite so dramatic when I assign them homework.
It is encouraging to see so much pride in a country that has many daunting challenges to confront. I have loved seeing the students participating in the celebration but hope they can take that enthusiasm and harness it productively as they pursue their education. I am optimistic that the students of Honduras will carry their country toward a better economic and political future. I will keep working to help them in every way I can.
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31
While I am often surprised and puzzled by the plethora of holidays Honduran government sanctions, I must give them some appreciation for bunching them all together. Within a week, we celebrated the Day of the Child, the Honduran Independence Day, and Day of the Teacher. Translation: about a week and a half of special programming, parties and vacation. Here we go!
The festivities began last Thursday with the Señorita Independencia contest as part of Month of the Patria, sponsored by the city of La Ceiba. A hybrid of a geography bee and a beauty pageant, almost every school in the city had a senior class representative in the competition, 20 participants total. Dressed in flowing, sequenced gowns adorned in jungle motifs, the ladies gave speeches and answered trivia questions pertaining to Honduras’ past and the students future aspirations for themselves, their school, and their country. They also struck their favorite poses, a la Project Runway for the cheering crowd. Performances of pop hits, ethnic Garifuna drumming, and Christian rock music filled in between events.
It was a well run event by all accounts. The only issue was the timing. The entire secondary school attended the event to support our contestant (it was required). So did every other school, which meant that there were easily 700 people packed into a gym with no air conditioning or fans at the hottest time of the day. The snack shop, which made an absolute killing on the day, ran out of cold drinks in the first half hour. Needless to say, I spent most of the day playing bounty hunter, trying to find the students who decided they had had enough of the spectacle and took off. Probably would have been a better evening event instead of losing the entire school day, but why would the government want us to have school?
Day of the Child, celebrated on Friday, was another resounding success at Holy Trinity. Instead of just throwing a party for themselves, the students planned a party and brought it to a less fortunate community. The 10th grade did such a great job last year that we expanded the program to the entire secondary school. The 7th, 8th, and 9th graders returned to the squatter community along the old Standard Fruit rail line known as La Linea. I joined the 10th and 11th grade to the Clinica, which is a Trinity sponsored health center that provides medical treatment for local families at a reduced cost. The majority of their patrons are poor teen mothers with young children, and those were the kids who came.
The students were on the ball serving a snack and organizing activities as soon as the kids arrived. Everyone then gathered outside for the inviolable smashing of the piñata. We found some shady trees and I climbed up to set the string. This particular piñata was super reinforced to the point where even after every kid beat on it with all their might, it had minimal damage. Hoping to avoid mixing young children, free candy and a violently unpredictable broom handle, I elected to climb the tree again with the piñata and do the much safer “rain of candy”. The added benefit was I could control the flow and distribution so that the less aggressive children got a good haul of sweets. My climbing of the tree produced plenty of laughs and pictures and resulted in a minor splitting of my pants. All part of the job.
The party continued for another couple hours and included musical chairs, steal the bacon, cake and coca cola and a dance-off where I was properly “served” by a precocious ten year old with more dance skills in his right pinky than I have in my entire body. It was hilarious. I was happy to see the students taking initiative and connecting with the children at the Clinica, dancing with them and encouraging participation in the games. We returned to school where the students busted open their own piñata then took off for the weekend, a job well done.
Monday was another party day, this time celebrating the Independence Day (don’t we have vacation for that?). Every class put on a skit for the school that celebrated Honduras’ folk and literary heritage, which I found educational once somebody explained to me what the heck was going on. I never get tired of watching the elementary children dress up in cowboy hats and long skirts and dance with each other. They are too cute. Thanks to the 10th grade, I learned that Honduras has its own version of the headless horseman tale, which is especially entertaining when the “horse” is covered in globs of ketchup (blood?) and the horseman’s head is a pineapple. I also learned the folk tale of the witch, “La Sucia”, a woman jilted by her lover who haunts the riverbanks in her wedding dress. One of my 8th grade boys played a very convincing witch to the delight of the primary students. Following the assembly, the students had a traditional meal of boiled yucca and fried pork skins with ketchup (not in my top ten). As for class, neither the students nor the faculty seemed particularly interested so I folded my tent and enjoyed the company, while discretely avoiding the food.
Tuesday classes were cancelled to celebrate the Day of the Teacher (Ironic? I agree). The administration sponsored transportation and food for an all day barbeque at a local park for the staff. It was a great opportunity for everybody to mingle and relax in a beautiful environment, which had a stream full of fish flowing through the middle and was a short walk from the ocean. There were tons of trees heavy with fruits I had never seen before that many of the teachers picked by the bag to take home. The grilled chicken and pork were accompanied by tortillas, refried beans, salsa and lots of soda. A true feast. Most of us retreated to the river and the beach to avoid the burrowing flies that were chasing everyone from the shade. From the beach, we watched an afternoon storm system crash into La Ceiba, while we remained completely dry. My favorite highlight of the afternoon was throwing bits of fruit rinds into the river and watching the fish ferociously swarm and fight over them. It was like vegetarian piranhas feeding. A great trip to bring the staff together.
September 15th, the actual day of Central American Independence, was the first day of the five day vacation. Most schools participated by marching down the street in their school uniforms, walking in a sort of shuffle step and performing coordinated salutes whenever the parade got backed up (Trinity got a reprieve this year but will be on the march next year). The public high school band played an eight song repertoire without music in sweltering heat and looked like they were having fun. I was so impressed that I followed it all the way to the downtown. I checked in at Holy Trinity on my way home, and enjoyed one more round of Honduran barbeque to support their fund raiser.
After a relaxing week, I am excited to get back to school on Monday and begin the second half of the first term. While I have enjoyed the break, it will be nice to not have to worry about which holiday we are celebrating and how many of my classes will be disrupted. Hopefully, my students will return to class refreshed and motivated and not quite so dramatic when I assign them homework.
It is encouraging to see so much pride in a country that has many daunting challenges to confront. I have loved seeing the students participating in the celebration but hope they can take that enthusiasm and harness it productively as they pursue their education. I am optimistic that the students of Honduras will carry their country toward a better economic and political future. I will keep working to help them in every way I can.
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31
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