Author Archives: Christine Sunderland

Man is a curious combination of opposites, desiring both community and isolation. The distance we keep between one another is a function of many factors, but our relationships have always been complicated. Even that closest connection – mother and child – is fraught with distance varying in time, in place, beset by darkness, illumined by light.

What closes this distance between one another? Love. Selfless, sacrificial love. How do we know this? Christ came among us and showed us how. He bridged the distance between us and God, so that we could do the same between one other.

This morning in the Sunday School the sunflower seeds planted last week had sprouted in their bright pails. Tiny green leaves had pushed through the dark soil toward the light of the window. A new creature had been born from the loamy cocoon just as a child is born from the watery womb. New life had appeared from those simple seeds.

As we sang our song in our circle about the saints of God, the children had an attack of the giggles. I watched as the condition spread like contagious happiness from one child to the other. The joy grew and colored the air as they laughed at silly things, small exaggerations of hand movements as we sang. Finally as we collapsed in hysterics, I eyed my trusty ten-year-old assistant. She snapped her fingers and all slowly grew calm, the giggles subsiding to happy ripples of contentment. We returned to our song with added energy.

Now, as I remember that laughter and its contagion, I know the little distance, such as it was, between each of us, collapsed. We were close as close could be in the shared silliness of the moment. And in the shared hour to come we laced ourselves even closer. It was like tightening a shoe so that it wouldn’t come off, so that the canvas was one with the foot. Other Sunday morning hours had begun the lacing. And so we would continue in the weeks to come, weaving our lives into one another’s, into God’s heart, to produce his seamless cloak of love.

Our Lord and his saints bridge distances. We learned about St. Martin of Tours today, the fourth-century Roman soldier, baptized Christian, who came upon a poor man in rags, freezing in the cold of winter. Martin took out his sword and cut his own cloak in half and gave half to the man. That night Martin dreamed that Christ appeared to him wearing the half-cloak. What Martin had done for the beggar, he had done for Christ.

The story reminded me of a program my son is involved in in Boulder, Colorado called the Reverence Movement. Offering temporary shelter to homeless women and helping to provide meals to both men and women, volunteers offer their time to bridge the class distance, to show Christ’s love. The name Reverence struck me, for reverence is the child of respect. Once we become arrogant and proud toward one another, we cannot love, we cannot revere, we cannot respect. We increase the distances.

Peggy Noonan recently wrote about the increasing separation she has observed between the ruled and the rulers, between ordinary folk and the elites. The distance is enforced with ridicule, shaming, ostracism, and physical attacks against those who differ in opinion. The distance is found throughout the political spectrum. Such distance, such contempt, such pride, will destroy us.

Our country was founded on the basis of equal opportunity for all, free association, free speech, freedom of religion. It was founded on the Judeo-Christian idea of the dignity of the individual, for every man and woman is created and loved by God. It was a revolutionary idea, fraught with challenges as diverse races entered the population. Could these distances be bridged? Could slavery be abolished? Could opportunities be equal? Could the work place and the community reflect a rule of law determined by the majority with respect for the minority? Could each and every one of us be treated with reverence?

We are human beings and live in semi-darkness. Evil exists. Bad things happen and men turn away from the light. It has been a great challenge. And yet America has survived by bridging the distances between her citizens.

Our shared humanity means we share one another’s sufferings. We know we must admit our failings, clean out our hearts, if we are to respect others. We know we are equal in the eyes of a loving God. We know that the beggar in the cold is Christ.

This morning, having watered their sunflowers and colored a picture of St. Martin, the children trooped with balloons flying high downstairs to the parish hall for hot dogs and chips and cookies, their love lacing them together and sending them into the future, a future of hope and laughter, closing all distances in a gaggle of giggles.

The children were eager this morning to be photographed with their pink and green pails under the window in our bright Sunday School room. Natalie, age six, stood on one side of the planting tray, her head tilted like an elfin faerie, and Luisa, age four, stood on the other, devoutly serious.

Earlier we learned about the saints and sang the hymn, “I sing a song of the saints of God…” First we gathered in a circle and invited Our Heavenly Father to join us by praying, Our Father, who art in Heaven.… Next we sang our thanksgiving song and shared our snack. Then came the story-lesson, and we learned about Joan of Arc, how she was a shepherdess on the green who listened to God speaking to her, and led an army and saved France from the enemy. After all, as the hymn says, One was a doctor, and one was a queen, and one was a shepherdess on the green. They were all of them saints of God, and I mean, God helping to be one too.

Today was also our planting day, and just as the story of listening to God had been planted in our ears and hearts, we planted sunflower seeds in pails of soil. But they needed sun, light from the skies. We contemplated the tall windows and how to place the pails on the tilting sills. We would have to build a structure for our seeds to reach the light. We placed a chair under the windows, still too low. Then I spied the cardboard building blocks and we built a tower on top of the chair. It reached high enough. The tray of pails was placed carefully on the top of the blocks. When the sun comes slanting through the glass in the coming days, the seeds will feel the light and sprout, escaping the dark. They will be born again, emerging from their loamy cocoon, green stems growing tall.

This reaching for the light, this moving outside ourselves to something greater and more wondrous is an innate human longing. We long for God, in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17).

The saints understood and named this longing. They recognized the voice, heard the melody, obeyed the commands. They knew the light of love, the vision of eternity. They knew Christ.

In Sunday School we say the Nicene Creed, for it states what we believe about who we are and who we are meant to be. It is the creed we say in our grown-up service, and Sunday School is largely about preparing for the day when the children grow up, become adults in the Church. On that day they will re-affirm, confirm, their Baptismal vows with their own Confirmation vows. And as we learn the Nicene Creed, we come to know our God of love, our God who became one of us, to bring us home to him.

As we said together the first lines of the Creed, I understood suddenly that the words made me reach for concepts up, up, and away, stretching high. These are grand theological statements, formulated to quell fourth-century heresy and settle unsettled doctrine. And so, there in that Sunday School room, sitting on tiny chairs, we pondered and stretched our minds and hearts to fully understand the mystery of the Incarnation (God in flesh), the Trinity (God in three persons), and Love (God is Love).

When one of my assistants asked what “begotten” meant, I paused, reaching for the light that would fully explain what great theologians have pondered for thousands of years. I gazed at the words again.

“I BELIEVE in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, And of all things visible and invisible: And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God; Begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God; Begotten, not made; Being of one substance with the Father; By whom all things were made…”

“Good question,” I said, stalling. Then I realized the answer was in the next phrase. “Our Lord Jesus Christ was one substance with the Father. He was and is the Logos, the Word, the expression of God the Father, expression in human flesh. So Christ was fully human and fully God.” I think my young assistant understood, at least as well as any of us understand this miraculous mystery of love. “The Son is the only way we can truly know the Father, the God of all creation, heaven and earth, the Lord of all.”

Little Luisa asked, “God made everything?” She opened her palms matter-of-factly.

“He did,” I said.

“Even houses?” her older sister said seriously.

“What are houses made of?” I asked, tossing the question back.

“Wood.”

“Where did the wood come from?”

Natalie grinned. “Trees! God made the trees!”

I nodded. “And who built the house with the wood?”

“People!”

“And who made the people?”

“God!” Natalie shouted.

Luisa had grown thoughtful. “God does all the work.”

I laughed. “He does indeed. Through you and me. But we have to say yes first. It’s our choice.”

As we sang  I sing a song of the saints of God, faithful and brave and true, I realized the saints were those, like Mary our Mother, who said yes to God. They longed for him, just as our sunflower seeds longed for the sun coming through the window.

And now, the colors of the morning, the music and joy of our dance together in the Sunday School room, return to me like jeweled sunlight. For we stepped outside ourselves. We touched grace. We reached for the light and were warmed by the sun. Our hearts, like those seeds in the soil, embedded in the darkness of our human flesh, flowered.

In a sense we had climbed those cardboard blocks stacked on the chair under the window sill. They were like the Body of Christ, the Church, providing a way to reach for the sun, to touch the Son, to touch God.

I focused on the children standing in the light, framing their pails. I tapped the button on my camera. The panes of the window formed a cross above them, and a green leafy tree shimmered beyond.

It was good to touch God on this blessed Sunday morning.

Today traditional Anglicans celebrate the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.

The Greek spelling of the Holy Name begins with the letters IHS: ΙΗΣΟΥΣ, IHSOUS in Latin. And so, like the Chi-Rho abbreviation for Christ, IHS has come to be the symbol for the Holy Name of Jesus.

I have long been fascinated by the power of the Name of Jesus. It is used often by those who do not believe, unthinking, even shortened to “Jeez.”  And yet in my own faith-pilgrimage, the name has grown precious to me. So I wince when I hear it sworn, used lightly, in vain, and I often add to their invocation, “be praised,” turning the curse into a blessing.

Even referring to Jesus casually seems flippant, harsh on the ear. Lord Jesus, or Our Lord, sounds better, sounds more appropriate when naming the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, both imminent and eminent.

We name our children in Baptism, sometimes calling the service a “Christening.” For in Baptism the child is made a part of Christ’s Body, the Church, through the power of the Holy Spirit in the pouring of water. He or she is Christened, brought into Christ. Adult Baptisms do not include this naming, but nevertheless these men and women are Christened, brought into Christ’s Body.

What is in a name? Nothing and everything. I am identified by my name. I am called, chosen, loved, with this name. I sign my name, and my signature is my bond, my contract to be true and faithful – in marriage, in business, in law, even in giving birth. “Sign here.”

We capitalize our names to add emphasis. But we want to blend in as well, so we simplify spellings as we move between cultures. We change our names to reinvent ourselves, to avoid the law, to hide from the press.

And so, as the years go by I have wondered about the Holy Name of Jesus and its power. Even before Christ came to earth, we were commanded not to take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. When God the Son comes among us, New Testament testimony repeats again and again the power of the name of Jesus.

When Gabriel appears to Joseph in a dream, the angel announces, “you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Luke 1:21).  St. Paul writes, “in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth” (Philippians 2:10). Those who “call on the name of the Lord” will be saved (Romans 10:3). 

St. John quotes Jesus: “If you ask the Father anything in my name he will give it you” (John 16:23). So we conclude our prayers with the phrase, “Through Our Lord Jesus Christ” or “In the name of Jesus.”

The Name of Jesus drives out demons, baptizes, performs miracles. The invocation of the Holy Name protects us from evil. We pray the name of Jesus, breathing in and breathing out as we move through our days, travel through our time given.

We celebrate this Holy Name of Jesus on August 7, the day after the Feast of the Transfiguration. The closeness of the festivals is appropriate, for it is on Mount Tabor that Jesus reveals himself as God’s Son once again, reflecting his own Baptism:

“And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him… behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.  And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid. And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.” (Matthew 17)

On the mountaintop, Jesus, Son of God, bridges heaven and earth, the New Covenant with the Old Covenant. We climb His Body into Heaven, like the angels on Jacob’s ladder. His Holy Name is our cry, perhaps our hymn to Him. We are transfigured in Him, by Him, with Him, and so our faces shine as the sun, our clothing white as the light. He shares it all with us, freely. Because God – Father, Son, and Spirit – is Love, is community, is touching and arising, unafraid.

A beloved parishioner passed into that white light this last Tuesday. She was elderly and her journey here was long and faithful. She came to Church every Sunday, easing her ’66 Chevy gently into the parking lot. She dressed up to worship the Holy Name of Jesus. She wore color-coordinated skirt and jacket, hat, gloves, polished pumps kept in good condition through the decades. She kept her soul in good condition too, and she would pause to chat with the Sunday School teachers and laugh with the children. The place in her pew is bare now, empty. It will never again hold such a lover of Jesus. But then every lover of Jesus is unique, unrepeatable, unforgettable. But she glowed, transfigured. She is greatly missed already.

And so we celebrate the Holy Name of Jesus, and as we sing our songs, we partake in that name, transfigured too.

Something happens in the Mass.

It has been a long time since I attended daily Mass for two weeks. True, I missed one Monday, and both Saturdays, but my grand total for the period July 17-31 was 12. Not that I was counting.

I’ve often thought that the Mass changed a person, outside and inside, body and soul. We are taught in the Anglican tradition that the bread and wine are the mystical body and blood of Christ. We are told that Christ enters the body when we receive the Eucharist. And with his entering of all the communicants at the altar, we experience a family forming the Body of Christ, one that is both physically and spiritually real. Even so, after fifty years of Eucharists, in some ways I believe this more, and in some ways I take this miracle for granted.

Many churches have liberalized and diluted this belief, as though embarrassed, as though Christ’s words in John, Chapter 6, verses 53-58, don’t exist. But our own Anglican Province of Christ the King (traditional Episcopalian) believes those words:

53: Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
54: Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
55: For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
56: He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
57: As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
58: This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.   (KJV)

Many left him then because of those words, and many leave him today. They are, to be sure, revolutionary, astonishing words. Hard words. But our Anglican Church believes them, believes he meant them to be true.

And so we teach our postulants for Holy Orders that this is true. We act out this belief with daily Eucharists offered in residential programs at St. Joseph of Arimathea Chapel in Berkeley, the most recent session having just ended. The Noon Mass was open to the public, so I went.

I didn’t always feel like going. I had to give up my time. But to be fair, my time isn’t mine. It’s a gift, a loan from God. I have no regrets that I attended daily. My only regret is that I missed one – for a good reason – but nevertheless I missed it.

Sometimes I look back on my sixty-nine years and wonder how much of it I wasted, not listening to God’s promptings, but plunging ahead with my own ideas, my own plans, my own use of my own time, my, my, my….

So each day I arrived early to this beautiful, haunting, intimate chapel, one block from UC Berkeley. I set out a sign announcing the special Mass that day. I lit candles before the Virgin Mary icon, so that bright flames led the eye upward, up to her comforting image, holding the Christ Child. I prayed an Ave Maria. Occasionally visitors peered in, exclaiming they didn’t know this stunning chapel was here, right on the corner of Durant and Bowditch. Some stayed for the Mass. Some lingered, then moved on. Would they recall the powerful peace in this sacred space of red tiles and barrel-vaults, the austere beauty of the chancel and the white-draped altar, the primitive wooden crucifix above, the massive pipe organ in the back?

The organ is played on Sundays. It wasn’t played in the weekday Masses, but then we had melodious singing. The postulants, discerners, and clergy, robed in black, entered in silence, into the silence, and took places along benches lining the walls. Rug squares served as kneelers on the polished tiles. As the Mass danced its way through the Lessons, Creed, Absolution, Offering, Consecration, and Communion, the congregation sang responses, sang the Gloria and the Creed, sang hymns with one voice or in harmony. There were quiet “said” Masses too, spoken only, Masses mourning recent Christian martyrs, words full of reverence and love, and longing for a world at peace not war. And each Mass, celebrated by a different priest, was unique, reflecting the celebrant’s unique manner and character.

Looking back at all those liturgies, I don’t believe I noticed a great change in myself, body or spirit, until the two weeks drew to a close. But toward the end of the second week, I found I slept more deeply, prayed more clearly, and best of all, was filled with a curious bright certainty. I had spent an hour each day outside myself, offering myself, more self-less, allowing God to heal me by living within me. It was and is as though there was a change in my body and soul, perhaps producing St. Paul’s immeasurable riches of God’s grace, bringing to mind the last line of the Te Deum Laudamus.

The Te Deum Laudamus, an ancient prayer praising God and part of our Order for Morning Prayer, is said to have been sung by St. Ambrose in the Milan Cathedral as he raised St. Augustine from the baptismal pool, Easter 387 AD. Augustine sang too. The last line reflects my heart: “O Lord, in thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded.”

I don’t like the feeling of being confounded. Nobody does I suppose. Confusion, disorder, and division are not the works of light, not the ways of God. They cause us to “groan and travail in pain” (again St. Paul). They cause insanity, war, and hate. But in the Mass, all is sane, orderly, and united in love. The beauty is seamless like the garment at the foot of the Cross. We enter the church’s sacred space confounded by the world and leave no longer confounded. We enter with divided hearts and souls, and leave as brothers and sisters. We enter as many and leave as one. We enter, propelled by duty and commanded by love, and leave trusting God once again. Why is that? Because we leave with him in us. We pray in the Mass, that “our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us.”

We are cleaned and washed, made ready for Christ’s indwelling presence.

A friend of mine is confined to a wheelchair. He arrived at the Noon Mass confounded by the works of the City of Berkeley who had removed the sidewalk in front of our chapel in preparation for repaving. He waited on the street, barred by the disturbing curb, and looked around. I stepped outside, keeping watch. Two workers eyed the wheelchair. I eyed them, then eyed a pile of plywood. “Could you make a ramp for him with the plywood?” I asked as nicely as possible. They looked slightly confused, but then jumped to it. Soon they had laid a bridge over the river of churned dirt. My friend drove his chair to the door, grinning. “I don’t give up easily,” he said. “I noticed,” I replied happily. I think we will call this the “Miracle of the Bridge over Troubled Sidewalk.”

With his broken body imprisoned in his chair, my friend is a walking, er, rolling, testimony to the power of faith. He rings the Sanctus bells in the Mass. He prays the Our Father, the Gloria, and the Nicene Creed as though he means it, distinctly, proudly, forthrightly and righteously a part of Christ’s Body. For Christ does indeed dwell in him, in me, in all of us who partake of the Eucharist.

Thinking back on these two remarkable, miraculous weeks, I give thanks that a bit of my self was offered, a bit of my time sacrificed, all now redeemed. And I shall continue to partake. I shall continue to not be confounded, for in him have I trusted. And it is a glorious way to be.

To view video clips and photos of the Noon Masses, visit St. Joseph’s Chapel Facebook page. 

This last week I spent in seemingly alternating universes, attending daily Mass at our Anglican Seminary Summer Session at St. Joseph’s Chapel in Berkeley at mid-day, and then watching the GOP convention in the evening.  The former was quiet, focused, purposeful, and passionate. The latter was lively, energetic, excited, and passionate. The convention was the body politic that exercises freedom of speech and assembly, a gathering of devoted delegates to nominate the next President. The Seminary Summer Session was the body ecclesia that exercises its freedom of religion and worship, a gathering of devoted clergy, postulants, and men discerning their vocation.

The week was crowned with an ordination in our parish church, St. Peter’s Anglican in Oakland. It was a glorious crowning, with soaring and thunderous organ and enthusiastic hymn-singing, with a majestic and humble bishop leading our flock, with a sermon that gathered past, present, and future and made sense of them. It was glorious as the sun streamed through skylights, illuminating the medieval crucifix and the red-draped tabernacle, red to signify the Holy Spirit weaving among us. In this sacrament of ordination, God the Holy Spirit enters the heart and soul of the ordinand when the bishop, in an apostolic line dating to the original apostles, lays his palms upon the ordinand’s head, continuing the line into the future.

I brought the Sunday School children in, to witness parts of the service, and they were sometimes bored, sometimes wondering, sometimes enthralled. They will one day bring their children in to witness sacramental ordinations and those children will bring theirs in to give witness to God’s working among us.

Now, looking back, all of the hours that made up the days and formed this third week in July of the year 2016 reflected this movement of history. The convention brought the past and present together and ordered the future. The seminary did the same. And today, all was distilled into an hour of music, light, and God with us, Emanuel. 

It is good to recall, as the second convention begins this week, and as we enter the second week of the Seminary classes, that the vision of America is a religious vision. It is the dream of pilgrims escaping religious tyranny. It is the dream of equal opportunity, human dignity, free speech, and freedom of religion. It is the dream of every American and rooted in Judeo-Christian ideals. To thrive, America must encourage church and temple to inform state and society. To thrive, America must engage Christian and Jewish voices in our national conversation.

And to thrive, we must recall simple good manners, simple civility, proper and improper conduct. These mores, going back to Moses and the Ten Commandments, and probably to Abraham, are the foundation of our culture. So I was gravely disappointed in Mr. Cruz’s speech at the convention. He had been graciously invited, in the hopes of unifying the party. But by not endorsing Mr. Trump, he tried to divide. At the celebratory moment of Mr. Trump’s triumphant acceptance speech Mr. Cruz chose to oppose him in the public spotlight. For three days the convention boisterously enjoyed the give and take of the nominating process, the roll calls, the yays and the boos, the pumping of signs into the air. But Mr. Cruz wanted to grab what wasn’t his and hurt the winner, a poor sport at best. He was dishonorable, mean spirited, and ill mannered. As Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal today:

“If you can’t endorse, good for you and stay home. That isn’t politics, it’s basic human comportment. If someone you’re certain is awful invites you to a party, you politely decline. You don’t go, walk in to the room, and punch your host in the head.”

Basic human comportment. Mr. Cruz crossed the line that civility has drawn to protect civilization from barbarians. Mr. Cruz isn’t loud or grandiose. He is polished and articulate. But he doesn’t seem to have a sense of right and wrong. He scares me.

But Mr. Trump gives me hope. His family and fellow workers love him and testify to his character and his huge heart. Mr. Trump’s acceptance speech was grandiose and loud (he needs to modulate), not so polished, but pointed and powerful. He fleshed out plans for our country, giving us a vision that was both caring and bold. He speaks for those who feel they have no voice, are not represented, are not allowed to have an opinion without facing ridicule and riot.

It’s nice finally to have someone stand up for us, even if that person is sometimes awkward, bullish, and straightforward. I could get used to that kind of president, that kind of leader, someone who cares about the rest of us, someone who will allow us to worship as we choose, who will allow us to pass our great American culture of freedom on to the next generation.

And so, as I witnessed our devoted ordinand kneel before our wise bishop, the children intently watching, time stood still. The chapel Masses mingled in my memory with the cheers on the convention floor. Priests had spoken; politicians had orated. We continued the dream of America, on our lips and in our hearts, a dream for our children one day to dream too.

To see and hear video clips of the Seminary singing and the ordination processions, visit our Facebook pages for St. Joseph’s Chapel and St. Peter’s Anglican Church. Seminary noon Masses at St. Joseph’s this next week are open to the public; limited seating.

Beware and be aware of the desire to be squeaky clean, to cleanse our culture of people we don’t like. Beware and be aware of the desire to cleanse history of facts, to rewrite the American story.

They say this election is the year that reflects the rebellion of the middle class against the elites of our country: Washington bureaucrats, Hollywood stars, New York publishers, and anyone who graduated from an Ivy League college.

Elites are self-perpetuating. They make sure their family and friends continue to be elites. They hide in clubs and behind secure gates and go to safe schools. They sometimes rig the game, but most of the time the game is theirs already. Elites make the rules, pass the laws, lobby their cause in Congress.

But there are and always will be (I hope) Horatio Alger heroes in our great nation, those men and women who build upon their lower and middle class backgrounds and climb the ladder into the upper class, rung by rung, hour by hour, breaking through a gender-neutral glassy, caste and class, ceiling. They work hard, they sacrifice, they sleep little, and they win the prize. They earn it the old fashioned way, inching from rags to riches.

And there are and always will be voters who have had enough of big anything, be it government, stars, companies, unions, egos. These voters say, I want my freedom back. I want the chance to be a Horatio Alger hero, the hero of my own story. I want peace in my neighborhood, police who fearlessly police to ensure that peace. They say, I want disturbing the peace to be a crime once again. I cannot move up the ladder if anarchy reigns and martial law follows suit. I cannot climb if I am crushed and enslaved by big government.

And so as we begin our national conversation, in the living rooms of our national conventions, Mr. Trump doesn’t look half bad. Mr. Trump gets it. We want peace and freedom and we want to be protected from violence and slavery. We want peace so that we can pursue happiness, worship as we wish, educate and raise our children as we choose.

Our culture seems to be one of escalating violence, a violence often caused by a creed of cleansing. The eugenics movement of the early twentieth century was attractive to those who desired to cleanse the population, to allow only “people like us,” Nordic Europeans. Built upon Darwinian thought, the movement led to Hitler, its high priest. It was embraced by the Left, claiming that blacks, eastern Europeans, and southern Europeans, were genetically inferior to northerners. As Thomas Sowell writes in the Wall Street Journal, “Progressives spearheaded the eugenics movement, dedicated to reducing the reproduction of supposedly ‘inferior’ individuals and races. The eugenics movement spawned Planned Parenthood… in academia there were 376 courses devoted to eugenics in 1920.” Southern whites were Democrat, southern blacks Republican. Republicans sponsored the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Somehow in the cleansing of history, these facts are seldom mentioned.

It has been said that if a culture treats life as disposable, violence will be commonplace. Having made killing the unborn legal, killing the elderly is next, both groups considered unwanted, messy burdens. With echoes of Hitler, the handicapped will be cleansed as well. The belief that all life is sacred will be whitewashed, as a religion of death supplants the Jewish and Christian religions of life.

We must recall the history of Western Civilization, how we got here, who we are, what we stand for, so we can choose the national road to take. The image of cleansing the populace is not new, but one repeated throughout history, in “purges.” The iconoclastic Protestants of the sixteenth-century Reformation were sickened to the point of rage when they saw religious images in the churches of France. They believed Catholics worshiped images and “polluted” Christianity with heresy and superstition. They entered the churches and destroyed images, whitewashing frescoes and toppling statuary. They saw themselves as cleansing their culture.

Radical Islam desires to cleanse the world of infidels and set up a caliphate of true believers, instituting sharia law, which will punish dissent and enslave women. In many communities in Europe and the U.S., such law is already observed.

Western culture is also obsessed with clean. The cleansers appear to come from upper classes, folks who own too much and have too much time. Guilty as charged, they desire to rein in their own materialism, to boast self-denial through simplicity, to re-order their unproductive lives. They are repenting and seek redemption, desiring not only people but ideas to be clean too. As Laura Freeman writes in the British Spectator, the desire to cleanse often leads students “to approve only one point of view and to [not allow] any speaker who dissents. Anyone not on message about trans issues, the migrant crisis or abortion will find themselves summarily [rejected] from the campus. What is a ‘safe space’ if not somewhere white, tidy, clean and antiseptic, with nothing on the walls to offend a delicate sensibility?” Sounds familiar.

Cleansers are also active cleansing the environment and demanding programs that hurt the poor, that raise the cost of living with large government programs, that use bad science to support “man-made” global warming.

Cleansers deny the global south genetically modified crops (GMO’s) needed to survive, crops that have nearly banished world hunger.  Folks in Uganda and Zimbabwe cannot afford to worry about genetic modifications, deemed safe by good science. Anti-GMO protesters have destroyed fields and hampered research. As Purdue University President Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. said in a speech quoted in the Wall Street Journal, “We are dealing… with the most blatant anti-science of the age. But it is worse than that. It is inhumane and it must be countered on that basis… this is an indulgence of the rich and it is not just scientifically indefensible, it is morally indefensible.”

A friend said recently that democracy is messy. She protested in the sixties so that the issues “would be on the table.” Certainly we are allowed to speak, to have a voice. But we must speak civilly as many in our history have done, as Martin Luther King did. We can tolerate messy as long as we respect one another. We can welcome diverse views. We don’t need to have everything clean and perfect and orderly. We don’t need to be Stepford citizens with lockstep opinions. But we need to follow the rule of law we have all agreed upon, not a rule imposed by self-perpetuating elites, be it the Supreme Court or the White House or Ivy Leaguers destroying third-world food supplies.

So beware and be aware of those who cleanse speech, those who cleanse history, those who cleanse the culture of the unwanted. As we begin our great national conversations in Cleveland and Philadelphia, let us listen carefully, listen to reasoned argument, listen to the bells of peace and freedom ringing across our great land once again.

The heat wave in the Bay Area is browning and burning our California grasses. We hide from the cruel sun, the thirsty sun, the killing sun. Our fragile systems can only take so much heat, so much cold. We thrive in a narrow temperate zone, our human comfort zone.  I’ve heard a lot lately about moving out of your comfort zone. And yet, too far out of that zone and we die. 

This week Christians worldwide celebrate the Feasts of Saints Peter and Paul, two giants in first-century Christianity. Peter is often portrayed as the heart, and Paul, the mind of Christianity. But both of them – the emotional, intuitive, forthright fisherman and the brilliant, poetic, focused theologian – knew the eternal nature of the soul, and the saving grace of Jesus of Nazareth. Both traveled outside their comfort zones. 

Saint Peter walked on the water. He stepped out of the safety of the fishing boat and toward Christ in the midst of a storm. Matthew records: 

²⁴ But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary. ²⁵ And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. ²⁶ And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. ²⁷ But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. ²⁸ And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. ²⁹ And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. ³⁰ But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.³¹ And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him… (Matthew 14, KJV)

When we begin to sink, whose hand do we reach for? Whose God? Whose truth? Or do we simply sink into our own depths, since in our pride, we consider ourselves all-sufficient. 

The image of Peter reaching for the hand of God reminds me of Michelangelo’s painting of Creation, God touching Adam and breathing life into him. And so in the Incarnation, God touches us. And we can touch him today through the Church, in the Eucharist. 

Peter is someone we identify with. He is fallible but bighearted. He believes but sometimes doubts. He is brave but sometimes terrified. Yet he is gifted with holy intuition, suddenly seeing the truth. It is Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus, who explains what it all means with words and ideas in his letters to the to the newly formed churches. But Paul was blinded before he could see, as Luke records in Acts:

And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, ² and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. ³ And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: ⁴ and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? ⁵ And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. ⁶ And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do… ⁹ And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink. (Acts 9, KJV)

Both Peter and Paul sought the truth. In our world where truth is ridiculed and slander lauded, where words are twisted and innuendos esteemed, where things are not as they appear, full of half-truths and half-lies, we grope like the blind trying to see a way forward as individuals, as a community, as a nation, as a world.

But truth be told, we need not fear stepping onto the storm-tossed sea. We need not fear if we reach for Christ when we begin to sink. We need not fear the light if it is God’s light. But we must never lose sight of who is calling us to walk on the water or to change our ways: the only one who claimed to be the Way, the Truth, and the Light.

We live in a time of confusion and increasing chaos, as traditional gender roles come into question. And so on this day when we honor our fathers I wonder who and what they are, were, and should be.

The animal kingdom has been busy this last spring, giving birth, and baby deer cross our front lawn. We humans share some of their generative biology – the male unites with the female to give life. Some animals form a kind of family, with a male taking on the protective role of father, at least for a time. Other animals don’t and the male moves on. Humans throughout history have formed families, having reasoned that society works better that way. Early families were often polygamous, the male having many wives to produce many children for the tribe. More people was good, not evil. More meant safety and better defense. More meant productivity and wealth. More meant a future for the community and nation. 

Judaism and its child Christianity define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, united sexually and by vows of love and commitment before God. Marriage is considered generative, meant to produce children. Throughout Holy Scripture this relationship is replayed, as God the Father creates his people, God the Son unites with his Bride the Church, and God the Holy Spirit weaves them together in Love. God creates us not because he is lonely, but because he is Love. That’s what Love does. 

And thus Love is sung to us throughout the centuries through the Church. It dances and weaves through her liturgies, reflecting light like a many-faceted jewel. Love calls us to love one another, the other, one who is not our self. The ultimate expression of love is marriage, where two different people love one another – different genders and different genes. They unite to generate life, to bring children into the world to love and be loved. 

There are times when fathers take on mothering roles. And there are times when mothers must act as fathers. But in the Christian family, our bodies, our genders, define our primary purpose under God, the role that nature has given us. When this purpose is denied, chaos results. 

Mothers are the inner home of love, for they carry in the womb the new life created. They then bear the child and create an outer home of love. Fathers beget this new life, determining it’s gender, and initiating its conception. And so two become one, generating a unique human being, one never repeated before or after. A mystery and a miracle.

This miracle of life is often taken for granted. And yet so sacred a union, so mysterious a bond, this bond between husband and wife, and between parents and children, that it is the foundation of our culture. As we see today the traditional family threatened and torn apart, we must work to protect and mend it, to heal its brokenness.

At the least fathers must be present, both in body and spirit. We don’t hear a great deal about St. Joseph in Scripture. He is a good man, we are told. He listens to God. He trusts God. He takes Mary as his wife. He shelters her and the Holy Child growing within her. He provides a living so the boy can become a man. St. Joseph is powerfully present. This is what fathers do, even stepfathers. 

And so we honor stepfathers as well, and all those who have stepped into the silent absence with their presence and their love, and all of those uncles and cousins and friends who have acted as fathers to those children bereft, all priestly fathers, parish fathers, community fathers. I was once a single parent, and I am so grateful for the many fathers of our local church who were quietly present, strong in their faithful support.

When the traditional family is threatened, fatherhood is threatened. When marriage is no longer valued, fathers abandon their children. When fathers abandon their children, families are wounded, and civilization collapses. 

I believe we are seeing signs of such collapse: children raised by one parent, usually the mother; children denied the bonding security of family love; children unable to create such bonds of family in the future, having no models.

Cult creates culture, and without Judeo-Christian institutions of temple and church, the traditional family will disintegrate. Fathers and mothers, united in matrimony, committed to love, are key to the institution of the traditional family. Today they are encouraged to abandon one another and their offspring to look out for themselves alone. 

And so I honor true fathers who do what needs doing, silently, lovingly, sometimes unsung and even unloved. You sacrifice, you shelter, you make it possible for mothers to mother and children to grow up. We need you, for our children, our grandchildren, and the very future of civilization.

Thank you.