Christine Sunderland

I’m pleased to announce that American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) has published my post, “Worthy Words: Prophetic Plots,” how Christian novelists prophesize, foreshadowing major plot arcs, and thus satisfy the desire for meaning and making sense of God’s world – past, present, and to come. Thank you, ACFW.

This post completes a four-part series on “Worthy Words” published in 2022 on the ACFW site, that considers my novel-in-progress, The Music of the Mountain. I’m looking forward to creating a new four-part series in 2023.

Mary and Joseph must be on their way to Bethlehem now. Soon, soon, they will seek shelter, knowing the Child Jesus would soon come into this world, their world, a world of poverty and danger. The Holy Family, created in that miraculous moment when Mary conceived the Son of God, know little about their future, but enough to do God’s will in their life in each moment lived.

It is said that Advent, this month of journeying to Bethlehem, of preparing the way of the Lord in our hearts for his coming, is about Mary. It is Mary’s month, to be sure, in the sense that she said yes and will soon give birth to the Saviour of the World. And so we celebrate her, rejoicing in the gift to each one of us, Our Lady, Our Mother.

The family today is weathering many storms, fighting many defensive battles on many fronts. There appears to be a host of demons that seek to destroy the family, for in this holy assembly, made up of the mother and father and children, we find the nucleus or perhaps crux of the world, past, present, and to come. As the crux, it has become the cross of our culture, a suffering cross that heals wounds and divisions in our world.

We are fallen from grace, and within this micro-society we call the family, we see challenge and difficulty and even survival. Each one of us within the family is called to get along. Each is called to live with one another, usually in close circumstances, to honor and teach and love one another. Yet sin and self pulls us the other way, inward, and it is this tension that teaches us to sacrifice for the other.

I believe it was Evelyn Underhill who said that the family teaches us how to live within greater communities, the town, the nation, the world. The family is a training ground of love, the “School of Charity” as she put it. So too, is the parish family, mirroring all the petty squabbles in the biological/adoptive family as well as all that is precious and good by the grace of God.

My husband and I have had the grace to be a part of the Anglican Province of Christ the King for over forty years and within the same parish for that time as well. Trust me, there have been many squabbles witnessed and many sides taken and much wringing of hands over this or over that, by us as well as everyone else, but there’s been lots of love too, just as in any close family. I was thinking today, sitting in the nave of St. Peter’s Oakland and watching the traditional “Living Creche” performed in the chancel before the altar and tabernacle (home of the Real Presence of Christ), beneath the statue of Christ Crucified and the tall flaming candles at his feet, that these good people of our parish of every age and ethnicity and talent are truly my sisters and brothers. When I arrived at St. Peter’s in 1977 I was only thirty with a young son, and most of the congregation I considered to be my mothers and fathers, uncles and aunts, and even grandparents. Today, it seems (suddenly!) I am in the grandparent role, and I think of these faithful Christians gathered in church as my grandchildren, children, and sisters and bothers and cousins.

In all of these families – the Holy Family, the natural family, the parish family – we polish one another like tumbling rocks washed by the waters of Baptism. Year after year, we seek to get along, to love one another better, to beg forgiveness for harms done, and to seek repentance and healing at the altar. We learn to forgive and in the forgiving we grow closer to Christ. In the growing closer to Our Lord we seal one another with the Sign of the Cross, for only in Christ can this kind of love flourish, and only by the Cross can this love be real.

We know that the journey of the Holy Family must have been full of hardship and danger. They were Jews living in a hostile Roman world, a military occupation. Just so, we too live in a hostile world, occupied by a growing tyranny increasingly militant. We are encouraged by the image of their journey in the weeks of Advent, for we are on the same path in time to our own Bethlehem, Eternity with God, the new Jerusalem.

In the meantime, we journey to church with our families to worship Christ with our parish family. We learn to love as we are meant to love. Our advent is Mary’s advent for she is our Mother. In this way, Mary and Joseph lead us through the sufferings of the world, and in this month of counted days we await in the quiet of the night Our Lord’s coming to us on Christmas morning. It is a silent night for in such silence the music of the spheres may be heard, as all creation sings to the glory of God.

We listen for the music and we hear the angels sing. We see the shepherds gather and the gentile kings kneel with gifts. We too give gifts, our hearts to Mary and Joseph and the Holy Child, and presents to one another, as we receive his Presence, the greatest gift of all, starlight, star bright, the Son of God born this night to save us from ourselves, to give life and light to all of us, and to all the world.

My husband and I are in our “gentle” years, the years leading to the great passage out of time into eternity. There are moments when I sense that I stand upon a great height, not the pinnacle of the mountain but close, and look over a landscape of friends and family, those I have known on Earth. It’s a sweeping vista also of time passed, and within the vista are rivers of rhyme and reason, suffering and love, heartache and joy. There are forests of fir, deep and dark and green, and paths through the trees to the light at the end. There are deserts, so dry as to parch the throat with the desire to drink, but there are also lakes of pure water, filled by falls of tumbling foam from rocky gorges, waters so fresh and so quenching I know I can drink with pleasure and certainty that these are living waters of life.

Our lives are indeed landscapes of loves and unloves, of life and death, holding potential for Heaven or Hell. We know this, those who have had the remarkable grace to love, and live, in our time. We know the other side as we travel through these vast landscapes. We know there is darkness, and we know there is desert.

My husband and I don’t have our Christmas tree yet, but we are thinking about it. I recall other trees we have planted in our living room, where white sheets swaddled the water basin, the sweet smell of evergreen permeating the house. The first year of the pandemic lockdowns (2020), we didn’t have the heart to decorate the tree, but managed to string the lights and put a star on top. There would be no visitors that year for Christmas, due to COVID fears (now proven exaggerated), and the effort seemed too much. Nevertheless, the tree stood there in the bay window and greeted us as we drifted around the rooms like sad fairies. The tree – nearly seven feet as I recall – became a visitor in itself, a guest that represented all the guests we missed that Christmas. We sat by the tree and listened to Handel’s “Messiah” as the many colored lights brought memory closer, gifting us with the love of family and friends, of Christmases past.

I’m thinking now how such a magnificent tree didn’t need decorating, although the following year in 2021, still locked down, we managed ornaments as well, and even garlands. And perhaps the 2020 barely decorated – forlorn – tree became a symbol for our world then, a sadly bare world, where isolation bred cold and fear, and hearts shriveled. In a way the tree, barely dressed as it were, was enough and appropriate to the time and the setting, a California Christmas in 2020. The tree became a metaphor, a poem, an artform expressing lockdowns and all that that meant for many of us.

I’m also thinking now how a Christmas tree is like a person, with dated ornaments from the past assembled in the greenery, bobbing a bit as the cat tries her luck with a raised paw. The few new ornaments added each year pulled us into the present, and as I hooked the loop on the edge of the satin, braided ball from a London shop and found a branch to house it, I appreciated the past as a glorious gift from our Heavenly Father.

And so as I envision the trees of our past and now a tree to bring home this year, 2022, I can see clearly that all of these lovely and homely bits and pieces of Christmas reflect our Creator’s great gift of the Christ Child. For Christmas is His gift to us, the celebration and the season, the trees and the trimmings, the friends and family. And the greatest gift of all is the Word made flesh, Our Lord Jesus, who dwelt among us two thousand years ago (not that long ago really), who suffered to become one of us, who humbled Himself to enter our world, who loved us so that He gave us the gift of Himself to us, his children.

And He continues to give the gift of Himself, again and again, on altars in chapels, in words said in bedtime prayers and morning Psalms. I now see that as we give to one another, whether it be a card or a greeting, we partake in the Father’s gift to us in Bethlehem. We dress our Christmas trees in sparkle and time and love, and the tree smiles back all twinkly, singing, “Merry Christmas to you, too!” and “Thanks for inviting me!”

We switch off our lamps and leave the jeweled lights burning bright through the dark forest of evergreens. We sing, “Silent Night,” and “The First Noel.” We tell the story again and again, through art and word and poetry and pageants, through sacred traditions of trees and trimmings and festive foods. We sing the story in carols. We are reminded to remember we are children of God, even from the precipice near the top of the mountain, looking over the landscape of our lives. 

We are reminded, too, that God gives us Himself unceasingly if we desire Him. We need only say, “Yes, come in to my heart, please!” and “Merry Christmas!” 

We have entered the Church’s New Year, and as in January’s New Year, we begin December’s Advent with penitential prescriptions. Instead of making resolutions (usually fitness), we clean out our hearts. Both beginnings call us to change for the better, to repent and resolve. In so doing in this season of Advent, we prepare ourselves for the greatest of all festivals, the Nativity of Jesus Christ, Christ-Mass.

Advent is called “Little Lent” for this reason. We scour our souls with the Word of God, with His Word of Creation, with Christ Himself in the Eucharist. We look for our failings, our sins, our unlove. For our Creator will re-create us in His image as we were meant to be. As we submit to our Father’s will for us, we discover our true selves. It is in this prayer, “Thy will be done,” that we find joy, a mysterious and miraculous, and even surprising, joy.

Advent calls us to pay attention to these joyful moments. We watch for Christ’s second coming, the advent of the New Jerusalem, and the advent of Judgment. For Advent means “coming,” and we are reminded of the three advents of Christ – the coming to mankind as a baby in Bethlehem, the coming to mankind in judgment in the New Jerusalem, the coming of Christ in the Eucharist today, filling our hearts. And so in Advent we prepare for His coming to us at Christmas, for this coming will change mankind forever. We clean out our hearts to make room for the Savior of the World. We pay attention. We re-mind one another through ritual and song.

The Church Year cycle invites us to dance through Time to prepare for Eternity. The nine seasons tell the greatest story of all, that of God’s immense love for mankind and his desire to share Eternity with us. We tell the story of redemption (crucifixion and resurrection) and salvation (our saying yes to God); we sing the story in hymns and in liturgies and in pageants and in processions. We dance this dance of life, and in the dance we learn to love one another. We learn to share. We learn to give. We learn to step outside our prison of self and, slowly, miraculously, we learn to see one another more clearly. We learn to listen, to hear the music of the spheres, the perfect harmonies of the universe.

And so in this season of Advent, when daylight is shortened and darkness lengthens, this season of cold and silence, when natural world shrinks and hibernates, sleeping and waiting for spring – in this season of Advent, we look to the bright lights of Christmas. We cast our eyes upon Mary, our Mother, and her story of obedience. We watch her say yes to God, and in this “fiat” we learn obedience too. We watch her journey to Bethlehem with her faithful Joseph, and we learn patience and fortitude and trust. We watch her seek a safe place to bear her child, the Son of God, which she finds in a dark cavern. We journey with her.

As we journey we sing carols that tell of these magnificent acts of God. The poetry and the rhyme, the melody and the meanings, invite us to journey with Mary and Joseph. With the bright stars and the glorious angels we too pay homage to the King of Kings born in a manger on Christmas Day. With these hymn-stories we become part of the re-creation of the world. We live inside these love-songs. We dwell there, in the Bethlehem manger, where the shepherds bow to the newborn King, where the magi from afar bring gifts to honor His priesthood, His kingship, and lastly, His death that will redeem the world with resurrection.

And as we journey through the year, we hold the hands of our children, to show them what God has revealed to us. We teach them to clean out their hearts to make room for Him, so that they too can glimpse glory, the glory of the only Begotten:

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only Begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14, KJV)

We dance the dance of life through the year, so that we may vanquish the dirge of death. We journey with Mary who carries the Christ Child in her womb, and as we celebrate the Holy Child within her, we celebrate all children, born and unborn. We celebrate all mothers and fathers who trust in their Creator to bring them through the rough times, so that they can fully enjoy the good times, the truly God-times.

We journey in the dark of night to emerge into the light of day. We see our way with the our flaming candles, three purple and one pink, lighting our way through Advent, bringing us to the glory of Christmas morning.

Unfolding a Post-Roe World, by Francis Etheredge (to be published soon by En Route Books and Media, St. Louis, MO, 2022).

Reviewed by Christine Sunderland, updated December 2, 2022

In Unfolding a Post-Roe World, bioethicist and theologian Francis Etheredge updates his earlier work, The ABCQ of Conceiving Conception, by considering the Supreme Court of the United States ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson which stated, “abortion… destroys an unborn human being,” overturning the Roe v. Wade (1973) decision supporting abortion rights. Today, science (biology, embryology, genetics) defines human conception as occurring from the moment of fertilization; this first instant of fertilization begins a continuous development, culminating in showing forth this person from conception. Thus, defined as a human being, the embryo shares the same human rights as you and I, the right to life being paramount.

The Supreme Court found no right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution and thus referred these decisions to the States. And so we ask, “Is there a right to life of the unborn in the U.S. Constitution?” We wait to see, as cases in progress argue yes, based on the 14^th Amendment and its historical interpretations. For if the embryo is defined as a “person” from the moment of fertilization, with all rights and protections, then the following phrase in the 14^th Amendment would be binding:

“Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Not only has the Supreme Court of the United States ruled, but the European Court of Human Rights has said, “human embryos [should]… not be reduced to the level of an object.” Thus, humans are not to be objects of experimentation. They are not to be frozen for future use:

“The Hippocratic Oath states: ‘I will not give a woman a pessary to procure abortion’. The Nuremburg Code says: ‘No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur’. The Belmont Report says: ‘persons with diminished autonomy are entitled to protection’.”

Francis Etheredge re-introduces his earlier arguments in support of the embryo as a person. With the Supreme Court ruling in America, this science (and logic) is supported by law. Embryos as human beings should now be eligible for human rights protections claimed by humanity globally. The author updates the debate and considers medical ethics, philosophy, theology, and historical precedent. He reminds us that to be human is to be a member of the human race, in-relationship with one another, beginning with the mother who bears and gives birth to us, then the father, the family, the community, the nation, and the human family worldwide.

The author adds depth with his poignant and powerful poetry, reflecting his own suffering in the loss of a child through abortion, humbly witnessing to his own tragedies. Thus, he prays that those who see the pre-born as blobs of tissue reconsider and embrace a future of life and love and inclusion. He offers them sight when they are blind.

For if we mistreat these tiny and innocent human beings, we open the door to our being mistreated as well. Eventually, tyranny will prevail, and our own rights will be threatened. We too will become disposable, our right to life and liberty denied. Francis Etheredge urges us to recognize this fact and see that “rights are integral to human existence.”

The author answers objections to his arguments, and here again, his thorough and patient reasoning and scholarship is convincing. He addresses the dignity of women, with several female contributors and testimonies. He offers supportive resources for women pressured to seek abortion.

One testimony comes from the late Mother Teresa who cared for the poor in the slums of Calcutta:

“Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child.”

And there are many today who would offer the same love and acceptance.

In addition to testimony and resources, we learn how abnormal cells of the embryo, which once were considered deforming, are sent to be used in the placenta, the nourishing sack within the womb. Abnormal cells can regenerate.

Why have these discoveries been silenced? We see that powerful financial interests are invested in the business of contraception and abortion. And yet studies have found that women are often damaged by these products and procedures preventing pregnancy. Over fifty percent of ectopic pregnancies have occurred with women who have used intrauterine devices.

Scriptural and theological evidence weaves through the discussion: Psalm 139, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb…” The action of God, ensouling the child at the moment of conception completes the creation of a fully human being; this ensoulment constitutes a nature sacrament, for the “human person comes to exist, so God has acted to complete it.”

Mr. Etheredge calls for the world community to grant human rights to the next generation:

“We stand, then, at a point in human history where it is not so much a question of personal choice determining anything and everything as choosing the truth, as it becomes more fully known concerning human conception, that will take us into a humane future of the human race or the future of the human race will be determined by the most powerful and prevailing vested interests that will determine, on utilitarian grounds, whose future it will be to be a resource for the rest of the human race.”

It is true, as Christ said, that the truth will set us free (John 8:32). We must face the truth of what we have done, this slaughter of our children. We must face the light, repent, and enact laws to end the killing of the next generation.

Francis Etheredge’s Unfolding a Post-Roe World is an important work for our times. Children are the future, humanity’s future, at least in this world. In the world to come, we shall have to answer for what we have done, or left undone, what we have said, or left unsaid, for human rights belong to all of us.

Francis Etheredge, Catholic husband, father of eleven, three of whom are in Heaven, is author of thirteen books on Amazon. Visit him at LinkedIn and En Route Books and Media.  

Christine Sunderland is author of seven award-winning literary novels about faith, family, and freedom. Her most recent novel is Angel Mountain (Wipf and Stock, 2020).

UPDATE, DECEMBER 2: This title is now available on Amazon.

We had a cold spell in the Bay Area this last week and suddenly our trees turned burnt orange, fiery blazes of glory in the valleys around our house. The seasons change, bursting with life, throwing off death, preparing in time for winter’s sleep, and spring’s awakening. We on Earth move in time too, humanity seeking and seeing and learning each day more about who we are, what it is to be human, our light and our darkness, even our own manifestations of holiness.

For we were created to be holy, in the image of God, to love one another and to protect one another from evil. For as the poet priest John Donne wrote in 1624:

“No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.”

We are in-relationship with all of humanity.

And so the world awaits the events in America, watching to see what the next days, months, and years will reveal. And we too, as faithful citizens of the Kingdom of Christ the King, watch and wait. For the great Holocaust, the genocide of generations unborn, shows signs of ceasing. But will the killing cease?

As Christians we pray to Christ our King to have mercy upon us for not doing enough to help others see the unborn are human beings with rights to life. We pray and protest and lobby. We establish clinics and support centers. We provide adoption services. As ultrasound images tear hearts, opening them to love, many women choose life. They never regret it.

But the Holocaust goes on: the dismemberment, the piercing of hearts of mother and child, the horror of what we are doing as a nation and what we are doing as a state, in California, where there is no sanctuary for the unborn, for the “unwanted” embryo.

I recently finished reading Francis Etheredge’s newest book, a pre-publication manuscript for review, to be published later in November by Enroute Books and Media, Unfolding A Post-Roe World. Once again, this poet-philosopher-theologian has argued a comprehensive and powerful case for granting personhood, and thus the right to life, to the embryo from the moment of conception, at fertilization. Science has shown this is when human life begins, when each one of us began, and thus these tiny human beings should enjoy all the protections we larger ones enjoy, protections we call human rights. He sees this as a worldwide cause, for we are all “in relationship” to one another as members of the human race. Our family trees are rooted in Adam and Eve, and, as John Donne wrote, no man is an island.

America leads the world. What we do to the least of ours, our most innocent and vulnerable humans, is noticed. Our inhumane treatment of the unborn is noticed by other cultures, other countries. Eventually, should we continue on this dark path, we shall find we are being treated the same way, crushed by powerful forces.

We are in-relationship with one another; we are responsible for one another.

As Christians we call this being of one flock, sheep gathered by the Shepherd. We listen for his voice, attend to his commandments, reach for his hand to touch and heal us. We know what it means to be the People of God, the Children of God. For we know Christ, and he knows us. He is in us, and we are in him.

And so St. Paul tells us today to “Put on the whole armour of God.” But it is an armour of virtue, not of steel: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the ruler of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” We are to be protected by truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, prayer, and perseverance. (Ephesians 6:10+) We are to stand firm.

Americans cast votes on Tuesday. Whom we elect to office and what laws we support, will affect the protection or destruction of our children, will give or deny them the human rights they deserve. These unborn, allowed to live, protected by law, will be the new generation that heals America. Already, many lives have been saved in states that chose life. Many are being saved each day, each hour, each minute. Let’s save them all. Let’s role back the tyranny, push away the principalities and powers of darkness. Let’s vote for life for each of these vulnerable innocents.

(For expert testimony by a doctor as to what happens in an abortion, see: https://www.tfpstudentaction.org/media/videos/doctor-destroys-abortion)

Today is the Feast of Christ the King. And so as I sat in our Berkeley chapel this morning listening to the sermon (framed by glorious hymns and thundering organ), I could see Christ the King on the throne of glory, beckoning and bleeding and blessing us all. He was great and became small, so Scripture and Song tell us, entering our world, taking on our flesh and with our flesh our sufferings. As I listened to our preacher, I gazed upon the tabernacle on the altar where Our Lord’s Real Presence is found in the elements of bread and wine. The King of all creation loves us so he comes among us, becomes one with us, if we desire his glory to live within us.

His glory shines within and without, in our hearts and in our universe, in the microscopic and the magnificent.

I’ve been stunned lately by the glories of the natural world – the light on the shimmering leaves of the olive tree outside my window,  the wild turkeys in the front garden with their brilliantly colored fanned feathers. The tiny birds that dart through the air in a delightful chase, the perky salamander that explores my garden and entrances my cat. The world is of infinite complexity, as scientists have discovered in the last few decades, studying through a high powered lens the double helix of the genome and its ability to change in infinitesimal ways, reflecting an Intelligent Designer after all, and an actively Intelligent Designer. Creation sings to its Creator, in the dappled sun lighting our days, the stars rolled out over the night sky, the moon with its curious dance around us as we circle the sun. Earth rolls through the universe, in a pattern of life and death, of the great and the small, of the high and the low, immanence and eminence. My cat with her long golden hair and giant eyes and loving heart. Her purr as she sits in my lap now listening to my heartbeat. Nothing is ordinary; nothing is average; nothing is less than extraordinary, however small or silent or sleeping. Or suffering.

Everything matters. Everything counts. My bishop of blessed memory often said, “Nothing is wasted.” Everything we do and think and believe and love enters our Book of Life, pages read by each one of us one day, words of self judgment that beget penitence, perhaps purgatory, and powerful peace as we enter the gates of the New Jerusalem.

My desk clock is ticking, a quiet chant marking my afternoon. Time, as mysterious as it is to those of us who are still living within its boundaries, offers more variety, for we know there will be no two seconds alike. Each minute is different in our past, present, and future. Our dance is freedom bound by time, but a dance of ongoing creativity and newness, no step choreographed. Our dance is unique to each one of us as well, expressing our own person made in the image of our Creator.

Christ is our King. We live in an age of democracy, our preacher explained. How do we celebrate monarchy? “My kingdom is not of this world,” Christ said in today’s gospel. So he has a kingdom, but one that stands apart from our earthly kingdom. Yet we know he will return in glorious majesty. We sang of his many crowns today, hymn #352, for he is the Lamb upon his throne. And the crowns reflect his many parts and titles and claims to our worship:

Crown Him with many crowns
The Lamb upon the throne
Hark How the heav'nly anthems drowns
All music but its own!
Awake, my soul And sing
Of Him Who died for thee
And hail Him as thy matchless King
Through all eternity

And so we crown Him the Son of God, the Lord of Life, the Son of Man, the Lord of Lords, the Lord of Heaven, as King of all. All earthly kings bow before Him. As we sing we tell the story of redemption and salvation. We sing with our tiny voices to our King of all.

Here we are, ordinary mortals, itty bitty souls in the pageant of the universe. Yet this King loves us so. He reaches to touch us and make us whole, holy. We reach to touch Him. We are healed and our tininess becomes starry and bright and beautiful. Love fills us with wonder and gratitude. Such gifts. Such splendor.

Our Anglican Province of Christ the King witnesses to this splendor, this resurrection daily, minute by minute, this re-creation of life in our lives and our children’s lives and their children’s lives. We are Christ the King’s children, the unborn and the born, the young and the old, each cherished by the Lord of Life whose Kingdom shall have no end.

Call me deplorable, but I maintain that words matter. Language matters. Truth and lies matter.

This is why, for the most part, I do not like euphemisms, words that sound better than the reality the word represents. Hence, California’s Proposition 1 calls for “the constitutional right to reproductive freedom,” rather than “the constitutional right to murder unwanted babies.” They say this right is pro-choice rather than pro-abortion, making the taking of innocent life sound like an act of freedom.

Proposition 1 will embed in the State Constitution the late term killing of the unborn, with no limits, for any reason, for the “health of the mother” can mean mental health, which can mean mere feelings or mood. It can mean “blindness of the heart.” It allows abortion up to the moment of birth=infanticide.

California will become a killing sanctuary state, inviting women from pro-life states to come and have the “procedure” done in this pro-death state. Procedure?

I recall when surgeries became “procedures.” Beware of language misused. Question statements for their truth. Language is important.

And so as I listened today to our Epistle reading in church, St. Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus, I smiled. It was all about words and truth. We are not to have a darkened understanding, like some,

“being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart… ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: that ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man…and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness… Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God… Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice…” Ephesians 4:17 (italics mine), BCP p. 216.

One of the beauties of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer is its Elizabethan language, also found in the King James translation of Holy Scriptures. The words are direct and powerful, dramatic and poetic. We are to learn Christ, hear and be taught by him, for he is the Truth. When we are alienated from the life of God (missing Mass and other benefits of the Church) we become blind in our heart through ignorance.

One of our clergy often said to enter the church with all your faculties: to question, to ponder, to think things through. The Church aims to teach, to bring us out of darkness into light. That first step of faith may open hearts to crossing the threshold, but we must be always learning, inwardly digesting, engrafting Christ onto and into our hearts through learning and partaking in the Holy Supper.

Putting off the old man by renewing our spirit enables us to put on the new man.

And so, I often pray, “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.” (Psalm 19:14, KJV)

Beware of lies camouflaged as euphemisms that sound so appealing. Proposition 1 also protects the right to refuse contraception (which already exists in State law). By twinning death with life in this way, the death-words sound more acceptable. This too is a tortured use of language.

Darkness is dark. Light is light. Truth is true. Lies are lies. Dying is death. Living is life. As we learn Christ we teach our hearts to see, and what do they see? We see Love, Love embodied in God the Son, Love borne of God the Spirit, and Love commanded by God the Father, our Creator.

And so we pray for our nation and our peoples, our many beautiful races and languages and talents. We pray that all may learn Christ and see Love incarnate all around. We pray that all children be welcomed to this world, be given the chance of life and love. As someone wrote recently, the right to life of the unborn trumps the right of the mother to choose her child’s death, unless a choice must be made between the child and the life (not health) of the mother.

Words matter. In fact, they are matters of life and death.

A man burst into our St. Joseph’s Collegiate Chapel near UC Berkeley on Sunday morning, incoherently shouting and waving a cylindrical object. He turned around and left, violently kicking the door open. He was clearly on drugs, seeing the world through a different lens, one of unreality. When he saw us (were we singing?… not sure) he became incensed with rage. Was it the confrontation with reality that angered him? The Reality of God? Of God’s people worshiping? Why was he so angry?

Each day our world appears to grow more hostile, or is it my elderly imagination, my clear recall of far less turmoil in my own past, and I have had considerable turmoil in my life. And when we were at war – be it domestic or international – we could speak about it. We could assemble and march and write and preach. We could debate one another. Newsprint allowed pros and cons. There were rules and laws we were required to follow. We were to keep things peaceful, or face serious consequences. Not so today. Media largely has become overtaken by one-sided opinion, attempting to destroy the opposition.

The drive into Berkeley yesterday morning was equally hazardous, cars weaving in and out unexpectedly on the highway as if on a racetrack, competing for death-by-crashing, fastest speed, as if the drugged drivers knew there would be no accountability for their actions.

The recent lockdowns, at least here in California, were severe the last few years, and many restrictions continue in eldercare locations, requiring masks and vaccination records and instant temperature takings and questionnaires simply to get past the front desk. It has been a challenge for me to oversee my 102-year-old mother’s care at one of these assisted living locations, since I can’t wear a mask (I really panic) and they are required of everyone.

And now we see an uncivil war brewing in our land of freedom, a growing state power that silences dissent. These trends we foresaw some years ago, at least in California, and they seem to have become emboldened by the continuing “emergency powers,” granted with COVID 19 and ongoing.

Aside from drugs driving crazies on the roads and threatening innocents in churches, the latest concern is the State taking custody of our children to perform “gender therapy” on them. Should parents protest, they will lose custody. Ben Jonson of The Washington Stand writes that Elizabeth Guzman of the Virginia House of Delegates introduced a bill in 2020 that would make it a felony to stop transgender surgeries on their children, under the guise that such interference would cause “mental harm” and fall into the child abuse category. She intends to reintroduce this bill.

Governor Gavin Newsom of California has recently passed a bill that would prevent doctors from expressing alternative viewpoints relative to COVID 19, at least alternative to the State line of the moment. Doctors stand in peril of losing their licenses if they do not support vaccines across the board.

For more on these issues, see and subscribe to the valiant and expert Dr. Monique Robles who argues another way forward, providing valuable information that needs to be seen by every voter and every parent.

These legal measures – California and Virginia – reflect neo-Marxist tyranny, the first, the kidnapping of our children’s minds and bodies by threatening their parents, the second, the silencing of speech and the manipulation of the doctor-patient confidentiality. If your doctor cannot give his own opinion (once called a diagnosis), you have no doctor. We trust our doctors to not be ruled by the State.

Churches are silent just as they were silent about abortion and, for the most part, continue to be. They too fear the State.

But there is an election coming up, when, at least in theory, we can vote for freedom. The greatest issue of all is free speech, for without respectful dialog and debate, our vote and our future are at grave risk. If our vote is at risk, then America is at risk, and thus the world.

A young friend and I were speaking of the many issues in our world today. She is confused, she says, about what is going on and what is causing it, how to vote. I agree. It’s vastly confusing for most of us. I told her she needed to find someone knowledgeable whom she trusts, and vote according to their suggestions. We cannot be authorities in all things. We must defer to those experts who value life and freedom and faith and family, those authorities we trust.

The mainstream media that advocates butchering children and jailing parents is the loudest voice in our world, and many times the only voice heard now that so many self-censor. If you hear the same repeated phrases from all your news sources you are hearing only one side. You are hearing the manipulation of the media, just as Stalin and Mao manipulated the media (today Putin and Xi). Hear the other side at Epoch Times, the Daily Wire, Newsmax.

Check out Uncommon Knowledge, interviews with major thinkers today by the (Stanford) Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson. Also Victor Davis Hanson will give another take on America’s future. He is an expert military historian with an astute vision and a quiet way of speaking. These are thoughtful and brave Americans not afraid to warn us that things are amiss. We are close to losing our country. God bless them for speaking out.

Hillsdale College has numerous free offerings that offer another side to the debate raging over our land, including Imprimis, a newsletter featuring key leaders supporting faith, family, and freedom.

Most have videos and audio on YouTube. Enter the debate of ideas, so crucial for a democracy to survive. Decide for yourself.

There are always two sides to every issue (or more). Don’t allow anyone to silence one to the advantage of the other. When this happens, elections are rigged, children butchered, and parents jailed. Crime increases as drugs flow over open borders and crazies endanger highways and burst into peaceful chapels waving weapons.

We need to hear all sides of every question.

Oh, and, by the way, I spoke to our bishop and he suggested we lock the front door and enter through the parking lot in back. Has it come to that? We no longer serve the students and community that pass by our busy Berkeley corner at Durant and Bowditch. St. Joseph’s will be taking the first step to going underground. At least for now.

But it’s reality. And we are a people of Reality, as my bishop of blessed memory often reminded me, preaching and witnessing to Our Lord’s great acts of salvation two thousand years ago, and alive among us today.

This is the really Good News. It must not go underground. Not yet.

A friend of ours died last month of brain cancer at the age of 66, too young.

Shelley was also too good for this Earth. She had a big smile and large wondrous eyes and a sense that her heart was so full of joy it might overflow, so she needed to give away as much as she could. She loved people and gathered them like family. She didn’t waste a moment of her life, always planning the next outdoors adventure (hiking, biking) or indoors entertainment (local live theater) or holiday gatherings with all the trimmings and décor. When her children were grown and moved out of state she traveled to New York and Arkansas. She loved her new grandson, Harrison, and showed me pics of the children’s playset in the back yard she had set up for him. She had billions of pics on her phone, and when I visited once, I smiled at the images covering every spare inch of appliances and walls. This was the Shelley I knew and loved, holding everyone close to her heart, and also close to her sight.

She will be greatly missed. But I’m looking forward to catching up with her in Heaven and seeing what new adventure she is planning with the choir of angels. Will she organize skating on the streets of gold? I think she will like the gates of precious stones (or is it pearls?) and the river that runs by the throne of God, where we will gather one day.

And yet we mourn. We mourn for ourselves more than for her – a light has gone out that burned brightly in our lives. Part of my heart has darkened and grown suddenly sad.

And so I was glad this morning to witness three infant baptisms at our local parish church. This new life, these children of God, were anointed by the Holy Spirit though the waters of Baptism, a lovely sacrament of Catholic belief and practice. Those baptized are washed clean of mankind’s Original Sin, the sin of Adam, and born again, reborn, into the Christian community, the Church, the Bride of Christ. The priest says:

“WE receive this Child into the congregation of Christ’s flock; and do sign him [or her] with the sign of the Cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner, against sin, the world, and the devil; and to continue Christ’s faithful soldier and servant unto his life’s end. Amen.” (BCP 1928, 280)

I often think of those phrases in today’s world, especially “not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified…” In an age when the State increasingly encroaches upon parental and familial rights, when truth is no longer true, when two plus two no longer equals four, when men are women and women are men, when children are offered for sacrifice upon the altar of pedophilia and transgenderism – I could go on – we must not be ashamed of our faith of Christ crucified.

For the faith of Christ crucified is the faith of Christ resurrected. He holds his hand out to ours, to lead us in the way of all truth. It is the way of life, of rebirth, of eternity. It is the faith of God’s love for us, each and every one. Christ crucified and resurrected is the love of God poured out for us. Such love!

We gathered in the parish hall to celebrate the glorious event. We celebrated family and faith, and our love for one another. We chatted and nibbled to the happy sounds of children playing nearby. And as I glanced across the room I recalled many other moments like this, moments of faithful celebration in the parish hall.

The moments formed a garland through time, a necklace so beautiful it surely was made of the precious stones of gates of the New Jerusalem in Heaven. In the Church on Earth, these life-giving rituals repeat through our time, the words and melodies clothing us with the love of God, living truths that pass all human knowledge. For as St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Church of Ephesus, read to us this day, “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one of hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” (Ephesians 4)

It was a sweet recollection, these baptismal moments, and even sweeter that the young man who read the Epistle to us from the lectern was one of my Sunday School children of long ago – many, many, years ago. Today he has his own family – growing up so fast – and one day they will have theirs too. I pray that this is so, and that the garland grows with the birth of each child, so precious. I pray that each and every one will not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified and be given the gift of life eternal promised by our own living Christ, resurrected among us.

Shelley would like that, I’m sure.

Rest in peace, my friend, and may light perpetual shine upon you, until we meet again.