Cromey Online

A Nation of Murderers

2012-02-03T19:49:00.000-08:00

A Nation of Murderers

The President and his advisors sat around a TV set intently watching a team of U.S. Navy Seals murder Osama Bin Laden. Obama had given the order for the killing. Our leaders watched this man being killed right in front of their eyes. They approved the hit team to go in and “take out” Bin Laden who boasted that he had engineered the 9/11 disaster that killed or wounded three thousand Americans. I wonder if our leaders and gave high fives to each other after the murder. I would not be surprised.

Israeli agents killed a number of Iranian scientists over the last years in an effort to halt the development of that country’s nuclear bomb. Israel and the United States have plenty of such weaponry. The U.S. leadership surely gave their OK for the Israelis to carry out these assassinations. We saw no condemnation of these killings by our government or the Israeli leadership.

Drone bombers, planes without pilots, now fly over areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan and drop bombs on pinpointed so-called enemies. The fact that civilians are routinely killed, as well as the targets, is passed over as “collateral damage” by our leaders. Our government murdered these human beings and the activities are paid for by our taxes.

The people who insist that the United States of America is a Christian country approve of these murders. People who see this as a secular country with separation of Church and state also approve of these murders. The churches that preach love, forgiveness and community approve of these murders by their silence. The synagogues and Muslim mosques that preach love, mercy and justice are equally silent. Our nation of shoppers, medical people and business are also silent about the murderous activity of our country. The media too remains uncritical of murder.

But we have always been willing to kill to get our way. African American slaves, Native Americans and Mexicans have always been seen as less than human and killing them seemed necessary from time to time as needed and desired.

In the Twentieth Century the United States went to war as a nation. In the Twenty-first Century, after the failure of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, we are now a nation of killers and murderers from afar. Assassination and drones kill the innocent who are charged and executed, no trials, representation or arguments. If for some reason, any reason, some nation or politician deems a person dangerous, there is no rule of law, just assassination. The innocent civilians are simply dismissed with our sick sympathies.

This trend away from the rule of law can only seep into the larger society. We already know the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. get rid of undesirables without resorting to trial and jury. Local police do the same. We laud media depictions like John Wayne and Tony Soprano who take justice into their own hands.

This dangerous trend is supported by our Democratic President. It can only be worse under a Republican regime. The occupy movement gives some hope to bring about significant change in our society. Ending of political murder must be added to that agenda.

RWC

HELP OUR IMMIGRANT NEIGHBOORS

2012-01-13T06:54:00.001-08:00

HELP OUR IMMIGRANT NEIGHBOORS

Even Newt Gingrich calls for a more humane policy toward undocumented immigrants. In our neighborhood and in our parish we have seen undocumented immigrants forced to leave the parish and the country. The Mission District of San Francisco has been home to thousands upon thousands of Hispanic and LGBT immigrants for generations.

The statistics are daunting. Ten million undocumented immigrants reside in the United States. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, a non-partisan research organization, 35 percent of immigrants have been in the U.S. 15 years or more, another 28 percent have been here for at least ten years. About half are parents of children under 18 years of age. And 39 percent attend church weekly.

Undocumented immigrants are family loving, hard working, tax-paying, church going and deeply rooted in the U.S. These human beings need a pathway to legal status. At present there is no reasonable way for tax paying, hard working immigrants to become citizens. The present system would make the family leave their jobs and homes, exit the country, move elsewhere, apply for U.S. citizenship, and then wait on an average of ten years for a decision. That is no option for people who care about the welfare of their families.

The Rev. Gloria del Castillo and Richard Smith of our parish have worked hard to help change immigration policies to make them more humane and sensible.

Here is a specific way we can take a step to help in this process.

HELP STOP THE SEPARATION OF OUR FAMILIES

S-COMM (“SECURE” COMMUNITIES) is separating families by deporting thousands of people each year inn California.

Join Archbishop Niederauer, Bishop Justice, Bishop Otis Charles and other faith leaders and congregations from all over the state as we call on Gov. Brown and Attorney General Kamela Harris to help STOP the separation of our families.

Saturday, January 28, 2012 / 2:00 PM

St. Mary’s Cathedral (1111 Gough Street, SF, CA)

HOW TO EVALUATE A SERMON

2012-01-01T08:45:00.000-08:00

Here are some ideas to help listeners evaluate sermons we hear when we attend church. Preachers seldom get much concrete feedback from hearers. Perhaps people think it unnecessary or impolite. Some may feel they lack any criteria to judge a sermon.

Here are some items to help the hearers evaluate the preacher’s offerings:

Did the preacher have a point to the sermon? Did you get it and understand it? What was it?

Did the Biblical material used help make the point or obscure it?

Did you a have a “take away” from the sermon. Were you moved to an action?

Did the sermon touch you emotionally?

Did the sermon stimulate your thinking?

Jesus was a master storyteller. Did you hear a story? Was it connected to the point the preacher was making?

Did the sermon relate the gospel of Jesus or the teaching of the Bible to your personal, social, political, psychological or religious life?

What did you not like about the sermon. Example?

What did you particularly like about the sermon? Example?

If there is no time to give thoughtful feedback after the service, perhaps an email or regular mail letter would help focus your thoughts. Preachers can learn from what hearers think and feel about sermons. Sermons can best improve when preachers know how their words are heard and understood.

Christmas - back to Basics

2011-12-23T13:48:00.001-08:00

Christmas Day- Back to Basics

December 25^th is the day the Christian churches celebrate the birth of Jesus son of Mary and Joseph, a Jewish couple in what is now Israel. The Biblical events of Jesus’ birth were not written down until at least thirty years after the death of Jesus. References to Jesus as Messiah, as Christ as son of God were added to the story.

of his birth to show the importance of this child and man in the eyes of the church as it grew from being a Jewish sect to a world religion. The Christmas music and stories so beloved and popular were all written well after the events of Jesus’ actual birth. The church was trying to figure out who this man Jesus was.

The gospel stories tell the events of this Jewish prophet’s life. He preached with knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, he healed the sick, called for peace, and for help for the poor and oppressed. He expected the end of history to come in his lifetime. He called this the coming of the kingdom of God when all would be peaceable and perfect. Early Christian leaders began to ascribe to him characteristics like Messiah and Son of God, which come from the Hebrew Scriptures.

For the next four hundred years after his death the church tried to define who he was with controversies, debates and creeds written to shape the basic Christian beliefs. Then the worst thing happened. Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire. The simple and basic teaching of the Jewish man Jesus became subservient to the state. Hierarchies and even worship became elaborate and took on the clothing of royalty, which exists in many churches today.

The message of Jesus the humble Jewish teacher, healer and prophet became totally corrupted. It was no longer about love, forgiveness and healing. It morphed into power, money and fame. However, great painting, sculpture, learning, architecture, language and music did emerge from the wealth and power of the church. Great acts of love and mercy came with the Franciscans and others, found hospitals and orphanages.

The church quickly broke up into denominations, sub-groups, cults and national allegiances. The Irish, English, Poles, Germans, Russians all have their own forms of Christian expression. Many of the changes in the church came about because the church was aligned with some political power. Russian Orthodoxy was at the mercy of the government. The Holy Roman Empire was the church and state as one.

It was not until the founding of the U.S government that separation of church and state became a reality that the simple message of the man Jesus has a chance to breathe more freely. The future of the Christian Church lies in getting back to the basics of what Jesus the Jewish prophet and teacher stood for – love, healing, care for the poor and oppressed and seeking peace.

55th Anniversary of my Ordination Sermon

2011-12-18T14:13:00.000-08:00

The Christmas Gospel says:

55years ago yesterday I was ordained a Priest in a splendid ceremony in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. I was chosen to read the gospel that day. Canon Edward Nason West said to all of us after the rehearsal, "Gentlemen, if you make any mistakes, I hope you have had a glorious past because you will have no future in this Diocese."

My mind has changed a lot in these 55 years. The most important was that I moved from being a pastoral priest to prophetic voice by that I mean relating the Gospel of Jesus to the conditions of the world we live in.

The birth of Jesus means he scatters the proud in their foolishness.

He casts down the mighty from their thrones

He lifts up the lowly

He fills the hungry with good things

The rich he sends empty away.

This becomes specific when we urge us all:

in urging love and peace toward Muslims who are being hated and discriminated against by many Americans;

in fighting discrimination against legal and illegal immigrants.

in supporting the 99% percent to get a better share of what the 1% have.

in support of George Packard, Episcopal Bishop and John Metz, priest arrested yesterday for supporting the Occupy Wall St. People who want to be in a lot owned by Trinity Church, Wall St.

Jesus was a poor rabble-rouser healer who called on his followers to care for the poor and the oppressed. We worship in community that we become empowered to do the same.

Today’s Gospel reads,

“By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

I saw a video clip that showed a blind man begging in front of the steps of a large public building. His sign read, “I’m Blind. Please help.” Many people passed by and a few dropped a few coins in his cup. One young woman came by, he touched her shoes and knew who she was. She bent down and wrote something on his sign and then walked away.

The next scene showed many, many people giving him lots and lots of money. The young woman returns, he touches her shoes and asks what she had written on his sign. The camera panned to the sign and it said, “It’s a Beautiful Day and I can’t see it.” - The power of words.

God gives Light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death….

He calls us into community:

I recently witnessed how a woman experienced the power of community. During the weekly discussion following the Sunday service, she shared the adventures she'd had that morning. She was on her way to church when she encountered car troubles.

Instead of returning home and not attending church, or waiting thirty minutes for the Auto Club and being late, she pulled into the local fire station, hoping that they could assist her. The firefighters happily provided the immediate help she needed so she could complete her journey.

People asked why it was so important for her to be at the service. She replied that she lives alone, and this congregation provides her with the spiritual support she needs, and in return, she wants to give the best she can. She feels a sense of purpose and belonging that comes from being with others. When she's with her congregation, she feels part of a vital community.

We the Christian community gain strength only as we serve others.

God in Christ is among us in the cradle, on the road, in healing and on the cross.

In serving others, in our prayer and worship, in our singing and celebration we come to God and perhaps we will find that God comes and finds us.

Advent Meditation

2011-12-13T20:11:00.000-08:00

“Purify our conscience.” Now there is a threatening suggestion. While we will never have a perfectly clean and purified conscience, we can take a peek at it now and then. Let’s leave out any “sex between consenting adults in private that does not hurt or harm”and masturbation. But there is plenty of conscience left to examine. My mind leaps to the stuff I have not done – helping to stamp out illegal drug trafficking, assisting the fight to make our country safe for immigrants, legal or illegal, or fighting to end bashing of American Muslims and peaceful Muslims throughout the world.

We must not forget to glance at and confess words and deeds that hurt others, gossip that hurts and not paying our fair share of taxes. Oh well, the list gets so familiar as to be boring. But you get what I mean. Admitting our faults, sins and peccadilloes and receiving God’s forgiveness makes us more human if not pure. (Meditation on the collect for the Fourth Sunday in Advent by RWC

HATE MUSLIM?

2011-12-09T19:58:00.001-08:00

People of Islam are deeply distrusted by two friends. They are smart and deeply read. Should we send American Muslims to camps like we did the Japanese Americans in WW 11? Deport them? Perhaps they are the newest people to hate. In my lifetime we Americans have hated Jews, African Americans, Japanese, Germans, Communists, Chinese, North Koreans, North Vietnamese, homosexuals and now it is the people of Islam. As a Christian I am committed to hospitality, communication and reconciliation with my enemies. (It is hard with Republicans. But I have relatives and friends of that stripe and we do get along. We just never talk politics.)

Take a Muslim to lunch. Hear one talk on you tube or at a mosque. Open your/our/their minds.

In Memory of Michael Woodsmith

2011-11-24T09:41:00.000-08:00

A Recollection in Memory of

The Rev. Michael Woodsmith LVN

By Robert Warren Cromey

Michael Smith says he met me when I arrived in my VW to perform a wedding at Holy Innocents' San Francisco, where the scheduled cleric was a no-show. I don’t remember that but do recollect Nina and him coming to diner at 56 Amber Drive when I was vicar of St. Aidan’s, SF.

Michael was born in England, his father in the British Army. His father and mother lived in India many years before Michael’s birth. Michael went to college and studied theology in England.

He told me that he and Nina wanted to marry in England. As a seminarian he could not expect to get ordained if his fiancée was divorced, which Nina was. He came to California and Bishop James A. Pike ordained him in the early 1960s.

He became curate at Christ Church Alameda where he ran the youth group. He invited me to come speak to the group on urban ministry and civil rights. His boss Wolfe Hodgkin chastised him for inviting Cromey, that radical, to talk to the youth. Michael and Wolfe did not get along and Michael soon moved on to work construction. He was disillusioned by the church’s treatment of him and Nina. Wolfe’s son became a good friend of Michael's and smoking buddy over the years.

Nina and Michael then made jewelry and followed the street fairs all over California. I would run into them from time to time selling their wares in front of Ghirardelli Square. Tiring of the fairs, Michael decided to become a Licensed Vocational Nurse. Nina was not happy with that decision and for a number of reasons they broke up. Michael gave Nina their house, a Victorian on Duncan Street.

Michael immediately loved being a hands-on nurse working with mentally and emotionally disturbed teens.

A crack table tennis player, Michael when challenged by the kids would proceed to beat them royally at the game. He with the other nurses from time to time had to physically restrain the kids when they became violent and threatening.

The story of Audrey and Michael’s meeting and courtship is the stuff of a fairy tale. Michael loved Golden Gate Park. One sunny day he went into the Japanese Tea Garden, enjoying its red and yellow leaves, the arch bridge, the green and yellow straw-thatched teahouse. Audrey Wood was sipping her tea. Michael took his tea and they began a conversation.

Michael asked, “So what are you doing these days.”

"I’m a student at the Church Divinity School in Berkeley."

"Are you planning to be a priest?"

"Yes, I hope to be ordained in the Episcopal Church."

Michael smiled, “I am a priest of the Episcopal Church."

"Really?"

"Yes, but I work at St. Mary’s Hospital as a nurse now."

So the conversation continued and the relationship flourished. When they married, Michael Smith and Audrey Woods became Michael and Audrey Woodsmith.

When Audrey came to Trinity as a seminarian, Michael decided to give the church another chance. After attending for a while he began to take the 8:00 AM service.

He told me one day, “Robert, if I say I will do something, you can depend on me to do it and be on time.” He continued, “I’ll also tell you this, I will always be loyal to you, I’ll never criticize you behind your back.” To my knowledge he kept those promises.

Michael and I used to have dinner or lunch together every month. We both love Indian food and we’d eat at the Nan ‘n Curry on Irving St. He expressed decided opinions on a number of things.

He’d say, “Robert, see this coat, I got it at Good Will. It is a $500 coat and I got for $75.00." He loved a bargain.

He would scowl and proclaim, "Robert, no gentleman puts ice cubes in single malt scotch.” Putting some cubes into my Glen Livet, I'd say, “I do.” He’d look properly offended.

The Cromeys and the Woodsmiths often dined together. Audrey finished seminary and did not get ordained. Both Michael and Audrey were terribly upset. Audrey went on to become a high school English teacher, gaining tenure at Fremont High School. They bought a home there and Michael commuted to St. Mary’s Hospital until he was felled by illness.

Michael had a tough exterior and often a gruff manner. I attributed some it to his having a British Army career sergeant for a father. Below the surface he was kind, gentle and caring. While at Trinity several couples sought him out to perform their marriage ceremonies. When I was very sick in 2004 he came to visit me almost every day. After abdominal surgery, I had hospital psychosis for a week. One of the days Michael came to see me I was refusing to get out of bed and into a chair. Michael said, “Robert, do as you are told.” I snarled back. “Do you who I am? Don’t you dare talk to me like that.” Michael smiled knowingly.

He also visited Aaron Hayes, Michael Patterson from Trinity and Aidan Hansen from Ann’s school when they were patients at St. Mary’s. They are only the ones I know about. I always felt he loved, supported and cared for Ann and me. I trusted him completely.

In 2004 I was quite sick. After abdominal surgery, I had a psychotic episode for a week. One of the days Michael came to see me I was refusing to get out of bed and into a chair. Michael said, “Robert, do as you are told.” I snarled back. “Do you who I am? Don’t you dare talk to me like that.” Michael smiled knowingly.

He supported Audrey as she finished seminary and went on for a Master’s Degree in English and worked in a couple of schools before landing in Fremont. He idolized her and showed it with his steady glance and attention to her. She also adored him. The 28-year difference in their ages seemed to make no difference. I loved it that as a Brit he disdained France. When he and Audrey went to Paris a few years ago, he confessed to absolutely loving that city – even more than London.

For a time Michael lived in their apartment on Third Ave. four nights a week and went home to Fremont for the weekends. He grew to hate the time alone and away from Audrey. He and I often had dinner one evening a week. He was not comfortable at Trinity under the new interim and stopped attending. He told me that he had tried renewing is connection to the church at Trinity, now he was giving it up.”

He often talked of his love for his theological college in England and the emphasis on ministry to the sick and poor. He had a rigorous training to be a priest at the school. He reminded me that he had experience at the Urban Training Center in Chicago. He had done work with youth gangs and had marched in Selma, Alabama in 1964. Now he felt he was best at being a nurse at this juncture in his life.

He and Audrey went to Paris again this summer of 2011. He got sick, spent time in the hospital there and returned home. He soon was too sick to work at St. Mary’s. He spent several weeks at home breathing with the help of oxygen. Audrey’s mother Jody Woods spent almost every day with Michael for three months so that Audrey could continue to work and he would not be left alone. Even before that they had a good relationship- and he would never hear a negative word said about mothers-in-law. Soon Michael had to be hospitalized and he died Sunday November 20, 2011, in the hospital in Fremont, California. His wife Audrey was present. He was 70.

CRITICISM OF THE DEAD

2011-11-16T10:25:00.000-08:00

The King is dead, long live the King.

No, not Elvis or some deceased monarch, I mean King Steve Jobs.

Such adulation, praise, glory, laud and honor spread around the world. We are used to false idols in our country, money being the real king. Power and celebrity status are next. Since Jobs’ death the outpouring of articles, recollections and already a book are ponderous. I am sure a movie and TV series are in the making. But the quip I loved most pointed out that Jobs was an Arab as his father was Syrian.

Jobs created a business and industry that changed our lives. But nothing Jobs created or Apple sells were necessary. Computers, phones, music, games were all available elsewhere. I am an Apple user and like the products I have.

Jobs was a rampant perfectionist. He demanded and got his way. He abused, used and stepped on people, swiped other people’s ideas and developed fine products that we can well do without. He created work for people, that’s true. I was in an Apple store the day after Job’s death, I saw no tears or interest in talking about their leader.

The all-demanding, arrogant, 24/7, hard driving, hard-boiled and ruthless entrepreneurs are held up as heroes in our country. Yet we see early death, ruined marriages, empty lives, failed businesses and bank failures resulting from those very leaders.

I believe the calm and gentle ways of Zen, Jesus, Gandhi and others make for a better and more healthy existence.

President Obama

2011-11-13T19:39:00.001-08:00

President Obama has brought an end to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has bailed out the banks and the auto industry and passed a health care legislation. He has stopped the pipeline to Texas. He has ended “don’t ask don’t’ tell.” The Republicans don’t discuss or compromise. They are against bills for raising taxes on the rich, programs to end unemployment and opposed virtually every proposal the president has attempted in order to defeat him in 2012. They are the true anarchists. We liberals and democrats need to support him and fight against the Republicans who want to end health care and many of the President’s accomplishments.

At the White House

2011-11-13T19:10:00.000-08:00

Christmas Tree is now Holiday Tree

At the White House

Some people are already crying foul.

All the other presidents have called their tree a Christmas tree. The President wants to dub it a Holiday Tree. Here is a quote from an email sent to me by a conservative friend.

“Just thought you should know what the new residents in the WH plan for the future of America. If you missed his statement that "we do not consider ourselves a Christian Nation" this should confirm that he plans to take us away from our religious foundation as quickly as possible. Just another step toward turning America away from Christianity! We should shout to the highest hills that the White House is ours - not the Obamas', and 85% of Americans believe in Christ (Christmas).”

I do think the President wants his official Christmas statement to be inclusive. Jews, members of Islam, Buddhists, Atheists, Agnostics and all non-Christians have been assaulted by so-called Christian sentiments from high places from the beginning of the republic.

The founding fathers made it very clear that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." This has never ever been a Christian country. It is true that various politicians and church groups have talked as if this were a Christian nation.

The worst thing that ever happened to Christianity was when it became allied with the state in the fifth Century when it became the state church of the Roman Empire. The church lost its integrity and freedom and was completely identified with the state. Inquisitions, pogroms, crusades, papal and protestant chicanery became more important than the basic message of Jesus. Power and money usurped love and forgiveness. The founding fathers of our country made sure that the new nation would have none of it.

Nations by their very nature are in the business of self-preservation. To that end our government has supported slavery, war, racial discrimination, oppression of women and homosexuals, snatching of other peoples' land and countries. It approves of capital punishment and allows greed to overcome the poor. Many Americans do not want other Americans to have adequate medical care, decent housing and food for starving children. Our government could never be accused of following the teachings of Jesus.

The message of Jesus is a call for love, forgiveness, care for the poor, the hungry and prisoners, and a call for peace.

Governments and the citizens of our country do not spend much time on these values of Jesus. Christians in government and politics do the best they can with the gospel demands, but they choose to live in a world where there is no way they can adhere to the words of Jesus fully.

It is up to us individual Christians who find our basic values in Jesus’ message to live our lives as deeply committed as we can. We do all we can to have government reflect our basic values. But we also know that we are weak and frail and fall short of our mark of loving and forgiving.

We are not a Christian country. We are a nation where Christians and others have the freedom to practice their religion.

Prayer and Worship Items

2011-11-09T20:41:00.000-08:00

To pray is to pay attention or, shall we say, to listen to someone or something other than one's self.

Haiku: He has never seen God,/but once or twice, he believes/ he has head Him.

-W. H. Auden quoted in The New Yorker. 11/14/11.

Why I go to Church! I go to re-member, re-connect myself to Jesus, Martin Luther, MLK, JFK, my parents and grandson dead of an overdose, my daughters and grandchildren in New England etc etc - when I drink some wine after a taste of bread. I do love to sing. Church is the only place in town where one can sing with others. I also like being with people that I like and some whom I'd never meet otherwise. That's the catholicity of church. -RWC

Prohibition - PBS TV, a Review

2011-10-05T14:57:00.000-07:00

Prohibition a three-part television program produced by Ken Burns on PBS.

Television at its finest is the program Prohibition. We see that the U.S. government was pressured into passing the 18^th amendment to the Constitution which made alcohol illegal. The television program shows and tells us how it came about, what were the consequences and how it was repealed. It is told vividly and dramatically using old still pictures, movies and detailed narratives to bring the viewer into the very times it was all happening. The clothes, the cars, the characters, the buildings, farms, small towns and big cities of our vast country draw us into other eras.

The drys weredetermined to end drinking of alcohol as the way to stop drunkenness, broken homes, abuse of women and children, job loss, production interruption and alcoholism. The wets did not want laws passed controlling their behavior and right to drink. They also made fortunes making beer and whiskey as well as producing jobs for distillers, barrel makers, glassmakers, brewers, and farmers growing corn and grain. The taxes helped the government.

The rigid determination and organization of the drys won out and the 18^th Amendment was passed into law in 1919. The Protestant churches supported the amendment. Only the Episcopalians and Lutherans refrained. The intended consequences were that there was a drop in alcohol consumption and alcoholism. Breweries and distillers and saloons closed down.

The unintended consequences sprang into life almost immediately. Speakeasies, scofflaws, illegal importing and smuggling of alcohol into the country began at once. Illegal booze made some people sick, blind and dead. Gangsters using sophisticated business methods produced whiskey and beer and distributed it to the customers who lined up to drink. Otherwise law-abiding citizens who wanted to drink felt bad but went ahead buying and drinking illegal booze.

The third part of the series reports the movement toward and final repeal of the 18^th amendment by the 21^st Amendment in 1933. This finale is made dramatic with film and audio footage of the nomination and election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as President of the United States. He opposed the 18^th amendment.

This wonderful TV series raises the issues of attempts to control people’s behavior, of single-minded rigidity and pressure politics. Americans today want most drugs to be illegal like marijuana, cocaine, LSD and so-called recreational drugs. As a result there is a vast illegal drug trade throughout the United States. Drugs are easily available in most high schools and colleges, places of business and even in prisons. Jails bulge with men and women serving sentences for possession and use of even the least harmful drugs. Misinformation is given to children hoping they will refrain from drug use. The kids regard these classes as a joke. Illegal drugs are a multi billion-dollar industry in this country.

Prostitution is outlawed almost everywhere and flourishes all over the place. Where there is demand there is supply. It too is a multi-billion-dollar that goes untaxed. Women continue to be demeaned, injured and exploited by corrupt police as well as by their pimps and customers.

The rigidity of the National Rifle Association’s opposition to any controls means that guns are easily available to youngsters, the mentally and emotionally disturbed and people in a rage for vengeance. City teen gangs find all the guns they want. Many members of the NRA would like more flexibility about some gun control but the leaders at the top rigidly oppose any gun control.

AIPAC - The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is another example of a rigid organization committed to defend Israel in the U.S. at all costs. They lobby against any legislator on the local, state or national level that questions Israel’s treatment of Palestinians or in any way questions U.S. support of Israel. Our legislators, fearing reprisals from this and other groups, refrain from serious debate on the abuses of the Palestinians.

Prohibition taught us that Americans must be aware that some groups in our country try to control our behavior and our thinking. They are not open to serious discussion or debate. They are only interested in getting their way. Of course that is a natural tendency in all of us. We all want our own way.

I am a firm believer in democracy, freedom of speech and the interchange of ideas. We must always be aware of our own tendencies and of those who who want to control us and our behavior and values.

Anti-War Vigil Anniversary

2011-10-02T19:51:00.001-07:00

Ten Years ago the Vigil for Peace and Justice began in SF at Golden

Gate and Larkin Sts. Come stand vigil with us on our anniversary

10/6/11. Noon to 1 PM. Come an join us in saying No to War, get out of Afghanistan and protest killing people by drone aircraft.

CHRIST IN YOU???

2011-09-29T09:04:00.000-07:00

What Does it Mean to Have Christ in You?

Many sermons end with the hope and plea that we discover the Christ within us. We expect that Christians have some experience of finding Jesus, being found by God, having a Christ conversion experience. Some religions hold that we cannot be Christian unless you we had an emotional experience of the living Christ. They demand that we accept Jesus as our personal savior.

Some of us come to follow Jesus as a result of our steady education in scripture, theology and the regular attendance at church, receiving the sacraments and participation in the community. That is pretty much my own personal situation. I am a committed follower of Jesus by background, tradition, education and participation in the church. But I cannot say I have been “converted” or had a mystical experience. Many people do testify that have had such a “warming” to use John Wesley’s term. Many have been moved by Billy Graham crusades and accepted Jesus and gone down the aisle to have hands laid on them with prayer.

My own commitment to follow Jesus came through my background in the church, education and exposure to prejudice against Jews, Blacks and homosexuals. It just became the natural and right thing to do to become an outspoken advocate to help end racial, religious and sexual prejudice. It was just the way it was for me and is now too.

I often press preachers to give examples of people who have Christ within them. The easy ones are Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, Archbishop Tutu, Dorothy Day and St. Francis.

I believe Gandhi, Madame Curie, and Freud while not specifically Christian, had compassion and Christ like love to help people.

How about devout Roman Catholics today? Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner have widely divergent views of how to run the government and care for the poor and are willing to wage war. Are they Christ like-Christians?

First of all no one can judge the value or quality of another person’s commitment to Jesus the Christ, although each of us does that in our hearts and minds. We think, he’s a good one and she’s not. Madonna is a baptized Catholic and now is involved in a sect of Buddhism. Is she Christ-like? Who are we to judge? Some bishops and others are uneasy with Christian clergy and laypeople who profess to be Zen Buddhists. Why not enjoy both Buddhism and Christianity?

Well, I do make some judgments. I have some standards, but I will praise those who live up to my standards and ignore the rest. I Judge a person’s commitment to Jesus Christ very simply. How does her or his faith work to serve the poor, the sick, the disenfranchised and seek peace in the world? Does the person’s so-called spiritual life result in direct service to others?

I know many devout followers of Christ work to earn a living at jobs whose contributions to others well-being is indirect. Insurance, advertising, engineering, real estate, travel, government, retail, wholesale, food, media, finance and a whole host of others.

There are doctors and dentists who serve the sick and suffering directly and become wealthy in doing so. Who am I to judge if they have a Christ consciousness.

Nurses and medical technicians give direct care to the sick. Teachers, no matter what their religious beliefs may be, give direct care to the development of children’s minds and hearts.

Most people in all lines of work have little or no Christ commitment motivating them. Are the devout Christians any better at what they do than non-believers?

We in the church acknowledge that God’s Holy Spirit is at work in people and in the world at all times. My atheist cardiologist friend saved lives and prolonged the lives of many more. The Holy Spirit works through Larry whether he believes it or not.

We who are members of the church, the body of Christ, must mind our own business when it comes to other people’s faith and motivation.

I get tired of this era of pop-spirituality we are in with meditation, labyrinths, retreats, quiet days, prayer groups and daily offices and little action in the church and the world to help the poor, oppressed and the sick. While Jesus often prayed, he did not call us to develop our spiritual life. He called us to complete the creation by doing our part in bringing in the Kingdom of God.

If we take following Jesus seriously we need to focus on discovering for ourselves what the best way is to serve the poor, the sick and disenfranchised and to seek peace in the world. We proclaim the gospel and we do the work we are called to do, and do it.

The late senator Mark O. Hatfield, Republican from Oregon was an evangelical Christian and an activist for peace and justice. He put it this way:

Radical allegiance to Jesus Christ transforms one’s entire perspective on political reality. Priorities become totally changed; a whole new understanding of what is truly important bursts forth. There is an uncompromising identification with the needs of the poor and oppressed. One is placed in fundamental opposition to structures of injustice and forms of national idolatry. Further there is a commitment to the power of love as the only means to the end.

Hatfield saw that some issues affecting people could only be solved by changing the laws that oppress people. Changes in the law brought about ending legal oppression of Jews and African Americans. Today a capitalist medical care system fails many people in getting health insurance. Now the government must help the poor get proper medical care. Political action to bring about change is part of following Jesus.

From the Hebrew Bible we find a simple principle for living well and following Jesus:

Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

Many are quiet followers of Jesus without any announcements made about their motivation:

-bringing sick people to church

-teaching school

-being a social worker

-working as a hospital administrator

to mention a very few, as the list would be endless.

I find it inspiring to see and hear about people who are acting out of the conviction they are imbued with a Christ-consciousness. Preachers using concrete illustrations of Christians following the teaching of Jesus help motivate others to act vigorously in the world.

Palestinians - Israelis

2011-09-24T09:02:00.000-07:00

Hi Michael.

You are asking all the right questions. I can only give you my answer.

I am a long time critic of the Israeli's treatment of the Palestinians. 40,000 have been in camps for over 40 years. Israelis have built walls surrounding Palestinian areas, harass Palestinian's free flow of travel and treat them like second-class citizens.

The US will probably veto the Palestinian effort to become a separate state by mandate of the UN. Obama and any government official fear retaliation from wealth Jewish organizations that are unreservedly pro-Israel.

I have been called an anti-semite. I don't care, I know I am not.

It will work out over time. I choose to take a stand when I am requested. My Jewish friends know of my position and we just don't talk about it.

Thank you for writing.

Robert

Ruth Brinker R.I.P.

2011-09-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Ruth Brinker Memorial

San Francisco City Hall, North Hall

September 12, 2011

Ruth Brinker

1922-2011

Founder of Project Open Hand

In 1981 Ruth Brinker was one of the first people I met after I had been elected Rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, Bush and Gough Street. She was the director of the

Meals on Wheels program which used the kitchens of the church to make meals. She was always perfectly dressed while slicing, chopping or stirring food next to a hot stove.

There were budget cuts then as there are now and her budget had been cut so low that she though it would better named Snacks on Sneakers. Ruth had recruited many volunteers and friends to assist in preparing and delivering food to the housebound elderly.

In 1984 some of her friends and volunteers were getting very sick and were also housebound. The AIDS epidemic had hit the city and gay males were hardest hit. They were infected, became very ill and often died with a month or two. The men could not work, often lived in poor tenderloin housing and could not prepare food for themselves.

Ruth Brinker began preparing meals for them from her home and delivering them herself to her friends. One day she came to me and asked, “May I use Trinity kitchens? I am cooking for ten men from home and there is more demand?”

I said, “Sure, keep me informed.”

In two weeks we spoke and she said the numbers had jumped from 10 to 40 in two weeks.

She called it Project Open Hand.

She needed more money and we were not able to help her. She got a gift of two thousand dollars from a Zen Buddhist group. Trinity paid PG&E, water, and garbage. The need, the money and the volunteers grew and publicity resulted and Project Open Hand was a reality.

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED

As usual some people began to complain that there were too many people in and out of the church, parking was interrupted and someone reported the operation to the health Department.

The Health Inspector came to the ancient Trinity kitchen, looked around and said, “Yes, there are violations here,” He turned around and walked away never to be heard from again. The kitchen was built in 1898 when the church was built and had never been refinished. Well, maybe in 1900.

Then people were worried about the money. Where was the bank account, how was the money spent, who was the treasurer? Ruth replied briskly, “My purse is the bank account.”

I was never worried. She drove the same old rent a wreck she always had and lived in a small apartment in North beach.

Finally a board of directors was formed to help her and no one cold find any hint that Ruth was dishonest.

Project Open Hand moved from Trinity in 1993 to its own kitchen on 17^th Street. The telephone bank stayed at the church for a few years longer.

Ruth told me that the Quakers influenced her earlier in her life. She became a communicant member of Trinity Church while I was rector.

She was a follower of Jesus who asked us to

Feed the hungry, heal the sick,

aid the oppressed.

That was what Ruth Brinker was all about.

A speech given by The Rev. Robert Warren Cromey, retire rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, San Francisco, CA

The Many Horrors of 9/11

2011-09-10T09:09:00.000-07:00

The angels rejoiced over the deliverance of Israel at the Red Sea.

God, the creator if the Universes, was sitting in a corner weeping. The angels asked why God was weeping when the enemies of Israel were defeated? I am weeping said the maker of the universe for the dead Egyptians washed up on the shore - somebody’s sons somebody’s husband, somebody’s fathers.” From an Hasidic tale.

9/11/11 should be a day of mourning for the victims of the attacks, the inglorious invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, brutality of enemy prisoners of war, killing of United Nation’s soldiers, civilians and soldiers of the invaded countries, the horror of stealth bombers, denigration of the people of Islam and serious losses to our constitutional rights like Illegal wire and phone tapping by police and FBI and CIA, Illegal searches of American citizen’s person and property.

We can rejoice that our country maintained peace and prosperity at home but we cannot forget that we have caused mayhem in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11.

Labor Day and 9/11 Anniversary

2011-09-03T13:52:00.000-07:00

The Labor Union movement brought about child labor laws, the eight-hour workday, health and pension plans, work safety rules, and collective bargaining among other values.

On the tenth Anniversary of 9/11:
One group suggests flying an American flag of any size on 9/11 should mark the observance. Another suggests we fly the flag upside down. I disagree with a flurry of flags.

9/11/11 should be a day of mourning and lamentation for the victims of the attacks, the inglorious invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, our brutal torturing of enemy prisoners of war, killing of American soldiers, civilians and soldiers of the invaded countries, the horror of stealth bombers, denigration of the people of Islam and serious losses to our constitutional rights like Illegal wire and phone tapping by police and FBI and CIA and illegal searches of American citizen’s person and property.

We can rejoice that our country maintained peace and prosperity at home but we cannot forget that we have caused mayhem in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11.

My Sermon at Grandson's Funeral

2011-08-17T09:44:00.000-07:00

Eulogy at the Requiem Eucharist
in memory of Austin Alexander Lindsay
in Trinity Church, New Haven, CT.
on Monday, August 15, 2011
Given by The Rev. Robert Warren Cromey
Priest retired of the Episcopal Church

Austin Lindsay was my first grandson. His mother, Leigh Cromey is my first daughter.

Funerals are not to celebrate life. Funerals are times and places to mourn, to feel sad, to feel guilty and express our sorrow. Funerals are a time to allow yourself to be a mess.

The best way to move from pain and sorrow is to allow that guilt, allow, that sadness, cry those tears. Keep allowing that suffering to just be there. Of course you go to work, take care of the kids and have a martini. Grieving is a gift from God, a precious gift that moves us toward healing and new life.

I baptized Austin in 2001 at Trinity Church, San Francisco, California when I was rector there.

Austin was the perfect bouncing baby boy. The ready smile the relentless competitor. Once when he was five I went for walk with him. He kept attacking me, as boys tend to do as a way of expressing affection. He charged up to me, grabbed me, I unpeeled his am and pushed him away and he fell down. He got right up and attacked me again. I pushed him down and he got up, ran at me again. This happened at least a dozen times. His chubby little legs kept charging at grandpa Robert. Now I know why I had to have knee replacement

When we had breakfast together, I would do the crossword puzzle and Austin and his brother Daniel and sister Catherine vied for the right word. Austin would hate it if his sister thought of a word first. But he loved to do them with me.

Austin and is family joined Ann and me in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico one winter. Ann took them on a hike past some the very poor and hungry people by a stream. Austin told me he was glad he had an opportunity to see such poverty at first hand. He was exhilarated to join his dad on a parachute ride that carried him high over the city and the bay.

Austin was a choirboy here in this church until his voice changed. He was quite fetching in his red robe and stiff collar.

He liked good novels and he, my wife Ann and Almariet his girl girlfriend discussed books together the last time Ann and I saw Austin.

Then there was college and drugs. Then Austin died.

Austin told me he was an atheist. Well, he isn't now.

Many scientists tell us that when we die, we are dead, it’s over. That is all there is. But science is not the only way of knowing. From time immemorial post have sung of life after death. Homer, Dante, Milton. Wordsworth wrote of Intimations of immortality. Great music moves us to celebrate that death is not end of life. Listen to Bach’s B Minor Mass for instance. Many of us have an .instinct about life eternal.

We Christians here in this church have a sure and certain hope in resurrection and new life. Our hope and belief is that Austin is in the hands of a loving God. Of course we can’t prove that empirically. But that is our faith. That hope is based on our Christian story of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus died because he was a revolutionary. The religious and political leaders feared him because of his radical ideas. He preached that we need to feed the hungry, heal the sick, free the oppressed, and stand for peace. So Jesus died on the cross. We believe he rose again from the dead at Easter. We believe his resurrection means that all of us survive our mortal deaths, life continues in mystical and new ways that we do not understand.

Austin died because of illegal drugs. They affect the lives of millions of people in this country and around the world.

I hope we go out of this church with a renewed determination to find creative ways to control illegal drugs. All the ways are complex and controversial but drugs are affecting our young people.

I hope we go out of this church in memory of Austin to find ways to end drug trafficking.

I hope we go out of this church in memory of Austin to help all young people resist illegal drugs.

Austin, we are with you ‘til we meet again.

Austin, “God be with you ‘til we meet again.”

LINDSAY, AUSTIN ALEXANDER Austin Alexander Lindsay, aged 20, died unexpectedly on Thursday night, August 4, in his apartment in Mansfield Connecticut. His friends and family will remember him for his humor and wit, generosity and selfless hospitality towards people he met. He was an avid reader, a graduate from Hamden High School in 2008, and he was enrolled at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. He is survived by his parents, David Lindsay and Leigh Cromey, and his siblings Daniel and Catherine in Hamden, CT. There will be a Memorial Service on Monday, August 15 at 5 PM at Trinity Episcopal Church on the Green in New Haven, on the corner of Temple and Chapel. In lieu of flowers, we suggest a donation in Austin's memory to a reputable organization fighting drug addiction such asHazelden.org or FamilesAnonomous.org.

80 in Oslo

2011-07-24T09:59:00.000-07:00

Reports of the killing of 80 plus adults and children at a summer camp near Oslo, Norway continue to horrify me and I am sure the bulk of the people of he world. My granddaughter Mary Charlotte works in an Episcopal Church camp this summer.

Then there is the daily horror of death and maiming from wars, family feuds and earthquake, fire and flood showing us the sinful, painful and tragic part of life. Then I happened to tune in to Louis Armstrong singing What a Beautiful World with pictures of children playing, landscapes, sunsets and people in love. It is a wonder filled world.

I am so grateful for the Biblical teaching that we humans are both radically evil and marvelously and wondrously good. I am saddened by the horrors that befall us. I am delighted and thankful for all the beautiful and delightful things in our lives. Death and resurrection are all around us all the time. The life of Jesus is the great story of death and new life.

We Christians should find comfort in the fact that we live ambiguously and thankfully in a world filled with sorrow and joy. We are not surprised by evil, we rejoice in the good live with whatever life brings.

Liberals - Get Off Obama’s Back

2011-07-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

Liberals - Get Off Obama’s Back

My liberal friends are hysterical about President Barak Obama’s failures to end the wars, cut salaries for executives, tax the rich, fix the debt and improve gay rights. What is it? Impatience, lack of faith, disappointments, frustration, or are they not willing to notice the enormous complexities facing each daily decision the president must make? Any president going into office faces a huge bureaucracy of military, government employees, the opposition party and huge pressures from foreign governments and lobbyists, all entrenched and protective of their turf. There is no such thing as a clean slate. Obama warned his cheering supporters that things were not going to be easy nor that change would happen quickly. He stepped into a huge mess.

The president is under constant scrutiny and criticism from the press, the opposition party and disgruntled elements in his own party. He is also attacked by the simpleminded who fail to see the complexities and resistance to change in government and politics.

The president is bringing down the wars and getting the troops home. He is grappling with the enormous debt and moving toward more and more recognition of homosexual rights. He has produced a medical plan for all Americans.

I am disappointed that things have not moved faster to end the wars and provide LGBT rights. However, I fully support Barak Obama in his efforts to provide medical care for all. He handles the viciousness of the Republican Party and the Teabaggers who do not see that government is to help people enjoy “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” I will continue to support him and his efforts and marvel at his graciousness and humor in the light of the stonewalling of his policies by conservative forces in both parties.

For solid liberals to moan and groan about Obama’s failures can only weaken the president’s efforts. To call him a one-term president undermines his authority and his reach for more time to carry out his policies. Certainly no Democrat or Republican waiting to be the next president will bring progress for caring for the poor, the sick, mortgage homeless, unemployment or providing health care. We have a good president working for the benefit of most of the people. He compromises, works diligently and moves the government forward for the good of all the people and not just for business and the rich.

I hope other liberals will get off the President’s back and on his bandwagon to keep our government “for the people.”

Israel Invaded by Arab Countries

2011-07-07T16:52:00.000-07:00

If Arab countries or Iran invaded Israel what would the United States government do? We would honor our long time commitment to aid Israel. That seems like a simple answer. The recent wild reception of the prime Minister of Israel by the U.S. Congress leads us to be assured that such support would be forthcoming.

However, after the disaster of a ten-year debacle in Iraq and Afghanistan would the America people really support sending our troops and spending billions of dollars to yet another war in the Middle East?

Pressure on the President and the Congress by wealthy Jewish supporters of Israel would be tremendous. Elected officials would fear that any opposition to sending U.S. soldiers back into the Middle East would cost their re-election. Politics and money would top reason and restraint in responding to such a threat to Israel. Leaving it to the United Nations would not be seen as real support.

Most Jews and I still sense a strong anti-Semitic streak running through Middle America.

In June 2002, a nationwide survey released by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) resulted in the following.

The findings in brief … Strongly anti-Semitic:

17% of Americans

35% of Hispanics

35% of African-Americans

3% of U.S. college and university students

“The 2005 Survey of American Attitudes Towards Jews in America, a national poll of 1,600 American adults conducted in March 2005, found that 14% of Americans - or nearly 35 million adults - hold views about Jews that are "unquestionably anti-Semitic," compared to 17% in 2002, Previous ADL surveys over the last decade had indicated that anti-Semitism was in decline. In 1998, the number of Americans with hardcore anti-Semitic beliefs had dropped to 12% from 20 % in 1992.” (Wikipedia)

“For 2007, FBI figures show that among 1,477 religiously motivated hate crimes reported by U.S. law enforcement authorities, 9% were anti-Islamic, 9.5% were "anti-other religion," 4.4% were anti-Catholic and, by far outstripping any other category, "68.4% were anti-Jewish." (Forbes Magazine 1/22/09)

Some people decry a new anti-Semitism. They are liberals who are opposed to the Israeli government’s policies toward the Palestinians or who call for a boycott of Israeli products as a fight against these policies. This group would oppose another war.

As an anti-war activist I would oppose such a new war. But more importantly, I suspect a war to support Israel in the near future would not gain popular support.

But there is time to negotiate.

So far Israel’s leaders have refused to negotiate with the Palestinians until they repudiate Hamas, a group democratically elected to leadership by the people. In addition Israeli leaders have indicated they would not negotiate with any group who does not believe in the right of Israel to exist.

Negotiating about those two important should be exactly where the discussions must start. People of good will can sit down and deal with the hardest issues. They must not be pre-conditions to talking together. The refusal to do so smacks of not wanting to negotiate under any circumstances.

A willingness to negotiate and deal with the concrete issues is certainly needed to show the people of the Unites States and the rest of the world that Israel is serious about ending discrimination against the Palestinians and seeking peace.

Such action would put off any nation’s desire to invade Israel and assure protection if Israel was invaded.

JULY 4th - TERRORIST NATION

2011-07-03T07:47:00.000-07:00

Independence Day 2001

This disturbing message came to me from a very dear friend.

A few Americans will not be flying flags this weekend.

We will not be attending parades.

We will not be singing the National Anthem or the idolatrous "God Bless America."

We will not be celebrating America's "victories", past and present.

Instead, we will commemorate our Declaration of Independence by meditating on the most troubling and searing questions of our age:

HOW DO WE JUSTIFY CONTINUING TO LIVE IN THE WORLD'S GREATEST TERRORIST NATION???

WHY DO WE STAY?

ARE WE AFRAID, OR DO WE JUST NOT CARE ANYMORE???

Peace,

Bob

I also do not celebrate this holiday with flags, go to parades or sing patriotic songs. I will read over that wonderful document the Declaration of Independence that moved the colonies to separate from Great Britain. I rejoice that Thomas Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and they are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Jefferson was of course a slave holding hypocrite, as were George Washington and others of the signers. However, the words do express what others and I want for all Americans and the people of the planet.

I believe with my friend Bob that we are a terrorist nation, vengeful, mean, lacking compassion, hurting the earth and enslaving the poor. On 9/11 several thousand Americans died in a vicious attack against American buildings and institution. The then president and the congress chose to go to all out war against two of the poorest nations on the planet seeking revenge, not peace or justice. The present incumbent continued the revenge model by finally joyfully assassinating Bin Laden.

Meanwhile in a ten-year wasteful and meaningless war, The United States of America has killed hundreds of thousand of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan in addition to the thousand upon thousand of soldiers of those countries. The use of unmanned stealth bombing of villages, the brutalization of prisoners of war and supporting corrupt governments indicates further that we are a terrorist country.

The U.S. unqualified support for Israel, disregard for the brutal treatment of the Palestinians indicates all the more our terrorist agenda.

Conservative Republicans, military propaganda, Big business, brazen supporters of Israel’s brutality, and sadly unthinking, lazy, frightened American citizens sit by and let it all happen.

Yes, we are a terrorist nation.

WHY DO WE STAY?

I stay because I have place else to go. I am comfortable in the United States. Social Security and the Church Pension Fund give me money to support my self and my wife. I do have some voice as a writer, keeper of the Vigil, and supporter of social and political groups that keep the pressure on the government to be humane.

I also believe that all people are created with an infinite power to be and do evil. A human being’s job is to work for good knowing it will never be perfect. As a follower of Jesus I am clear that my job is to work to feed the poor, house the homeless, heal the sick and bring peace and justice to the world. I am content to be frustrated, do not expect to win and am grateful to be alive with a sense of purpose and delight.

GAY RIGHTS-FAG PRIEST

2011-06-27T09:40:00.000-07:00

Gay Rights

Here is a brief history of my involvement in the Gay Rights Movement.

In March of 1963 I preached a sermon at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco about homosexuals. The Gospel for the day spoke of the Christian concern for the outcasts. Homosexuals were not only outcasts but also invisible. I pointed out that they were a silent minority in the church, ignored except as financial donors. If the sexual orientation of a priest became public, it was thought necessary to have him removed from his position.

I was interviewed on the radio and in the newspapers and suddenly I was a queer lover as well as a nigger lover. That sermon of mine was patronizing: I naively suggested that homosexuals needed psychological help, but I did call for love, compassion and forgiveness.

In 1966 I participated in a weekend conference for clergy and homosexuals. It was a dialogue set up to discover our mutual humanity. Gay and lesbian leaders felt the clergy could be valuable allies in the gay rights movement if we got to know each other. We listened to each other’s stories, our lives, goals and ambitions.

As I heard of the pain and oppression, as well as the joys and gaiety of homosexuals, I realized here was another oppressed minority, another group of people deprived of their full humanity “in the land of the free and the home of the brave.” I realized that gay rights were a civil rights issue also.

Together a group of clergy and gays founded the Council on Religion and the Homosexual. Our purpose was to develop dialogue between straights and gays in local churches. We felt that if church people could meet openly gay men and women speak with them, discover their humanity, reconciliation and communication would result.

In 1966, several gay groups sponsored a New Year’s costume ball with proceeds to go to the council. The police were outraged. The vice squad advised us that the gay community was using us clergy. One asked,” Aren’t your wives going to be upset by your hanging around with homosexuals?” They even asked us about our theology. The police warned us that we were being used by the gays. They assured us they would make sure that the laws about dinking and unlawful sexual conduct were obeyed.

When we arrived at the event, police photographers took pictures of the 500 people who attended as they were going into the party. The police entered the party looking for lawbreakers. Our lawyers tried to block their entrance, saying it was a private party. Two lawyers were arrested for obstructing justice. When we clergy tried to block the police entrance we were brushed aside and they would not arrest us. Once inside the police arrested two partygoers for disorderly conduct.

Now we clergy were outraged. Seven of us called a press conference denouncing the police and their discrimination against gays. They would never invade a debutante’s ball or Elks Club costume party. We witnessed clear anti-gay discrimination and we decried what we had seen. Later a judge admonished the police for their action and all charges were dropped against partygoers and lawyers.

I performed a same sex wedding for a young lesbian couple at St. Aidan’s Church in the fall of 1968.

Ministry to Homosexuals was the name of an article I wrote for The Living Church, an Episcopal weekly magazine, sometime in 1964.

I lead a Gay-Straight Support Group in 1970.

I didn't make a big point about my intention to have a ministry with gays and lesbians as I was applying for the job at Trinity. In 1981 that would not have been a strong selling point for me.

Then because I was single, the question arose that I might be gay. Since I had been a gay/lesbian rights advocate publicly since1964, many people had wondered about my sexual orientation. It had always delighted me to know that people worried about my sexuality. The fact is that I am an incurable heterosexual. My real sin was not “homosexuality” but promiscuity. In any case, the discussion was put aside quickly as the committee contained one lesbian and one gay man who were quite open about themselves.

I gave some talks to gay groups. One was the Gay Lesbian Historical Society. I spoke about the early days of the San Francisco gay rights movement of which I was a part. I then invited people to “Try Trinity.” I spoke to a group of parents with homosexual children, and to another group of federal employees who were gay and lesbian. My friend and parishioner John-Michael Olexy, a confessed heterophobe, got me invited. Again I invited the audience to try Trinity.

Chuck was a good example. He came reluctantly at first to Trinity brought along by his partner Bob. Chuck came from a fundamentalist background where he was told homosexuality was bad and wrong and sinful. The words of the Bible were to be taken literally and anyone not baptized in the spirit was going to hell. Well educated and involved in theater, Chuck had no truck with such teaching. He was astonished and delighted when I told him and the class that there were many Christians who were homosexual and many others who believed that gayness was the natural and normal way for some large percent of the population of the planet.

The issue of same gender marriage came up. A male couple came to me and said they wanted to have a service of blessing their relationship in the church. I said OK, let’s do it. I felt, and still strongly feel, that homosexuals who want a marriage or blessing of their relationship should certainly have one. In 1982 this was an emerging issue for the church to face. The church on the national level is still moaning and groaning about it.

I saw this service as a quiet ceremony with just a few of their friends. The couple sent out invitations that announced their “wedding.” It was one of those already-printed kind. They were not tidy about the distinction between a wedding and a marriage. I failed to see any difference either.

Some kind soul sent one of the invitations to Bishop Swing. He wrote and told me not to perform such a service at Trinity. At this point choosing not to alienate the Bishop further, I allowed the young men to have the ceremony in the courtyard of the church just outside the church doors.

The Rev. Professor Norman Pittenger, retired from the General Theological Seminary, was giving some lectures at Trinity. He agreed to conduct the service, as he was leaving for England the next day.

The service went fine. A spy from the Bishop’s office was present and reported that I had obeyed the letter of the law. This was the first of our three major skirmishes on this issue.

Pope's Visit to San Francisco

In late 1986 it was announced that Pope John Paul 11 planned to visit San Francisco as part of yet another tour of the United States. I wrote a strongly worded article printed on Forum in the San Francisco Chronicle, December 13, 1986. In it I pointed out that the Pope had said, "When civil legislation is introduced to protect behavior to which no one has a conceivable right, people should not be surprised when irrational and violent reaction increase." This seemed to others and me a call allowing people to bash gays and Lesbians. The pope had also said that homosexuality threatens the lives and the well being of the public because it leads to AIDS. He seemed to forget that the worst spread of AIDS was among straight people in Africa.

I went on to say that "the Roman Catholic church is a magnificent church. Its care and concern for the poor is unequaled anywhere in the world. Its constant call for peace and justice and an end to the nuclear arms build up is wonderful. The challenge of the Roman Catholic Bishops to the consumer economy in the United States is outstanding. The role of the church in central and South America as a force for peace and humanity is glorious."

"But the church's role in human sexuality is abysmal, its teaching on homosexuality is cruel" and its stand forbidding birth control by artificial means is unconscionable in an over-populated planet.

I concluded by saying "Pope, stay home, don't come to San Francisco and wreak division on a community struggling for reconciliation and mutual caring."

The Chronicle wrote an editorial condemning my views; I got a lot of negative mail. Paying no attention to me whatsoever, the Pope came to the city, got a small turn out for his motorcade, said mass at a packed Candlestick Park event, faced hostile picketers and left after getting caught glancing at his watch as he was kneeling in prayer.

Project Open Hand.

Ruth Brinker was five feet five, a bit chunky, not inappropriate for a woman in her sixties. Her gray hair surrounded sparkly blue eyes. Her even features broke into an easy smile. She dressed tastefully in pretty dresses and sometimes in suits, even when she cooked.

"Hi, Robert,” she called out as I walked through the basement hall of Trinity. The walls were tan with a greenish border. The high ceilings gave a sense of space without being cold. In fact I'd say the hallway was warm and welcoming. Close to the wall and high up were large round pipes carrying the heat.

Ruth greeted me coming out of the kitchen. "Hello yourself, Ruth. How's it going?"

"I've been thinking. I know a number of gay guys with AIDS. They tell me they have trouble preparing meals. They're too weak. I've been bringing some dinners to two of them." Ruth had been preparing food for Meals on Wheels taking food to the elderly. No one had yet thought about the men with AIDS.

"I think we should start getting food to these sick guys."

I said I thought it was a good idea. "Why not use the Trinity kitchens? Let me know how you make out." After starting project Open Hand in her kitchen in North Beach, she moved the operation to Trinity and it was there for four years.

Funerals and AIDS

We at Trinity began to learn of members of the parish who had also contracted the disease. We began to get requests from people in the neighborhood and wider community for one of the clergy or me to come and visit sick men at home or in the hospital. Many of these requests were from men who had long ago left the church but now were sick and wanted a return to their religious roots. Traditional religious teaching, especially, in the Roman Catholic and fundamentalist churches, were sex negative, that is no sex outside of marriage, and extremely condemning of homosexuality.

The AIDS epidemic rocked gay people all over the world, especially in major American cities. San Francisco suffered horribly and so did Trinity. From 1983 until 1990 we had 72 memorial services for men who had died of AIDS. Of those, fifty were members of Trinity. Many of their names are mentioned at the end of this section.

The clergy and lay people of the congregation ministered to the sick persons. We brought them communion, healing oil and healing hands, food, trips to the hospitals and doctors.

It also meant we ministered to the patient’s lover, his parents, sometimes to grandparents and sometimes his children. Talks, visits to hospital and homes and planning and conducting memorial services filled our days.

1990’s

During our stay in Oxford in 1988, I wrote by hand with a ball point pen 199 pages of the first draft of my book which became “In God’s Image: The Need for Gay/lesbian Equality in the Eyes of the Church.” Ann and I were in Oxford for a month while Ann was a National Endowment for the Humanities scholar. I went along for the ride.

I ran into Bert Hermann, owner of Alamo Square Press, in the Post Office. I told him of the manuscript. He took a look at it and said he would publish the book. I was very excited that some of my work would turn into a book

After editing and additions “In God’s Image” was published in 1992. I felt immensely proud helping the publisher unload the boxes of books from the delivery truck. I looked at the green and gray books with my picture on the front cover and felt a keen sense of accomplishment. I was proud of my work and delighted this part of it was now in printed form.

The book was reviewed favorably in the San Francisco Chronicle and in a number of other places. I did readings in San Francisco, Boston and New York. The 5000 copies sold and there are just a few left, which I purchased from the publisher. I call the book my PhD thesis. It is a summary of my involvement in the lesbian/gay and AIDS crises at Trinity and in San Francisco.

Financed by a Texas Episcopal gay man of some means, I sent it gratis to all the Bishops of the Episcopal Church and many of the Deputies to the General Convention of the Church that meets every three years. Our hope was to influence the church leaders to make it legal for homosexuals to be ordained in the church and to allow same gender couples to marry in the church. Debate on those issues still goes on at the high levels of church politics.

We sent out 300 copies of the book but only five Bishops or deputies wrote a note of thanks or reaction. Was it bad manners? Were these folks inundated with unsought reading material? Was the subject matter too controversial? Perhaps all three are the reasons why. My job was to send out the book. Their job was to respond – or not. Most didn’t.

However, as a matter of fact, gay ordinations and marriages now go on in local areas especially in the big cities. The dioceses in the conservative parts of the country still have bans restricting the lives of gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered Christians. The consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of New Hampshire is an example of the persistent movement of lesbians and gays into full and equal status in the life of the Anglican Communion. Many church people differ on what is justice for homosexuals but the gradual movement for full integration is taking place. The older and conservative leadership will evolve into a more humane and caring position.

It was enormously satisfying to have the book published. It gave a certain dignity and legitimacy to my work, at least in my eyes. People seem delighted and surprised that I had published a book about my work. I received letters from all over the country saying it was helpful. One writer said that the book had helped him come out to his parents. Another writer said he had given it to his fundamentalist mother who looked at gayness in a new way. A liberal San Francisco, doctor friend said he was ashamed to admit that he knew so little about homosexuals.

I got the usual criticisms that my book contradicted the word of God as found in the Bible. Others said my ideas were perverting the minds of the innocent. Still others accused me of being gay and only pushing the homosexual agenda. Nothing new there.

In the 1990s we performed a number of marriages/blessings of same sex couples. One of which was televised nationally.

One of the nicest things the late Robert Kitzman ever said to me was that I was a fine Biblical scholar. ‘No matter what the Biblical text, Cromey can always turn it around to be a sermon on gay rights.”

Polls on Palestinians

2011-06-06T11:51:00.000-07:00

How about a poll of American people’s attitudes about the oppression of the Palestinians by the Israelis? I can guess that American Jews generally support Israel and oppose the Palestinian intransigence against Israel. American Evangelical Christians seem to be supportive of Israel apparently for Biblical and Apocalyptic reasons.

I wonder about main line Christians like Methodists, non-Southern Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, United Church of Christ, Greek, Armenian and Russian Orthodox Churches. What polls tells us what American Roman Catholics believe about Israel and the Palestinians.
I also wonder what the huge number of non-religious secularist population feel abut the thorny issue?

My anti-Israeli government stance gets me a lot of response from many Christians who are against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Some say they are afraid to speak out for fear of recrimination in the work place or among their friends.

I have not seen any serious polling of these groups by the media or polling institutions.

How about it friends who examine trends, ideas and controversial subjects?

PALESTINIAN NON-VIOLENCE

2011-06-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not there has been a long standing Non-violent movement among Palestinians. Not all in that country approve of violence to counter Israeli oppression and brutality. Here are some items I gleaned from websites reporting on non-violence in Palestine and Israel.

“Perhaps that is why recently many nonviolent activists and initiatives have been shut down and repressed. Jamal Juma, Muhammad Othman and Abdallah Abu Rahman may not be household names like Gandhi or Mandela but they have been just as consistent in resisting Israel's illegal segregation wall in the West Bank by organising nonviolent demonstrations for years. And, like Gandhi and Mandela they have paid a price by being arrested on multiple occasions.

Sadly, the same leaders who call on Palestinians to abandon violence have been silent in the face of Israeli repression. By condemning violent Palestinian resistance while remaining silent in the face of Israeli crackdowns and political arrests, they are simply endorsing violence against civilians by one side instead of the other.
The United States should take the lead in condemning Israeli repression of nonviolent dissent, just as they would in Iran, Burma or apartheid South Africa, because nonviolent dissent is not only a critical part of the Palestinian struggle but it is an American value as well.”

Yousef Munayyer
guardian.co.uk, Friday 21 May 2010 13.30 BST
Article history

Palestinian Non-Violence

I recently came across articles detailing Palestinian non-violent protests. It's amazing how little coverage they have.

Here are some links:
Foreign Policy
IfAmericansKnew
Guardian
Fair
The Economist
From Occupied Palestine
Business Insider
UN Dispatch

ABSURD ISRAELI DEMANDS

2011-06-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Here is The New Yorker’s Hendrick Hertzberg’s quotation of Netanyahu’s demands in dealing with the Palestinians. (June 6, 2011 issue)

“recognition of Israel as Jewish state as a precondition; no negotiations with a Palestinian political entity in which Hamas is represented; no Palestinian refugees, no matter how few or how symbolic, to be admitted to Israel; indefinite Israeli military control of the Jordan River; an undivided Jerusalem as ‘the United capital of Israel,’ no part of which presumably would be available to be the capital of Palestine.”

Is it any wonder the Palestinian leaders and people do not want to negotiate? There are all the items that should be on the table for discussion. Israel proclaims itself he only democracy in the Middle East yet denies negotiations with a popularly elected Hamas.

How can Palestinians learn to accept Israel who will not even discuss he issue of “recognition of Israel.” Discussion, dialogue, education are ways to create change of hearts and minds.

Discussion of refugees after fifty years of camps and military control must be part of the negotiations.

Not to allow discussion of the sacred city of Jerusalem as a home to Palestinians fails to understand the power of symbolism and religion in the hearts of Palestinians.

Since the Prime Minister has support from his cabinet and much of his government, and the U.S. government there can only be pain, suffering and more bloodshed on the parts of both sides.

HAUNTED BY THE ISRAELI QUESTION

2011-06-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

The Israeli question still haunts me. The treatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis is absolutely awful. Recent comments from Jewish friends force me to see a lot of the anti Palestinian feelings of some Jews are purely racist. The term rag-head comes to mind. Some see Palestinians as less than human. One has said anti-Semitism killing Jews is rooted in the Koran and the Muslim religion. I suggested that the worship of Israel has replaced the God in the minds and hearts of secular Jews. So may Jews have given up their religious beliefs and customs. They have replaced it with an uncritical worship of Israel.

I am not gong to be held hostage to the idea that Israel must be seen as a reward for the terrible suffering of the holocaust.

Secularists of all kinds have given up ideas of God and religion and have adopted the pursuit of money as a replacement. When Money and toys run out of real meaning, some secular Jews turn to blind adherence to Israel. It is an issue in which they place ultimate trust. Some religious Jews also have a spectacular devotion to Israel and it approve of the government policies toward the Palestinians.

I also know there are plenty of American and Israeli Jews who are very critical of the policies of the Israeli government. Here are the websites or email addresses.

Jews for Justice for Palestinians

http://jfjfp.com/

http://www.tikkun.org - Rabbi Michael Lerner

http://www.womeninblack.org/en/about

"Cecilie Surasky, Jewish Voice for Peace" <info@jewishvoiceforpeace.org>

DIALOGUE BETWEEN JEWISH FRIEND AND ME

2011-05-31T08:11:00.000-07:00

Pains and Friendship

Here is a bit of an email dialogue between a very old and dear Jewish friend and me. We met in September 1949. It depicts the sharp differences friends can have and remain friends. Neither of us will ever change our positions. I am not fond of these discussions and have agreed out loud with some friends and tacitly with others not to make this painful issue part of our discussions.

I will call my friend Israel. He sent me the following story in response to my negative view of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s recent visit to the U.S.

Israel - Short Story

Dr. Arieh Eldad:

I was instrumental in establishing the Israeli National Skin Bank, which is the largest in the world. The National Skin Bank stores skin for every day needs as well as for war time or mass casualty situations.

This skin bank is hosted at the Hadassah Ein Kerem University hospital in Jerusalem where I was the Chairman of plastic surgery. This is how I was asked to supply skin for an Arab woman from Gaza , who was hospitalized in Soroka Hospital in Beersheva, after her family burned her. Usually, such atrocities happen among Arab families when the women are suspected of having an affair.

We supplied all the needed Homografts for her treatment. She was successfully treated by my friend and colleague, Prof. Lior Rosenberg and discharged to return to Gaza . She was invited for regular follow-up visits to the outpatient clinic in Beersheva.

One day she was caught at a border crossing wearing a suicide belt. She meant to explode herself in the outpatient clinic of the hospital where they saved her life. It seems that her family promised her that if she did that, they would forgive her.

This is only one example of the war between Jews and Muslims in the Land of Israel. It is not a territorial conflict. This is a civilizational conflict, or rather a war between civilization & barbarism.

Robert - I have no doubt believing this story is true.

I try not to argue from the particular to the general.

I ask what are the causes for such rage?

Israel - Just want to clarify your response. Are you referring to the rage exhibited

by parents attempting to burn their daughter to death, or the rage of a family

wishing to kill innocent people who saved their daughter's life and made

her whole again?

Robert - I ask what are the causes of such rage that a Palestinian would want to

become a human bomb killing innocent people in Israel?

Israel - Robert, dear friend, thank you for your response. Your answer now confirms what I have suspected

for a long time. You have chosen to blind yourself to reality and attempt to justify your positions on

moral issues by cherry picking from the teachings of Jesus that best suit your intellectual and emotional

bent. For starters just look at the obvious contradictions in the following. Enough material there for a

month of sermons.

In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says:

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them."

In Matthew 5:38-39, Jesus says:

"You have heard that it was said, 'eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."

In Matthew 5:28-30, Jesus says:

"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell."

In Mark 10:25, Jesus says:

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God."

Robert - I did not say that I agreed with the Palestinian or any individual or group’s notion of suicide bombing. Of course I think it is an awful and terrible thing.

Thank you for the lesson in scripture.

I reiterate, "I ask what are the causes of such rage that a Palestinian would want to become a human bomb killing innocent people in Israel?"

Israel - Robert, when you find the answer to why Muslim suicide bombers kill other Muslims almost every day,

then you will have the answer to your question. Clue: check out the Koran.

Robert - The Koran like the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament was written by many hands, over many generations by people with various historical and ethical beliefs. I do not take the Koran literally any more than I take the Bible literally. Thoughtful Muslims do not either. Many Muslims, Christians and Jews are literalists and fundamentalists and pick and choose what they take literally.

Oppressed and frustrated people will always express themselves in violence. I am sad and sorry to note that. Some suicide bombers are a result of the policies of the Israeli government.

I think the Israeli government's treatment of the Palestinians has been horrific. Camps, poverty, degrading their values and traditions, military brutality, breaking agreements, walls, building on disputed property, harassing free movement, blockades, constant hindering negotiations and disregarding United Nation’s mandates all stand in the way of peace and tranquility in Israel." Fifty years of that policy has resulted in that rage, anger and radical desire for revenge. I do not condone it. That is what I see the root causes of suicide bombers to be.

I end this dialogue, not because Israel has nothing more to say or that I won. Nobody wins. But it is an example of how loving friends can be friends and disagree. Thank you Israel.

NETANYAHUS' VISIT - MORE

2011-05-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

Responses to my email about the Netanyahu visit. I copied Rabbi Lerner’s quote from an earlier letter to me.

With Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to the United States I have received a number of emails from friends in support of Israel. I replied to one ….reiterating my long held and unwavering position. Years ago I said, “I am a Palestinian.” -Robert Warren Cromey

“No, Mr. Netanyahu! Americans Don’t Support Your Intransigence and Rejection of a Plausible Path to Peace. We stand with President Obama on Peace Negotiations.” – Rabbi Michael Lerner

Here are the replies I received to my “I am a Palestinian statement.”

Robert: I stand with you ........ a Palestinian.

I am with you 100 % and have been for many years.

AMEN!

Good for you for sticking your neck out.

Glad you're not a giraffe.

well said, comrade!

The US Congress pandering to Netanyahu was ludicrous.

Yes, and very sad. I believe Israel does not want and will do everything it can to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

On this, as on so many other subjects, I am with you all the way.

The leading and most effective anti-Zionists are ‘Jews’.

I am heartened knowing someone besides myself isn't lockstep with the Israeli party line that has captured and imperiled the US for a very long time.

Here is the last letter I received from Jewish Voice for Peace…. Here is their website <info@jewishvoiceforpeace.org>

Both sides seem to have very stiff necks, but Israel's is stiffer. And as long as that continues, there'll be no resolution. Hopefully, though, the people/individuals themselves will keep trying to meet face-to-face and get to know each other as human beings.

Here is the only negative:

Well, you are entitled to your opinion. I think you are way off base.

Returning Gaza accomplished nothing except more rockets.

I completely agree with Netnanyahu when he asked, "would you live with that?". By the way, would you?

And I would never negotiate with anyone who is dedicated to my destruction.

What would happen to Israel if the Palestinians had military superiority. There would be no negotiations.

I am sure there were other negative responses but I did not get them. I was particularly delighted with so many positive emails. The People opposed to Israeli policies and U.S. pandering to the Israeli government are not as public as those who support them.

Letter to Congresswomen re: Netanyahu

2011-05-26T17:02:00.000-07:00

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer,

In Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to the United States he has showed utter disregard and contempt for President Obama, the United Nations, the Arab world and most of the countries of Europe. The Israeli government's treatment of the Palestinians has been horrific. Camps, military brutality, breaking agreements, walls, building on disputed property, constant hindering negotiations and disregarding United Nation’s mandates all hinder peace and tranquility in Israel.

The US Congress pandering to Netanyahu was ludicrous.” I hope President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority will also be invited to address a joint session of Congress.

Israel’s leaders have refused to negotiate with the Palestinians until they repudiate Hamas, a group democratically elected to leadership by the people. In addition Israeli leaders have indicated they would not negotiate with any group who does not believe in the right of Israel to exist.

Negotiating about those two important should be exactly what the discussions are all about. People of good will can sit down and deal with the hardest issues. They must not be pre-conditions to talking together. The refusal to do so smacks of not wanting to negotiate under any circumstances.

Lest you think I am just one more anti-Israeli government crank, please note these web sites of Jews and others who support Palestinians.

Jews for Justice for Palestinians http://jfjfp.com/

http://www.tikkun.org - Rabbi Michael Lerner

http://www.womeninblack.org/en/about

Jewish Voice for Peace" <info@jewishvoiceforpeace.org>

Sincerely,

RWC

"I am a Palestinian"

2011-05-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

With Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to the United States I have received a number of emails from friends in support of Israel. I replied to one with the enclosed email reiterating my long held and unwavering position. Years ago I said, “I am a Palestinian.”

“Let's not forget we have agreed not to haunt each other with propaganda. I think the Israeli government's treatment of the Palestinians has been horrific. Camps, military brutality, breaking agreements, walls, building on disputed property, constant hindering negotiations and disregarding United Nation’s mandates all hinder peace and tranquility in Israel. The US Congress pandering to Netanyahu was ludicrous.” I hope President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority will also be invited to address a joint session of Congress.

Lest you think I am just one more anti-Israeli government crank, please note these web sites of Jews and others who support Palestinians.

Jews for Justice for Palestinians

http://jfjfp.com/

http://www.tikkun.org - Rabbi Michael Lerner

http://www.womeninblack.org/en/about

Denjanjuck gets 5 years

2011-05-19T10:12:00.000-07:00

Ninety-one-year-old John Demjanjuck has been sentenced to five years in jail for his part in war crimes during World War 11. He was tried and acquitted in Israel many years ago. He has been hounded relentlessly by the Nazi hunters, harassed, deported from the United States and tried and convicted in Munich Germany.

When will it ever end? Never. Suspected Nazi war criminals will be tracked down and attempts will be made to try them in courts for crimes committed sixty to seventy years ago. No rational arguments can be mustered to stop these haunted hunters. Appeals for mercy will be trumped by the call for justice. Urging forgiveness after these long years of hiding and fear is met with cries of revenge. Calls for compassion will be countered by exhortations for retaliation.

We have seen war crimes against civilians by Americans go unpunished. The My Lai massacre of Vietnam women and children saw the American leaders of the killing having charges dismissed and a few months in prison for one.

Police officers in the United States are routinely punished with no more than a slap for the killing of African Americans suspected of crimes.

The President of the United States orders unmanned drone bombers to drop bombs in Afghanistan and Pakistan killing unarmed women and children.

The murdering of Jews, Poles, homosexuals, clergy, mentally and physically disabled civilians by the Nazis was a horrendous crime. Nothing can be gained by the pursuing of suspected war criminals. Nothing changes except continued de-humanizing and brutality, more failure of the highest dimensions of human existence, mercy, forgiveness and compassion.

The Real Mother's Day

2011-05-06T08:54:00.001-07:00

Mother's Day in the United States was first proclaimed in 1870 in Boston by Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation, and Howe called for it to be observed each year nationally in 1872. As originally envisioned, Howe's "Mother's Day" was a call for pacifism and disarmament by women.

The original Mother's Day Proclamation was as follows:

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Jews, Christians and Government

2011-04-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

Jews and Christians are reminded regularly in the Bible to love and care for their neighbors, be hospitable to strangers and to be forgiving. Deborah Saunders (SF Chronicle, April 26, 2011) is right in quoting, “Nowhere in the Bible does God command Caesar to do a damn thing.” But we live in a democracy where citizens get to vote through our representatives about how their tax money will be used. Caesar and other governments in Jesus’ day were tyrants and not answerable to the citizenry. Serious Christians and Jews in our democracy may and do demand that our government care for the poor, sick, elderly and those oppressed. Many of us also feel such benefits should not be easily taken away.

Holy Week and Easter

2011-04-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

John Domenic Crossan is an ex RC priest, now full time theologian who writes radically about Jesus life, death and resurrection. Here are some radical thoughts from him as we approach this Holy Week and Easter. I agree with them.

"Jesus didn't bodily rise from the dead," he says. "The first Christians told Jesus' resurrection story as a parable, not as a fact.

"Crucifixion meant that imperial power had won," Crossan says. "Resurrection meant that divine justice had won. God is on the side of the crucified one. Rome's' values are a dead issue to me."

Conservative Jews Criticize Hastings Law School

2011-04-13T22:02:00.000-07:00

Hastings Law School felt a blast of guilt on the part of some Jewish groups. They pressured the board of directors of Hastings to distance itself from a conference entitled “Litigating Palestine.” (SF Chronicle April 13, 2011) The Israeli government’s treatment of the Palestinian people is distressing to many people including American Jews. The anxiety of conservative Jewish groups to make Israel right and Palestinians wrong produces guilty self-righteous actions. To make a law school conference on litigation “an anti-Israel political organizing project using law as a weapon” is a hysterical cry. Supposing a bunch of law school professors thinking about litigation for Palestinians is an organizing committee is outside the pale of reason. Intellectual debate and discussion must not be silenced or diminished by the emotional and guilt-ridden fear of a few well-organized propagandists.

GOP: Afraid of Voters

2011-03-30T14:45:00.000-07:00

The California GOP prides itself on representing many of the voters of California. They believe in discovering and carrying out the will of the people.

They are ardent in wanting to balance the budget. They reuse to raise taxes and extend existing ones. Yet they are not willing to put the tax extension proposals to the people.

They may find many people want to help balance the budget by paying more taxes. Reasonable people should be able to discuss and compromise.

I can only assume the GOP has abandoned reason in favor of pleasing a minority

Tax Problem? Read this.

2011-03-27T17:22:00.000-07:00

A stark example of the fundamental unfairness that is now so widespread was in The New York Times on Friday under the headline: "G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether." Despite profits of $14.2 billion, General Electric did not have to pay any U.S. Taxes last year. G.E. Is the nation’s largest corporation. Its chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, is the leader of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. You can understand how ordinary workers might look at this cozy corporate-government arrangement and conclude that it is not fully committed to the best interests of working people.

LIBYA

2011-03-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

I can only resort to whimsy to ward off despair.

"What’s all the fuss about? Send Kadhafy all the money he’ll ever need, send him to a place where he will be safe and rule over his household and whatever followers he wants to bring along. Maybe the Utah wilderness, Texas, Arizona or New Mexico would welcome him in. Look at the money we’d save. Think of the lives not lost American British, French and Libyan."

Moral dilemma all over again. Kadhafy is a ruthless leader and killer. He kills his own citizens who disagree with him and especially those who revolt against his rule. Obama sends in the planes along with the British and French. What about the Arab states? Again we invade yet another country. Will it stop with just planes? Troops soon?

We should not use killing to stop killing.

Just mulling.

TAXES ARE A BLESSING

2011-03-10T16:44:00.000-08:00

Taxes are a Blessing

Taxes- it is an honor and privilege to pay taxes. They are necessary for our health and safety. Taxes pay for police, meat inspectors and medical research. We must stop thinking of taxes as evil. They make civil society work. Pay the least you have to and pay the rest with thanksgiving.

I wrote this on my Facebook group page. I have written about this before and the piece was published in the SF Chronicle several years ago.

The hysteria abut balanced budgets discount increasing taxes as part of the solution. I am sure taxes will not solve all of he problems. I was impressed to read that the top one percent of the richest Americans pay 38% of the federal tax. So we are not in the unbalanced budget debacle because the rich do not pay their taxes. Of course some smarmy people rich, poor and middle class find ways not to pay any taxes.

I note politicians do not want to question the cost of the war in Afghanistan. Ending that war will go a long way toward paying down the deficit. The pols also have trouble piercing the balloon of the massive money going to support the military and defense budgets.

The easy targets for cutting costs are programs for the poor, sick, homeless and needy on the local, state and national level. As a simple minded, old fashioned Bible reading Christian, as many of our Tea-party and politicians say they are, I note that the clearest teachings in the Old and New testaments are concerned with caring for those people that are poor, distressed and at the bottom of the economic ladder.

RWC

US Muslims Investigated

2011-03-09T09:11:00.000-08:00

Congressional investigations of Muslims are pure and simple racism and anti-religion. Lets find lots of ways to show these congress members as ridiculous. Demand that Episcopalians be investigated for pro-Muslim sympathies. Demand Billy Graham be investigated for calling for loving members of Islam. Let lots of men show up in full Muslim womens' full dress dress chadour and burkah.

The Next Market for Evangelism and Church Growth

2011-02-28T08:07:00.001-08:00

SBNR – “Spiritual but not Religious

The Next Market for Evangelism and Church Growth

This is a common phrase which has been uttered repeatedly in American society in recent years. It is said in the workplace, the local hangout, dating scenes, and in families themselves. According to a Gallup poll from May 21, 2010, American's self reporting shows that an increasing number of Americans have no religious identity. The following link will take you to the actual survey and it's results:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/128276/Increasing-Number-No-Religious-Identity.aspx

“The recent Religious Landscape Study of the Pew Research Center indicates that there are substantial numbers of people who describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious "some estimate as many as 100 million people currently. The truth is we must find ways within the context of our spiritual DNA, particularly our values and mission, to attract, welcome, and incorporate the SBNR.

Many congregations and spiritual communities have focused on reaching the "unchurched" or the "cultural creatives." Certainly these are appropriate groups for outreach. Yet, we believe the SBNR, the fastest growing religious segment of our population is even more significant.

Dr. Martin Luther King once said that today is tomorrow and tomorrow is today. There could be no better description of why those who self-identify as SBNR are crucial. And, as they are the emerging majority of younger people--Generation X and Millennials they are our future. To ignore them is to ignore both today and tomorrow. Is that a risk those of us who affirm the value of religious traditions are willing to take?

Though these folks, unlike cultural creatives and unchurched Baby Boomers, have

little experience or memory of the church, they are tomorrow. This year we'll explore outreach to SBNR as an integral component to your strategic plan. Plan to join us in this exploration.” (Robert Norton and Richard Southern http://growingcongregations.org/home/)

CAN YOU BE PERFECT?

2011-02-21T10:55:00.000-08:00

Jesus says, “Be ye perfect.”

He was giving an ethic of the Kingdom at the end of history, which he expected in his lifetime. He was a radical and not a practical man. He said this was the ethic of what it would be like in the kingdom of God. All would be perfect. We would love our enemies perfectly. Wars would cease. There would be endless forgiveness. There would be no hurting of each other. But he was wrong. The kingdom did not break in. And we see the ethic of Jesus and the Kingdom as goals toward we reach but never expect to achieve perfectly.

Sadly, there will always be war, prejudice and revenge. What do we strive for now? There will always be war. I will be against it anyway.

Jesus says, “Turn the other cheek. Don’t resist evil.” We will always resist evil. But I want to turn the other cheek and forgive. I will not do it perfectly but it is a goal toward which I strive.

We will always want to hurt. Christians strive not to.

Here is a non-violent response to 9/11. Danielle Gramm was at student at Harvard on 9/11. She was appalled that the U.S. went to a war of revenge. She founded a now world wide organization called “kids for peace global.”

A few years later her brother was murdered. Instead of revenge she deepened her commitment to non-violence as the way to respond.

Jesus says, “Love your enemies.”

Lawrence King was a 15-year-old schoolboy, call sissy. and faggot by the high school kids. Brandon McInerney also 15 wanted to get the other boys to beat up Larry. On Valentines Day 2008 Larry said to Brandon, “I love you.” Larry gave Brandon a valentine card. Brandon went home got a got a .22 caliber pistol, returned to school and shot Larry in the back killing him. Larry is dead. Brandon will spend the next fifty years of his young life in prison. Larry loved Brandon even though Brandon was his enemy.

Jesus says, “Forgive until 70 times seven.” Not once or twice. But endlessly. Forgiveness is never perfect. The ethic of the Kingdom is absolute forgiveness. Jesus calls for forgiveness without repentance or promises of good behavior. Perfect forgiveness is probably not going to happen in our lifetime.

Movie: The Kids are All Right with Annette Benning and Maryanne Moore is about two women partners. A sperm donor sired two children. One of the women had an affair with the man who donated the sperm. The women fought, came together, devastated. There was painful, slow tentative forgiveness. Imperfect forgiveness is really all that we can expect.

However we know that there is the perfect ideal. “Be ye perfect.” That is the radical ethic of Jesus. We live our lives with the grace of God in an imperfect yet wonderful world.

My Faith Grows and Changes

2011-02-07T10:27:00.000-08:00

I am a priest of the Episcopal Church who sits lightly with my church and traditional religion. My father was an Episcopal cleric as is my brother. We were brought up in a conventional home, with grace at dinner, Bible stories at bedtime, Sunday School and church on Sunday. We celebrated Christmas. Easter and Thanksgiving at church. I attended confirmation class and was confirmed when I was eleven. After public schools in Brooklyn, N.Y., I went to an Episcopal prep school as a day student. I often led one or more of the daily chapel services that began our studies. In summer we went to church camps where there were good discussions of God, Jesus and the sacraments. I went along with everything and questioned little.

It was at camp I discovered some of the clergy and lay leaders had very strong ideas about what one had to believe to be a real member of the church. Was Jesus a man or God? Was using birth control a sin? Was Jesus truly present in the bread and wine? Should boys and girls refrain from intercourse before marriage? I rather enjoyed the discussions and did not think about them very much. In the Episcopal Church there was and is no place where one is asked to be absolutely specific about one’s belief. For instance, it never was demanded of me that I had to believe in a specific view of the nature of God or Jesus. In the creed we say I believe in God, Jesus and Holy Spirit; but nowhere do we have to give a precise definition of what any of those mean.

But another dimension of the church’s teaching began to creep into my consciousness. The clergy who taught us had no truck with racial discrimination or anti-Semitism. They spoke of the outrage they felt to see African-Americans treated as second-class citizens or worse. They spoke of the horrors of the holocaust and the treatment of Jews in our country.

I went to New York University in New York City for my bachelor’s degree in English and Philosophy. There were lectures and fierce discussions of “Does God exist?” On examinations I had to know the arguments for and against the existence of God. I was asked to give my own views at the conclusion and justify them. As long as my answers reflected that I had read and understood the material, I was graded for that, not on my specific belief.

I really enjoyed that challenge to my conventional faith but never lost my desire to attend church and participate in the Eucharist. I thought more about the validity of traditional belief, but not enough to give up those beliefs.

In addition, the liberal Christian clergy who were chaplains to us college students helped others and me to a more mature doctrine of God. God was not a grandfather in the sky counting our sins. God was defined not as a being but as being itself. God was seen as the ground of all being. This is the working definition of God that serves me to this day.

In 1953 I matriculated at The General Theological Seminary in Chelsea, part of Manhattan. It was a three-year graduate school to prepare me to become a priest of the Episcopal Church.

The work was demanding, the conversation vigorous, and our beliefs challenged by our tutors and professors. We had to know the material and were tested on it. No one ever asked us exactly the specifics of what we believed. Some students found they could not accept the traditional doctrines and dropped out. I had begun to get the idea that religious teachings were a way of life, a way of looking at life. They were also dynamic and changing.

For instance, sin was simply a description of the way it is in a broken world that has evil in it. A look around me convinced me that sin was true, it was just the way it was and is. The creation said that the world was good, beautiful and creative. Jesus’ emphasis on caring for the sick and needy and standing up to authority was an extremely exciting and important way for me to be in the world. These ideas lurked in my mind and heart when I later began to be in charge of a congregation.

In my first parishes I led Sunday services, visited the sick, worked with the youth and thoroughly enjoyed the work. In 1962 I moved to San Francisco and worked as an assistant to the Episcopal Bishop James A. Pike. He was a national figure known for bold stands urging the legalization of birth control, an end to discrimination against African Americans, was against the Vietnam War, and worked for changes in the worship forms of the church. He told other clergy and me to start speaking out in public on these and other issues.

I participated in civil rights demonstrations in San Francisco, marched in Selma, Alabama, and helped found the Council on Religion and the Homosexual in 1965. For me they were profound spiritual/religious experiences. I appeared on local and national radio and television programs on these issues. It was unusual for clergy to be so outspoken on controversial issues. I truly believe that participating in social and political movements that care for the oppressed, the sick and needy is exactly what followers of Jesus are supposed to do. I found myself more interested in being a follower of Jesus than being a church leader.

In addition, Bishop Pike openly challenged the traditional doctrines of the church – virgin birth, bodily resurrection of Jesus and the Trinity. He saw theology as a discussion, not a set of hard and fast positions that had no flexibility. I took on the idea that we think within a tradition. The ancient teachings of the church are just there. We are called to wrestle with them, find meaning in them, enjoy them or cast them aside.

In 1982 I became the rector of Trinity Church in San Francisco. During that twenty-year tenure, I began every sermon with a quote from the Bible and then related that teaching of Jesus, St. Paul or the great leaders of the Old Testament to the social, personal and political concerns of our daily and national life. I preached and taught the traditional doctrines, openly saying this is what the church has, taught; then I gave my interpretation and said this is what I believe and then said you are free to choose what you want to believe.

For instance, I would say on Easter that the church teaches that Jesus rose bodily from the dead. I personally do not believe in the physical bodily resurrection but believe that the disciples had some awesome and life- changing experience of Jesus after he died. They believed he had risen from the dead. Then I would say, now you as intelligent and mature people get to choose what you believe. I would add that Easter is the time of the year when we see new life emerging all around us in the spring. New life is always available to you to refresh and renew your own life. The Easter message for us is new life.

Most people liked what I had to say. Some people agreed with my view, some did not care and I suppose some people did not like my teaching, but I do not remember people leaving because of my views of doctrine. When I spoke supporting lesbian and gay rights or same gender marriage, then some people did leave. When I indicated I was a pacifist and against war, some people may have left.

I truly believe a lot of clergy believe the way I do but are too fearful to say so for fear that parishioners will leave. Some probably will. But I do believe “the truth will make you free.” I certainly felt free during my time at Trinity and now nine years in retirement.

I see the word God as a metaphor that stands for being itself, the ground of all being. It is hard to relate to those concepts. I feel fine referring to the words father or mother as representing those ideas. The parental terms are also the creative terms. When I pray “Our Father…” I know the word father relates to the ground of all being. Father or mother is more intimate and warm than “being itself.”

I still pray. I do not expect God to answer my prayers in ways that I want. I mostly give thanks for my wife, children, family, and friends. When I pray for the sick, poor and oppressed, it is my job to do something about them, not God’s.

I have faith. Faith is standing in awe and trust in the presence of the holy. Faith is the awareness of the holy, the sacred, the divine and the sheer otherness of life and the creation. Faith is standing in the presence of not-knowing, the mystery and the horror and delight of human experience. Faith is the opposite of religion, which attempts to confine and define the divine. Faith stands in “readiness…to confess its radical incompleteness and insufficiency--indeed its brokenness.” True faith “begets beside modesty, the courage to hope, and to work for change.” (Jaques Ellul)

For me, my faith is nourished by knowing the life of Jesus, attending church, receiving the sacrament of Holy Communion, enjoying the music and liturgy, participating in the religious community. I sit lightly with religion, doctrines, rules and the church. I am grateful that it has been through religion and the church I have learned faith.

VIOLENT CULTURE - GABRIELLA GIFFORDS

2011-01-10T09:23:00.000-08:00

The culture of violence does come from political rhetoric and aggressiveness. But the television and film industry pours guns, knives, swords, explosions, car chases and general mayhem into viewers’ eyes and ears on an hourly basis. Violence is seen as a natural and normal way of settling differences. Whether someone is delusional, immature or just angry, getting a gun and shooting people provide and easy solution to problems. While I deplore the political hate spewing, the media is also part of the climate of violence.

Gabriella Giffords

2011-01-09T09:53:00.000-08:00

Gun control, rage control, civility, honest debate and discussion are desperately needed as we are shocked and saddened by the shooting of Congresswoman Gabriella Giffords. The fact that she was Jewish should not be overlooked as anti-Semitism lurks everywhere.

THE REV. EDWARD JOSEPH BEREY r.i.p.

2010-12-29T11:53:00.001-08:00

THE REV. EDWARD JOSEPH BEREY

May 14, 1930 - December 24, 2010

Edward was in The General Theological Seminary, New York City, class of 1956. He was in classes with me and seemed distant, reserved, a bit wise-ass and hostile. My then wife Lillian took a liking to him and invited him to dinner with us and we became acquainted and quite good friends for the rest of the time in seminary and afterward. I found we laughed and gossiped at all the same things.

Ed had been in Military Intelligence in the U.S. Army during the Korean War and came to seminary afterward. We were ordained together on June 17, 1956 by Horace Donegan Bishop of New York who gave Ed a white stole of his own, as Ed did not own one.

Ed became a member of the church when he had been placed in an Episcopal orphanage, as his parents were not able physically and financially to care for him although they were both alive. He went on to Guilford College in North Carolina. He told me he felt bad that his family left him in the home.

After ordination Edward was sent to a small church in Tuxedo, N.Y. where he had various troubles and excommunicated his senior warden. Ed had a quick temper and judgmental style. He pulled rank when pastoral care was needed. The bishop had to intervene. Lillian and our daughters Leigh and Sarah visited Ed in Tuxedo. He was the Godfather to our second child Sarah born in 1958. He kept in touch and we with him by telephone in those days.

Ed’s second job was as an assistant in a parish on Staten Island. He was unhappy there, as he did not get along with his boss who was rector of the parish.

When Edward’s mother died in the late fifties, he asked me to do the funeral service for her. I was honored to do so.

Ed soon moved on to Seattle where he became head of camps for the diocese. He seemed to enjoy his work there. He married a woman named Sharon and they had a daughter Helen. After the divorce she married Jim Michel who has since died.

According to Ed his wife’s parents did not approve of Ed partly because of his dark middle European skin. They accused him of being of another race. When Ed and his wife had problems she went to stay with her parents with Helen and the parents moved too have the marriage dissolved and Ed was forbidden to see Helen. Ed resented it that the Bishop there never helped him in his marital problems and allowed these rich Episcopalians to manipulate things that he lost contact with his daughter. Please, dear reader, I have only Ed’s side of the story and it was many yeas ago that I heard it. Ed, like many and me, have trouble with authority and lash out against it when we feel wronged.

I had moved to San Francisco in 1962. Ed visited us and stayed with us for several weeks. During that time I put his name in to be rector of Church of St. John the Evangelist here in the city. He got the job and was supposed to work together with three other churches and me to help those weak churches grow. Ed and I had conflicts, as he was not cooperative, as I saw it, in our joint efforts. He said he did not have to follow us as he was a rector and could stand alone.

Several of the other clergy and I became very active and public in the civil rights movement. We pickted auto agencies and hotels that discriminated against minorities. Ed did not join us. He wanted to be separate from our ministry and had a secretive quality of not wanting to be public with his opinions. I am sure he was all for civil rights for all but he did not want to join our efforts. We saw each other socially and played tennis from time to time. He was much better at it than I was.

Ed stayed at St. John’s for a few years and married Patricia Penn and moved to Marin. He became involved with the federal poverty program in that county. We did not speak or have contact for a decade. He and Patricia divorced. He was very devoted to his daughters Rachael and Alisandra. He often spoke wistfully of Helen.

Edward and I met up at a clergy conference laughed at each other and became friends again. We saw each other from time to time in Marin or in SF for lunch. Later he met Jill. They married in the 1980s and I was invited to perform the ceremony, which I did in Bolinas, CA. I was married to Ann by then and she accompanied me to the wedding. Soon Jill and Edward had Adam and he was thrilled to be a proud father at 55 years old.

Again I saw Ed from time to time. I had become the rector of Trinity, SF in 1981. Ed and Jill divorced but Ed was still anxious to be a good divorced Dad and told me he did all he could to stay in contact with Adam. I always admired his devotion to his children.

Ed took Episcopal services when clergy were on vacation and wanted a weekend off. He was living in Cotati when I last saw him.

He told me that he had developed prostate cancer and was coming to the city to the Veteran’s Hospital for treatments. He also went for dental treatment at the UOP clinic on Webster St. We met rather regularly for a while over lunch when he came to the city. He had another woman friend who lived in the northwest and she came to see him in Cotati. German I think.

He wrote for a local paper, a humor column called Elderberry, which was quite wry and delightful. He has a real talent for words and observing the absurdity of life.

Our last and final falling out was in December of 2006. It was the 50^th anniversary of our ordination as priests. I was planning to celebrate Eucharist and preach on December 17, 2006, a Sunday. I invited Ed to come to the service and read the gospel and assist at the service. He said he did not want to be be only a deacon. I wanted to do both as I had been rector for twenty years and retired from there for four. No one in the parish knew Edward. He felt diminished and cut off all contact with me.

On December 21, 2010 I heard from Rachel that Edward had terminal lung cancer and was dying in a skilled nursing facility in Marin County.

Ed was charming, had a good sense of humor. He used to tease that he was the only Hungarian priest in the Episcopal Church. His parent’s origins were Hungarian. He had black hair and dark eyes and an olive complexion. He was slender wiry and physically strong.

He certainly could charm and had no trouble winning women. He was the flirt of flirts. His act with waitress was annoying and delightful. He would ask endless questions about the menu, ask what she liked best and pulled delaying tactics that annoyed Adam and me once when we dined together.

Edward enjoyed being a pastor and cared for his parishioners and those committed to his charge. He was liberal on social issues

He was argumentative and relentless in discussion and had trouble letting go of a subject if he thought he was right. He got in trouble for driving under the influence of alcohol and was a moderate drinker when last I saw him.

He was very much an individual and “walked to the beat of a different drummer.” He distrusted Bishops and church structure He was bitter toward the church, as he got almost no pension. Working as a supply priest, the local churches paid him a fee but did not pay into the Church Pension Fund. So although he worked for the church, he received few benefits. I don’t blame him for his attitude toward the church.

One tactic that used to drive me nuts was “Cromey why don’t you write the Bishop….? About whatever issue he wanted to bring up. “Cromey, why don’t you write to the Chronicle about….?

He also was a blamer. Most often when he spoke to me about problems he was having, it was because the other person did something wrong. I do not remember him ever taking responsibility for anything that ever happened to him.

I never heard what happened to end his marriages in any detail but it was always because the woman did something wrong.

I always liked Ed. I know he liked and cared for me and was interested in my work. He was not easy to be with and I often felt myself on the defensive with him. I think his ministry with the poverty program and working with street kids in Marin was his most satisfying job. He was very proud of that work and spoke of it often. I also know he was immensely proud of his children and really loved and cared for them.

RWC

Some further thoughts.

Frankly, I have been rather haunted about Ed in the least few days. Perhaps I should have tried to reach him to kiss and make up. How devastating it must have been for Edward to have been in an orphanage knowing his parents were alive. He alluded to the fact about that experience but not about the emotional devastation is must have caused him. I wonder if he was ridiculed by the other children who had no parents and teased Edward that he had parents but they put him in the home. How much he must have feared rejection but often seemed to court it. Part of why he became a priest was because the orphanage was an Episcopal institution. I believe the orphanage school and/or the church helped put Edward through college. Then he felt the church had rejected him. These are the thoughts that run through my mind these past days.

MORE ON DRONES

2010-12-28T09:29:00.000-08:00

More Drone Bombs

Twice as many drone bombings were made this year than last. This week such a raid “incinerated three trucks” suspected of carrying fighters and weapons in Pakistan. (SF Chronicle 12/28/10) Last I noticed we are at war with Afghanistan, not Pakistan. The report did not confirm that fighters were killed only that people were killed. Civilians are often killed in these drone attacks. Neither the military nor the media can confirm who gets killed. Is it any wonder hat the United States and our military are so hated around the world with such heartless wanton killing in a country with whom we are not at war?

Here is an article I wrote a while back on this subject.

Killing by Remote – by Robert Warren Cromey

Killing people in war is bad enough. Killing civilians is very bad. Killing suspected terrorists is bad. Killing suspects without due process of law, without a hearing or a trial is very bad. Killing innocent people in suicide bombings is very bad. Killing people with rifles, handguns and knives is also bad.

But killing people by remote control is evil and cowardly. Worst yet the Obama administration has dropped more bombs in nine months than the Bush people did in three years.

A soldier today controls drone aircraft thousands of miles away. He is sitting at a desk at a computer. Using technological targeting, she presses a button that drops bombs on buildings and people. What a wonder of science. What a skillful new way of waging war. What ingenuity we humans have.

So what is wrong with such activity?

1. It has no emotion in it. It is done without feeling. The soldier works the shift, drops the bombs and then goes home to dinner with the family There may have been some thought and feeling at first but after a while those are numbed as they become routine office activities like playing computer games.

2. No one but the victims see and feel the damage. Only they suffer. The perpetrator sees or feels nothing of the suffering and death caused by his or her action.

3. Killing by remote is cruel. It inflicts punishment and death on unsuspecting human beings who may or may not be military or even enemies.

4. The drones destroy villages, primitive buildings, caves and tents. They are not directed at big cities or industrial complexes.

5. No medical help is provided to the victims of remote bombings. Since the bombings are always a surprise medical aid to the wounded will be delayed and perhaps not available at all in remote villages and caves in Afghanistan.

6. There is no way to determine the success or failure of the mission. The perpetrators are not on the scene. Ground forces may or may not be near enough to assess the results of the bombing. The victims’ accounts will no doubt be exaggerated and inaccurate.

7. Since the victims have no way to fight back directly they will find other ways to retaliate probably using so-called terrorist activities all the more. The families and friends of the victims will be very good candidates for extremist organizations. They won’t be lining up to join the U.S. and NATO forces.

8. It stimulates more hate and rage in the surviving victims. They have more reason than ever to hate our country, do all they can, by whatever means to drive our soldiers from their native soil. Thus more and more of our soldiers and their families will be wounded and killed.

9. “What is the greatest contradiction of our time? The US continues to fight ‘terror with terror,’ Current and past administrations cleverly define this strategy as ‘counterterrorism.’

One only needs to look at US Code 18 Section 2331 for further proof. An act of international terrorism, according to it, involves:

A) Violent acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation of committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State; B) Intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.

Is that clear enough?”

The US Government says it is now legal to kill women and children if it means one drone attack can kill one militant or terrorist.

The worst evil of all is that the CIA, not the Air Force or the military direct the drone program. The CIA is a rogue organization that virtually is independent of the foreign policy of the US. Its skullduggery has killed innocents, corrupted duly elected governments and brought ruin and disrespect to our country’s freedom and all we stand for.

All of this makes the action of extremist Muslims who bombed the World Trade Center seem quite justified.

Every American should be ashamed of this particular way of waging war. We in the church should stand strong criticizing this cowardly and evil way to wage war.

PRESIDENT GRANT AND CHRISTMAS

2010-12-21T08:16:00.000-08:00

Christmas Holiday

Christmas was first proclaimed a national holiday on June 27, 1870 when President Ulysses S. Grant signed a law making Christmas, Fourth of July and Thanksgiving holidays. Up to that time workers had no day off for those special commemorative days. The Christian churches celebrated Christmas as the day when Jesus was born in a stable at Bethlehem. Political leaders in those days were at least nominal Christians and made this religious day a holiday as it was an important day in church life.

Today Christmas day is a day off from work for many people. Banks, government offices, businesses and may stores close on this day. Practicing Christmas celebrate the birth of Jesus. Many people pay little attention to Jesus except to know the words of many of the traditional carols that permeate the airwaves and background music in stores.

Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan may acknowledge Christmas day but few will have a day off. Transit workers, police, firefighters and hospital employees will also be working.

Christians today are deeply divided over issues of child molestation, abortion, birth control, homosexuality, war, and peace. Catholic priests and protestant ministers sexually abuse parishioners. Business executives and politicians sexually abuse employees and colleagues. Not much new there.

Institutional churches suffer the same problems that most businesses do. Corruption, graft, sexual harassment, hypocrisy, inertia and grandiosity are part of what happens in all imperfect human organizations.

For those who take the birth of Jesus seriously, the essential values of his ministry are recalled. He lived a life of healing, forgiving, loving, seeking justice for the poor and confronting the powerful. That is what Christmas is for many whether Christian or not.

So thank you President Grant for a day off to think of many things.

Christmas, Islam and Jesus

2010-12-12T09:58:00.000-08:00

The people of Islam must wonder what is going on at Christmas time. They hear the words Season’s Greetings, Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukah and Merry Christmas. They know it all points toward December 25, Christmas Day, which celebrates the birth Of Jesus. It is a government sponsored holiday where people are off from work, banks and government offices are closed, and even mail delivery ceases.

What must Muslims feel, hearing and seeing all this good cheer, felicitous greeting and a sense of good will toward all? Yet they know that their mosques are being desecrated in the United States, much like synagogues are burned and desecrated. They know some Americans voice aloud hatred and fear of all Muslims because some people professing that religion murder, destroy and persecute Americans, Europeans and other Muslims. Some politicians openly exploit hatred of Muslims for votes.

The religion of Islam respects and reveres Jesus, a Jew, as he and Muhammad both believed in one God. Jews also are monotheists believing in one God. Some Christians and Muslims believe Jesus is the Messiah. Here are some quotes from the Koran that sound disturbingly like the words of Jesus:

None of you believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.

The merciful are shown mercy by the All-Merciful. Show mercy to those on earth, and God will show mercy to you.

God does not judge you according to your appearance and your wealth, but He looks at your hearts and looks into your deeds.

Jesus quoting from the Old Testament says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God…and thy neighbor as thyself.”

“Jesus said unto him, ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.”’

The Koran, like the Bible, has passages of punishment, revenge and approval of mayhem. But the people of Islam, like followers of the Bible, pick and choose those passages which they prefer to follow. The vast majority of the people of Islam are law-abiding, peace-loving, caring people like the Jewish, Christian, non-believing and secular citizens of the United States.

This Christmas season is again a reminder that we are people of good will to all our neighbors, and especially this year our Islamic neighbors in the United States and throughout the world.

RWC

CAN REPUBLICANS BE CHRISTIAN?

2010-11-28T10:01:00.000-08:00

Christian Republicans ???

Here are basic principles of the Republican Party.

“Republicans emphasize the role of free markets and individual achievement as the primary factors behind economic prosperity. To this end, they favor laissez-faire economics, fiscal conservatism, and the promotion of personal responsibility over welfare programs.

They believe private spending is usually more efficient than government spending. Republicans oppose the estate tax.

The party opposes a government-run single-payer health care system, believing such a system constitutes socialized medicine and is in favor of a personal or employer-based system of insurance, supplemented by Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid, which covers approximately 40% of the poor.[18]The GOP has a mixed record of supporting the historically popular Social Security, Medicare and Medicaidprograms.

Republicans are generally opposed by labor union management and members, and have supported various legislation on the state and federal levels, including right to work legislation and the Taft-Hartley Act, which gives workers the right not to participate in unions, as opposed to a closed shop, which prohibits workers from choosing not to join unions in workplaces. Some Republicans are opposed to increases in the minimum wage, believing that such increases hurt many businesses by forcing them to cut jobs and services, export jobs overseas, and raise the prices of goods to compensate for the decrease in profit.”

-Wikipedia

Can you be a Christian and be a Republican? The Party’s official positions are against health care for all, oppose welfare programs, do not support programs to provide homes for the homeless. Champions of capitalism, Republicans are blind to the fact that laissez-faire capitalism leaves a tremendous wake of poor and hungry people in its desire to make money for corporations and individuals.

One Republican suburban housewife told me she didn’t want to hear another word about the homeless. Another good friend told me that we can give to charity, “not touch the capitalistic system and pray for those sadly left behind.” Another Republican told me that the poor already have medical insurance. They can go to emergency rooms. I suggested ER’s don’t give tests for eyeglasses or glaucoma.

Republicans are against labor unions, as they are seen as interfering with laissez-faire capitalism. Labor unions, however, are one of the means by which poor people can get together and bargain for better wages and safer working conditions. Republicans scoff at the government office for safety and health administration, OSHA, feeling this is government interfering with the free flow of business. The fact that OSHA protects the health and safety of working people is overlooked.

Hispanic and Black children are the fastest-growing group in the United States who are becoming hungry. Republicans are for the “the promotion of personal responsibility over welfare programs.” Hungry children cannot be responsible for getting enough to eat. Welfare programs feed children, big business does not.

Republicans are good people but their values are skewed. Money and property come before people. The capitalistic system must not be tampered with. Some believe when the rich get truly rich and the economy flourishes money will trickle down to the poor and homeless. Experience teaches us that it does not work. Most have made their bundle and do not want to look back or care for those whom they have never met. Few Republicans work in slum neighborhoods, visit the permanently maimed soldiers living out their days in institutions or represent farm laborers fighting injustices foisted on them by greedy farmers.

Churches are full of Republicans. They are generous supporters of churches. Many clergy are members of the Grand Old Party. They are comfortable with the rich, upwardly mobile and in fact their salaries depend on the good will of many Republicans. Republicans give generously to universities, charities, foundations and churches. Many urban Republicans’ social life is dependent on high-ticket social and artistic balls, galas and dinners which give the leftovers from the expenses of the event to eagerly awaiting charities – including churches. Republicans and many of the rich want to choose where their money goes. They want to control how to do good and what the good causes are. That is natural of course.

Republicans and others enjoy the institutional church. They enjoy the traditions, music, and a feel good experience on a Sunday morning. They do not like sermons that talk about politics or the events of the world. They want a comfortable, warm friendly place, to sing the hymns and enjoy good choir music. Both the Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches have been called the Republican Party at prayer. Mormons are the new winners in that category.

One of the reasons main line churches like Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist and Lutheran are declining in numbers is because well-off people do hear the gospel of Jesus emphasizing care for the poor and equal rights for minorities. They hear this in the readings from the Bible. This challenge to their conservative values makes them want to leave the comfortable pew to which they had become accustomed. Few preachers dare preach very specifically about the relationship between the Biblical teaching and the values of the Republican party. The other reason they leave is that the sermons and liturgies are so boring.

Now I want to talk about what it means to be a follower of Jesus as opposed to being a member of the institution called church. A follower of Jesus’ focus is on the weakest of all people – children, sick, insane, handicapped and bereaved, the poor and the hungry. A political party which believes in personal responsibility neglecting the weakest to go it alone, cannot be in any way conceived of as Christian. Millions of people in Africa cannot take personal responsibility, go it alone, when all they have are the beggars’ remains from capitalistic free enterprise enriching corrupt politicians.

Followers of Jesus believe in feeding the hungry, providing hospitality to those with no homes, healing the lame, blind and diseased. Christians see these values as the core of following Jesus, whose vision of God’s kingdom was a perfect place where all would be fed and peace would reign. Christians believe, since that kingdom has not come, and then it is our job to work toward relieving of suffering, poverty, hunger and striving for peace in the broken world we live in now.

MATTHEW 5:3
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

19:21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

LUKE 4:18
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

Luke 27 ‘But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. ²⁹If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. ³⁰Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. ³¹Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Matthew 18:22
Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

These values jostle at the heart not only of Republican values but those of the accommodating and institutional church as well.

The followers of Jesus pray with their feet in marches and vigils for peace and justice. In the small conservative town of Andover, MA, a group of people, some Christians, stand every night winter and summer to stand in a vigil for peace and justice.

Traditional church people pray and worship well but are often deaf to what the New Testament is teaching about the rich, problems of worshipping money and the plight of the poor and sick. I heard a sermon recently in which the preacher said that Jesus was not really against the rich. He went on to say how many rich people in his church were doing well in the community. I’d call it putting band-aids on gushing diseases. He never once suggested the rich could change the rules and laws which keep the rich richer and the poor poorer. I guess we know who pays his salary.

Should the radical followers of Jesus leave the church and found another? No, such a group will soon become an institution. Followers of Jesus remain in the church, do their work, and pressure the institution to be more fully followers of Jesus rather than reflecting the values of conventional society.

Should Republicans leave the church? No. Stay in, the church needs your money. (I am a beneficiary of the Church Pension Fund, a very wealthy and conservative fund probably managed by Republican and conservative business people since its founding by J.P. Morgan.) The followers of Jesus can still keep working on you to follow Jesus more radically. We can do this best if you are in the church.

One teacher puts it this way. “The majority perspective in church and society assumes that by wealth power, organization or hard work we can get things to turn out the way we want…. A minority perspective seeks to embody and witness to the way of Jesus, but without embracing worldly power, wealth or influence. A minority church uses imagination and learns to survive over the long haul.”

Republicans are good and decent people, but the party to which they belong comes nowhere near reflecting the work of Jesus in the world. The party platform, goals and purposes are antithetical to the heart of the gospel of Jesus. Republican church members should be clear that their party and the teachings of Jesus are in radical opposition to each other.

Luke 1

My soul doth magnify the Lord….
He hath put down the mighty from their seat
And hath exalted the humble and meek.

He hath filled the hungry with good things
And the rich he hath sent empty away.

THE HELP - Ann Appreciation

2010-11-17T19:52:00.000-08:00

I really enjoyed The Help by Kathryn Stockett published by Putnam in 2009. The story of black women who were the hired help of white women in the 1960s in Jackson Mississippi was told with humor, sadness, tension and excitement. The cruelty of the white people and the cornered docility of the black people made for a disturbing experience that drove home all the more the need for the changes in the laws.

Legal discrimination against black people ended finally in 1966 under President Lyndon Johnson. I hope you and many people will read this book to get a sense of what black women suffered during our own lifetimes. Though it is against the law to discriminate in the south, many blacks are held down by the social mores.

CAPITALISM ?

2010-10-28T09:46:00.000-07:00

Smart money people must be able to find a way for capitalism to be more humane. There is no reason why there is not a better way to distribute the wealth, feed, clothe, educate and provide medical care for all people..

Most people spend most of their time worrying about and dealing with money, the poor most of all. But all those people with degrees in economics, finance and investing are very smart. They too, or at least many of them, are concerned about how capitalism does not provide adequate money for all people to have food.

There must be ways for these smart, sensitive and creative people to figure out how capitalism produces so much money and yet leaves so many people poor. Charity is not enough. Charitable fund raisers make donors feel good, put bad-aids on wounds but do not change the system that keeps people poor. Capitalism is the system that keeps people poor.

Communism and Socialism have not worked, at least as they have been tried already. Many socialist ideas are incorporated into the capitalist system like, health insurance, labor unions, minimum wage and pensions.

Capitalism produces huge amounts of money that could make it possible for all people to eat and be clothed.

Clergy Taking a Stand

2010-10-22T09:54:00.000-07:00

Clergy often fear involvement in social and political actions for justice, like participating in vigils, demonstrations, picket lines, protests, media conferences, signing petitions or writing letters to the editor. Clergy values usually support the ends of such events like peace, racial equality, LGBT rights, unions and workers. Some rightly fear their congregations or superiors like Bishops and judicatory supervisors will criticize them. Some fear they will be passed over for promotions, better jobs and bigger ministries. Some fear losing their jobs and fear they will have trouble supporting their families and themselves.

People are different. Some are more aggressive than others; some are more willing to take risks. Is it in their nature?

It is true that outspoken liberal and radical clergy seldom get elected Bishops or become deans of cathedrals or posh parishes. Clerics who speak out do not make good committee members, or patient planners or negotiators. But many liberal/radical clergy have done very well in churches and as teachers.

James A. Pike was elected Bishop of California in 1958 after publicly espousing very hot issues in those days: birth control, abortion rights, civil rights for African-Americans and a liberal theology. He was featured on radio and TV during the very conservative 1950s.

Malcolm Boyd was a freedom rider to the South in the 1960s, and gained national attention as an activist on social and political issues especially full freedom for African Americans. He made a career of writing, speaking and performing on college campuses, nightclubs. He assisted in parishes in Los Angeles.

John Spong had solid liberal credentials on all issues and was elected Bishop of Newark in the 1970s.

In the early 1960s a group of clergy founded and supported San Francisco’s Council on Religion and the Homosexual, an organization of clergy and lay people to study and understand the homosexual community, which was being harassed and persecuted in the City and Bay Area.

On January 1, 1965 hundreds of gays and lesbians attended a New Year’s Ball, a fundraiser for the Council on Religion and the Homosexual. Police invaded this private benefit event. They took flash photographs of partygoers in a blatant attempt at intimidating the guests as they entered California Hall on Polk Street to go to the ballroom. One woman and three lawyers were arrested for blocking the police from entering and two men were arrested for alleged lewd conduct. The ball continued without further interference.

When the San Francisco Police Department had heard about the ball, they attempted to force the rented hall's owners to cancel the event. Some of the leaders of the Council had met with the police to explain the purposes of the council and the ball with the idea of heading off any trouble. The police were more interested in the theology of the clergy, and, noticing wedding rings, asked if their wives knew of this event. After more discussion, we left the meeting feeling sure the ball would go on without interruption.

When police demanded entry into the hall, three CRH lawyers explained to them that under California law, the event was a private party and they could not enter unless they bought tickets. The lawyers were then arrested, as was a ticket-taker, on charges of obstructing an officer.

On January 3, 1965, seven clergy who were among the founders and supporters of CRH held a press conference ripping the police for their invasion of the private party.

Those participating in the press conference were The late Rev. Lewis Durham, program director of the Glide Foundation, Rev. Robert Warren Cromey of the Episcopal Diocese of California, Rev. Cecil Williams, Director of Glide’s Church and Community Ministry, Rev. Fred Bird, pastor of St. Johns Methodist Church, Rev. Charles Lewis, of the North Beach Lutheran Ministry, the late Rev. Dr. Clarence Caldwell, of the United Methodist Church, and Rev. Ted McIlvenna of the Glide Foundation.

There was a lot of media coverage after the conference on Radio, TV and in newspaper. Further articles and pictures of the clergy appeared. One person said, “Well, that’s the end of your career in the church.” Not so.

Here is what happened to the clergy involved in that controversial action and media conference.

Lewis Durham served the Glide Foundation and National Sex Forum until his death.

Cecil Williams has been in protests, arrested numerous times supporting the poor and the elderly. He served as pastor of Glide Memorial Methodist Church in San Francisco where he raised millions of dollars for the church’s ministry to the poor and disenfranchised.

Robert Warren Cromey had a private practice as a Marriage and Family Therapist and served as Rector of Trinity, SF for twenty years before retiring in 2002.

Fred Bird went into academics after moving from the Bay Area to Canada.

Charles Lewis became SF’s Night Minister for many years.

Clarence Caldwell served the United Methodist Church and then became a Marriage and Family Therapist until his death.

Ted McIlvenna left the active ministry of the United Methodist Church and founded the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco where he worked until his retirement.

Taking a stand does not mean loss of income or employment.

Taking a stand on important issues in fact gives clergy credibility and stature. In some denominations clergy lead large and growing churches by taking a stand against LGBT people and against abortion. They take a stand, all right, but not one liberals and radicals care to espouse. Some churches like Glide, Trinity SF and All Saints, Pasadena flourished when they became noted for specific ministries and activities of a liberal bent.

Not taking a stand means many churches remain small and lack excitement and seem uncertain in where they are going and what they are trying to do in the society. We all want to preach the gospel of Jesus. Many offer spirituality and deepening worship. But tat is not enough. Making the spirituality a specific reality is what makes a church vibrant.

How many youth groups teach kids about peace and show how to become a conscientious objector?

How many parishes regularly invite LGBT people to come to classes to share their stories? How about creating dialogues with African-Americans, AA members, Muslims or Asians?

How many parishes adopt a veteran’s hospital to visit soldiers who have lost their limbs, their sight or their minds? Most of them will be in hospitals for the rest of their lives.

I saw a photo of St. Francis Lutheran Church members in the newspaper for walking together in the AIDS walk. How many churches walk en masse in he annual breast cancer fundraising walks, Gay Pride Parades or Memorial Day parades?

Many churches sponsor soup kitchens and food distribution programs but then how many stop and ask why are the people hungry or why do they need medical care and places to live?

Taking a stand means taking a risk, trying something new and creative in ministering to the people of God.