Brilliant idea

A kid I grew up with in Ecuador has taken a very different path than I did. He returned to the Cofan people among whom he was raised, married into the tribe, and over the years developed first a tourist industry, then an eco-tourism business employing Cofans, and now he and his people manage government ecological reserve lands for the government, and train game wardens for the government. He is appealing to multinational companies and foreign governments who have a high carbon footprint, asking them to "buy carbon credit" from the Cofans, to help fund the maintenance of these forests which they guard and on which they live. They have achieved "zero deforestation," at a price of only a dollar a hectar per year. (A hectar is 10,000 square meters and is the equivalent of about two and a half acres.)

Frankly, I think Randy's idea is brilliant. He has placed a positive economic value on the forest as it is, intact, and developed a way to commercialize it precisely for its pristine quality. He says his "product" is the forest, undamaged. And who would know how to do that better than the Indian people who for generations have lived in and from that very forest? Genius.

The very fact that it works indicates to me that perhaps the values in our western society are changing. We no longer value a piece of nature for its parts, but are slowly coming to value it for the whole that it is. We will find ways to commercialize (that it, assign economic value to) anything we value, from gold to swamp buggy races. Randy Borman stands at the cusp of how to put the ecological resources of the planet in the running for economic value. It's finally worth it to keep it whole where it can continue to provide oxygen for us to breathe and clean water for us to drink, and a zillion species of everything that haven't been cataloged yet that perhaps might contain substances whose chemical make-up can cure some of today's challenges, things like cancer and obesity and autism and who-knows-what else. (Maybe there's even a cure for stupid, but now I'm really reaching.)

What does this mean for us? In South Texas the cattle industry is taking second place to trophy whitetail deer hunting, and even more lucrative now: quail hunting. Granted, this is hunting for the rich only, at $2000 a weekend, but it restructures the value of the land. The other spin-off is that feedlots are more and more becoming the nurseries for the beef we eat, with their un-natural diet and living quarters for the livestock that require medical intervention to work in the form of antibiotics, growth hormones and other things, not to mention a third of the earth's green-house gasses emitted as methane!

What we need instead is what Randy has captured. There are people who know how to live with the land as well as on it. They are increasingly gaining a voice in public policy, but how about instead if they gained a voice in the economy? There is no need to return to a "pristine" state, such a thing is something of a myth anyway. We can begin to learn to live with the land as it is now. It will take a rethinking of how we look at the land, as a whole and not as the sum of its parts, as a resource as it is, not as a source of resources. That will take a systemic approach--modern ecological science is trying to do that now, and that is good. But ecologists try to piece the picture together from its parts. How about if we start with the whole? A spiritual understanding of the land starts with the whole and works to the parts. That's what Randy has done. That's what we must do. That's what the Church has to do if we are to be faithful to the Creator from whom we have received this, our island home.

Extremes

My wife is currently finding endless entertainment looking at some of the bizarre styles that are hitting the runways these days. One website is called "Thursday on Friday, What the hell was that?" We've been employing our creative minds to label the outfits such things as "camouflage to hunt a yeti," and "penguin in a fur bikini." Nobody in their right minds would actually purchase this stuff or, even less, wear it in public unless they're somewhat less than balanced. So why do we create it? Is it art in the form of clothing--for the sake of art alone? Are these women's bodies the canvass and material, color and texture the medium? Or is this another example of our tendency to always push the envelope? Perhaps some of both, or perhaps there is no significant difference between these two ideas?

We push the envelope beyond the real into the surreal, or the impressionist, or, if our art is realist, we make it like poetry--we push it into hyper-drive to make a multivalenced point. Either way, we reach for what we do not have, something that humans have been doing since we created the first tools. After all, Adam and Eve pushed the envelope with the apple. What is it in the human psyche that pushes for extremes, even at the risk of breaking the whole endeavour apart? Is it part of what is broken in creation, or is it part of what is divine?

I think it's broken when we push for extremes for the sake of extremes, with no thought about it. But when we push for excellence beyond what we've known, even when the results don't look like it, we're pushing for something we intuit, something we can reach but cannot grasp. Ultimately, knowingly or unknowingly, we are reaching for that great mystery at the core of existence. That mystery has a name, the only one that could possibly fit: God.

On the oil spill

My heart goes out to the fishermen whose lives are on hold because of this fiasco, no greater than fiasco, this ginormous, ignominious oblivion to the safety and welfare of the world. They are suffering already and will continue to do so.

Those who know me know also that I am a greeny--not a tree-hugger, but someone who believes it is our Christian duty to treat the environment as the gift from God that it is, and to reflect in our treatment of it our reverence for its Creator. And my heart goes out to the critters who are suffering and who will die horrible deaths suffocating in the stench.

But if Mt. St. Helens gives us any clue as to the power of nature to renew itself and rebuild, the ones who will suffer most in the long run from this spill are precisely those whose livelihoods are being debilitated now and in the next five to ten years or so. Petrolium is a natural substance, and is naturally biodegradable. (The stuff we make from it isn't, but in its natural state it is.) Who knows--truly nobody knows--what will really happen in the marshes and swamps from this gooy mess. It may be truly awful--or, like with the volcano in the west, it may prove to be a boon in the long run.

Lets help out all that we can to minimize the damage, let's shore up our fellow men and women who are being impacted, let's hold BP and the other companies responsible for this to the fullest extent of the law (and no more,) and then let's wait and watch what nature does with the rest. We may be surprised.

On the oil spill

God our creator and redeemer, we pray today for the preservation of our natural environment, especially the Gulf of Mexico and the lands and waters it touches: Guide those who labor to contain the oil that endangers the creatures of sea and land; strengthen those who work to protect them; have mercy on those whose livelihoods are suffering; forgive us for our carelessness in using the resources of nature, and give us wisdom and reverence so to manage them in the future, that no one may suffer from our abuse of them, and that generations yet to come may continue to praise you for your bounty; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

So who is responsible?

BP, Deepwater Horizon and Haliburton are all pointing fingers at one another in front of Congress like so many school children accused of cheating on a quiz. Instead of working together they're blaming...and Congress is partly complicit. They're always out to find someone to blame. If they can show themselves to be the ones who caught the culprit they are more likely to be voted back into office, whether they caught the right guys or not.

George Huguely is accused of murdering Yeardley Love on the campus of UVA, and the governor is exploring the options of reporting to avoid anything like this happening in the future. They are asking people, like in the Times Square bombing attempt, to report unusual behavior. But will that not turn us all against one another in the long run? Sell out on our anxiety in the cause of community and destroy community int he process...Hmmmmm.

Seems the system is broken. I think the plummetting trust in public government is a pretty clear sign that we think the system is broken, but the big question is, How is it broken? Tonya Craft was acquitted on 22 charges of child molestation in Georgia. She blames the system for going on a witch hunt, and the parents of the children who brought the allegations blame the system for not dishing out justice. Both are convinced the system is broken because of what it put them through.

There seems to be no sense of democracy, where if the law rules in a certain direction by public process, even though we don't like it, or maybe even don't believe it, we act by it. That tenuous balance between the good of the whole (government) and the rights of the individual (democracy) hold our souls in constant dynamic tension, but tension is never comfortable, and our anxiety often makes it feel unacceptable. So our system feels broken when it breaks us.

I find that I assume that the legal system is supposed to reveal the truth, and as Christ said, "you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free," it will be obvious who is to blame and what to do about it. But we find that the courts are no better at determining the truth than most other institutions in our society. Perhaps Kierkegaard was right in saying that unless God reveals the truth to us in a life-changing encounter we cannot discover it for ourselves, because of our radical subjectivism. Revelation, then, is the source of truth...but even revelation needs "spinning" to make it applicable to life, and therein is the rub. So who is responsible?

You are. I am. We are. Thomas Jefferson said that this American experiment can only work if the general public is educated. Most of us are not. Oh, we hold degrees, but we don't think critically about life. We don't take responsibility for our own actions. We look for someone to blame and we elect people who will help us do that. This was Eve's sin, and Adam's and ours.

Move over Haliburton. Move over, Deepwater Horizon and BP, and governor and Craft and the others. We must take the stand, raise our hands and swear to tell ourselves the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and then to hold ourselves accountable by it. Only then will we be truly free.

On the failure of nerve

Ed Friedman before he died almost finished a book published by his children posthumously called "The Failure of Nerve." He accurately identified a dynamic of our society in which safety has become such a popular issue that nobody wants to take risks anymore. It's gotten bigger than just that, he notes. People make lots of money making people feel safe. We've become a nation of anxious people run by those who will calm our anxiety without letting us face it, for that is what we prefer. We're run, therefore, by the most anxious people rather than the least.

I saw an example of that on the news recently. Mayor Bloomberg of New York said of the car bomber that was thwarted (and I paraphrase,) "This is New York. If you go around worrying about what the next threat is it will paralyze this town. What do you want us to do, close the streets, close the subways?" That's not a failure of nerve, that's a call to have nerve. It was good to hear him say it.

On the other hand, Frank Graham has made a name for himself for voicing anti-Muslim rhetoric. If you just change the name of the god invoked he sounds eerily like those against whom he spouts. Here is someone who is capitalizing on our fear. Are extremist Muslims dangerous? Yes, of course they are. But are extremist Christians dangerous, too? Yes, of course they are. Why why throw stones to hide your hands? Both extremist positions are expressing anxiety without naming it or facing it, and giving people excuses to live out of their small selves rather than their larger (to use Christian terminology) redeemed selves.

Jesus calls us to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us. Friedman was a Jew, but he explains Jesus' words beautifully. It takes nerve to love one's enemies, it's just cowardly to spit at them from behind the wall.

Recently there has been documented an increasing movement on the part of parents to refuse to vaccinate children. That's not nerve, that's stupidity. The only losers there are the children who merely become repositories for deseases that have been largely contained. Nerve is the courage to do what's right, not what one happens to want.

Strange Christ

In Ecuador where I grew up they play a very peculiar form of Volleyball. They use a 9 foot net, a 40-foot court instead of 30, and a soccer ball, and they play 3 men on a team. It is a highly strategic game that is physically exhausting—and very popular. As a young man many times I stood at the sidelines hoping to be included on a team. I'm not known for my physical prowess, nor my athletic abilities, but I'd watched the game so much I figured I knew the basic strategies, and as one of Gringo descent, I had height on most of the people who would be playing with me. I was never chosen to play—until I figured out the way in. Inclusion was an economic thing. You had to wager an amount of money that you figured matched your ability to play.

What does it take to be included in God's family? The Church is very clear on its membership. Baptism in the name of the Trinity, with water, by another Christian is the basic rite of Christian initiation. Some churches require other things as well, but not the Episcopal Church. Over the centuries baptism has never been exclusive in this regard. During the times of persecution in the early church it was not always clear. More than once non-believing spectators, on seeing the faith and strength of the Christians, vaulted over the barriers and died with the Christians. The Church decided there were two kinds of baptism: Baptism by water, and baptism by fire. The penitent thief on the cross by Jesus was the first to be baptized by fire. Then there is the question of people like Abraham and Moses. Hebrews 11 teaches that God accepts them as well. And how about those to whom Jesus refers when He says, "I have sheep in other folds. I will bring them also so that there will be one flock, one shepherd." Inclusion in God's family is something God does. We get the privilege of detecting and recognizing it, but we certainly don't control it.

In today's Gospel lesson two clues are given to including the stranger: First of all, the Stranger is Christ. The 7 disciples who went fishing represent the perfect number. Since Simon Peter is with them this represents the Church. It's you and me out there just doing the work of the Kingdom. They catch nothing all night. Without a greater purpose our labor is futile, we're just keeping the lights on and paying the preacher. In the morning they see someone on the bank. They don't know who it is. He is the Stranger. They get instructions to change their tactics just a bit...hardly enough to make any difference, after all, these men know how to fish. But when they catch 153 big fish, such that their paltry capacities are sorely tested, suddenly they know who it is. There is only One who sent them to fish for the souls of men and women. There is only One who is Master of the Sea. The Stranger becomes the Friend.

For us, as well, the one who is a stranger bears the potential of being the very One we seek. Christ, hidden in an unknown person, may very well be standing ready to bless us in incredible ways. All we have to do is heed them...pay attention, get to know, look for the signs offered. Suddenly our daily grind becomes our daily bread. Doing Church becomes a way to find Christ. And when you find Christ in someone chances are that person will join you here.

Every person who walks through those doors that you do not know is Christ, waiting to be known. If you have come to meet with Christ, you most surely meet Him in the Sacrament, but the Sacrament represents US as well as Christ. It makes no sense at all to expect to meet Christ at the altar rail, but not in the Parish Hall. If you are eager to meet God here the person who you do not know is part of God's response.

Secondly, the Stranger is my brother or sister. Jesus stands on the beach with breakfast ready for the disciples. It's like old times again. Jesus is back at the helm. But what does Jesus spend the time doing? What follows is traditionally called, "The Reinstatement of Peter." He takes Peter, the one who betrayed Him three times, and three times He asks him, "Do you love me?" Each time Peter responds, "Lord, you know that I love you." And Jesus responds, "Feed my sheep, feed my lambs, feed my sheep." Peter is the spokesperson, the one who represents them all, he is "every disciple," He represents us, you and me. We, too, have betrayed Him, and we, too, are re-enlisted for service. He calls us to feed one another, to care for one another, to help one another, to teach one another, and to learn from one another. Become brothers and sisters. To include the stranger means to make them a brother or sister. Overcome the strangeness with hospitality. If the strangeness is due to lack of knowledge, then share and listen, if the strangeness is due to estrangement, then forgive and re-engage on a responsible level.

A while ago I visited a church in a distant city. For a number of reasons I did not wear clericals, in fact, I was dressed rather natty. I arrived on time, was duly greeted by the usher and the greeter, but before the service, during the peace, and afterwards, only one person spoke to me before I spoke to them, and then, only in a cursory way. I left the church not necessarily thinking that they didn't want me, but that they had no idea that I was there. I was invisible to them. How tragic, yet how common! Let us not miss one opportunity to include Christ in the life of the stranger among us, and let us not miss one opportunity to share with them the life of God's family.