Holy Redeemer Lutheran Church
1948 The Alameda
San Jose, CA 95126
San Jose, CA 95126
My sister died recently (actually my sister-in-law, but my family has never been too big on the "in-law" tag). Rita was the one that I always seemed to get in trouble with. We would have chocolate eating contests, going through 2 or three pounds of mom's best chocolates in no time flat. We always laughed together at inappropriate times and were a little out of step with the rest. We drank Boone's Farm Wine together (she because she like it, I because I was polite). Her death, and funeral, got me thinking about how we say good-by to those we love.
Some funerals seem so relaxed and joyous. The family and friends gather and there is a buzz in the air. Long lost relatives rediscover one another; old friends are once again in the same place and the time in-between make no difference. There are good memories of the deceased, and the day is not about staking out a new place within the family structure. And, when you go away you know your loved one has been revered and your soul has been replenished in a marvelous way.
And, then there are other funerals that are … not so filled with reverence and soul replenishment. Suffice it to say, they are not as filled with camaraderie and wonderful feelings. Some think of them as a stage. Some think of them as a soapbox. And, when you leave you think to yourself, "Why did we do that to someone we love … and to one another?" And, you know that you must do something else to say good-by.
I must look for some Boone's Farm … and a large box of chocolates.
I have been reading (re-reading, after a great deal of time) Walden, by Henry David Thoreau. In his section on Sounds, he writes the following:
Ancient poetry and mythology suggest, at least, that husbandry was once a sacred art; but it is pursued with irreverent haste and heedlessness by us, our object being to have large farms and large crops merely. We have no festivals, nor procession, nor ceremony, not excepting our Cattle-shows and so called Thanksgivings, by which the farmer expresses a sense of the sacredness of his calling, or is reminded of its sacred origin. It is the premium and the feast which tempt him. He sacrifices not to Ceres and the Terrestrial Jove, but to the infernal Plutus rather. By avarice and selfishness, and a groveling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. Hew knows Nature but as a robber. Cato says that the profits of agriculture are particularly pious or just, (maximus pius quoestus,) and according to Varro the old Romans "called the same EARTH mother AND Ceres, and thought that they had cultivated it led a pious and useful life, and that they alone were left of the race of King Saturn.
We are wont to forget that the sun looks on our cultivated fields and on the prairies and forests without distinction. They all reflect and absorb his rays alike, and the former make but a small part of the glorious picture which he beholds in his daily course. In his view the earth is all equally cultivated like a garden. Therefore we should receive the benefit of his light and heat with a corresponding trust and magnanimity. What though I value the seed of these beans, and harvest that in the fall of the year? This broad field which I have looked so long looks not to me as the principal cultivator, but away from me to influences more genial to is, which water and make it green. These beans have results which are not harvested by me. Do they not grow for woodchucks partly? The ear of wheat (in Latin spica, obsoletely speca, from spe, hope,) should not be the only hope of the husbandman; its kernel of grain (granum, from gerendo, bearing,) is not all that it bears. How, then, can our harvest fail? Shall I not rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the granary of the birds? It matters little comparatively whether the fields fill the farmer's barns. The true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but his last fruits also.*
| Preacher don't send me | Preacher, please don't | |
| when I die | promise me | |
| to some big ghetto | streets of gold | |
| in the sky | and milk for free. | |
| where the rats eat cats | I stopped all milk | |
| of the leopard type | at four years old | |
| and Sunday brunch | and once I'm dead | |
| is grits and tripe. | I won't need gold. | |
| - | - | |
| I've known those rats | I'd call a place | |
| I've seen them kill | pure paradise | |
| and grits I've had | where families are loyal | |
| would make a hill, | and strangers are nice, | |
| or maybe a mountain, | where the music is jazz | |
| so what I need | and the season is fall. | |
| from you on Sunday | Promise me that | |
| is a different creed. | Or nothing at all. |
Ever since I was a boy in Northern Minnesota I have read Native American legends. Some of them are very similar to scripture, some are vastly different. They seek to answer questions, as do our stories. Recently I have decided that I would like to share some of my favorites with you (or at least some that I have read recently that I find to be interesting). This time:
Nee-ah-gah-rah, meaning "Thundering Waters," is the Iroquois Indian pronunciation of Niagara. They believed that the sound of the cataract was the voice of a mighty spirit that dwelt in the waters. In the years gone by, they offered to it a sacrifice every year.
The sacrifice was a maiden of the tribe who was sent over the cataract in a white canoe decorated with fruits and flowers. To be chosen for the sacrifice was considered such a great honor that girls contended for it. In the spirit world, the happy hunting grounds, were special gifts for such a person.
Probably the last sacrifice at Niagara Falls was made in 1679, when Lela-wala, the beautiful daughter of Chief Eagle Eye, was chosen for the honor of the sacrifice. That year, the French explorer La Salle was in the area. He had been trying to convert the Senecas to Christianity, and he protested against their plan for the sacrifice.
His protests were answered by one of the tribal leaders. "Your words witness against you. You say that Christ set us an example. We will follow it. Why should one sacrifice be great and our sacrifice be horrible?"
The maiden's father was a brave warrior and a noble chief. His wife was dead. The only member of his family left was the beautiful Lela-wala, very dear and precious to him. But he showed no sign of the grief he felt and made no protest against the choice of her for the sacrifice.
On the day set for the sacrifice, the tribe gathered on the bank of the river. They enjoyed the games, the singing, and the dancing that always took place on special occasions. Everyone became quiet when the little white canoe came into sight, covered with fruits and flowers given to their chief's daughter.
Shortly after the canoe entered the current, another white canoe darted out brom under the trees along the bank of the river. Chief Eagle Eye's grief was so great that he was on his way to join his daughter. With swift and strong movements through the rapids, he was soon beside her.
The two looked at each other once. The crowd lost their calmness and shouted at them, some with frantic despair and some with admiration. Side by side, the canoes plunged over the cataract. The brave maiden and the brave chief were beyond rescue.
"After their death, they were changed into pure spirits of strength and goodness. They live so far beneath the falls that the roaring is music to them." He is the ruler of the cataract; she is the maiden of the mist.
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In an attempt to answer the question of how a renewal of ancient initiatory rights of passage might alleviate our ecological crisis, this film examines the re-emergence of archaic techniques of ecstasy in the modern world by weaving a synthesis of ecological and evolutionary awareness, electronic dance culture, and the current pharmacological re-evaluation of entheogenic compounds. Within a narrative framework that imagines consciousness itself to be evolving, Entheo-Genesis documents the emergence of techno-shamanism in the post-modern world that frames the following questions: How can a renewal of ancient initiatory rites of passage alleviate our ecological crisis? What do trance dancing and festivals celebrating unbridled artistic expression speak in our collective psyche. How do we re-invent ourselves in a disenchanted world from which God has long ago withdrawn?
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Bishop John Shelby Spong (Bart) Ehrman offers an intriguing account of what we now can say about the historical Judas himself as well as his relationship with Jesus. Readers will discover who Judas really was, what he stood for, what he believed, what he did in betraying Jesus to the authorities, and why he did it.
Ehrman also gives the reader a complete and clear account of what the Gospel of Judas teaches and he shows how it relates to other Gospel texts - both those inside the New Testament and those outside of it, most notably, the Gnostic texts of early Christianity.
In addition, the author recounts how he first saw the Gospel of Judas - surprisingly, in a small room above a pizza parlor in a Swiss town near Lake Geneva - and he relates the fascinating story of where and how this ancient papyrus document was discovered, how it moved around among antiquities dealers in Egypt, the United States, and Switzerland, and how it came to be restored and translated.
The Gospel of Judas presents an entirely new view of Jesus, his disciples, and one of history's most reviled men, Judas Iscariot. It raises many questions and Bart Ehrman provides illuminating and authoritative answers, in a book that will interest anyone curious about the New Testament, the life of Jesus, and the history of Christianity after his death.
[From the dust cover]