Volume 1 Issue 31

When he opened the sixth seal, I looked and there came a great earthquake; the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree drops its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll rolling itself up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the magnates and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”
(Revelation 6:12-16 NRSV)
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I’m happy to report that Mom is recovering from her second knee-replacement surgery last week without the complications that accompanied the first last October. Thank you to all who have held her in your thoughts and prayers.
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Dad has a thought provoking message posted on the Bulletin Board. I urge you to take a moment to read it. Better yet, take a moment to respond to it or to post your own thoughts.
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The final Daily Guide to appear on this website will be Monday, March 31. Those who have enjoyed this feature are encouraged to subscribe to the Science of Mind magazine by calling the number provided at the top of that page.
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Until next week…….Shalom!

Volume 1 Issue 30

A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more.
--Jeremiah 31:15
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What did you give up for Lent? We are so early into our journey to the Cross that it probably wasn’t apparent yet that I had intended to give up commenting on the Bush Administration and its imperialistic obsession with attacking Iraq. Instead, I planned to limit myself to a strictly scriptural and theological examination of Jesus’ wilderness experience with the temptation of sin and evil and to let any possible implications be drawn by the readership. I managed sixteen days, but am compelled to declare that with last Wednesday’s attack by the United States of America the antichrist was unleashed upon the world in new and unprecedented ways. George W. Bush does not deserve the distinction of being regarded as “the Antichrist,” but the evil he represents must be recognized as being categorically antithetical to anything we know or understand to be true of the teachings and example of Jesus as the Christ.
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The following is taken from the Good Friday liturgy of The United Methodist Church, but no longer being bound by that or any other polity I am taking the liberty of offering it for our urgent and immediate prayerful meditation now:

THE REPROACHES
CHRIST’S LAMENT AGAINST HIS FAITHLESS CHURCH

O my people, O my Church,
what have I done to you, or in what have I offended you?
I led you forth from the land of Egypt
and delivered you by the water of baptism,
but you have prepared a cross for your Savior.

I led you through the desert forty years and fed you with manna;
I brought you through times of persecution and of renewal
and gave you my body, the bread of heaven;
but you have prepared a cross for your Savior.

I made you branches of my vineyard
and gave you the water of salvation,
but when I was thirsty you gave me vinegar and gall
and pierced with a spear the side of your Savior.

I went before you in a pillar of cloud,
but you have led me to the judgment hall of Pilate.
I brought you to a land of freedom and prosperity,
but you have scourged, mocked, and beaten me.

I gave you a royal scepter, and bestowed the keys to the kingdom,
but you have given me a crown of thorns.
I raised you on high with great power,
but you have hanged me on the cross.

My peace I gave, which the world cannot give,
and washed your feet as a servant,
but you draw the sword to strike in my name
and seek high places in my kingdom.

I accepted the cup of suffering and death for your sakes,
but you scatter and deny and abandon me.
I sent the Spirit of truth to lead you,
but you close your hearts to guidance.

I called you to go and bring forth fruit,
but you cast lots for my clothing.
I prayed that you all may be one,
but you continue to quarrel and divide.

I grafted you into the tree of my chosen people Israel,
but you turned on them with persecution and mass murder.
I made you joint heirs with them of my covenants,
but you made them scapegoats for your own guilt.

I came to you as the least of your brothers and sisters.
I was hungry but you gave me no food,
thirsty but you gave me no drink.
I was a stranger but you did not welcome me,
naked but you did not clothe me,
sick and in prison but you did not visit me.

Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal One,
Have mercy upon us.
(The United Methodist Book of Worship, 1992, The United Methodist Publishing House)
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Until next week…….Shalom!

Volume 1 Issue 29

“The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution that has to start with each one of us.” --Dorothy Day
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“The most serious study of the use of violence in the history of Islam and Christianity is “Islam and the West: The Making of an Image,” by Oxford historian Norman Daniel. He concludes that Islam has been no more violent than Christianity, and probably less violent. He cites many instances, the Spanish Inquisition among them. Under Moorish rule, the Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Spain lived together in peace and harmony. But when the Christians drove the Moors out and took political dominance, they either killed, expelled, or forced into conversion every Jew and Muslim…. Of course, it is certainly true that people everywhere use religion to achieve political ends, and we have to distinguish between the political distortion of religion and the intrinsic religion and its fundamental principles.” --Huston Smith
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Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
the early Christians observed with great devotion
the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection,
and it became the custom of the Church that before the Easter celebration
there should be a forty-day season of spiritual preparation.
During this season converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism.
It was also a time when persons who had committed serious sins
and had separated themselves from the community of faith
were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness,
and restored to participation in the life of the Church.
In this way the whole congregation was reminded
of the mercy and forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ
and the need we all have to renew our faith.
I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church,
to observe a holy Lent:
by self-examination and repentance;
by prayer, fasting, and self-denial;
and by reading and meditating on God’s Holy Word.
To make a right beginning of repentance,
and as a mark of our mortal nature,
let us now bow before our Creator and Redeemer.
(The United Methodist Book of Worship, 1992, The United Methodist Publishing House)
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Until next week…….Shalom!

Volume 1 Issue 28

Ev’rybody’s talking about Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism,
Ragism, Tagism, Thisism, Thatism, Isn’t it the most?
C’mon, Ministers, Sinisters, Banisters, and Canisters,
Bishops and Fishops, Rabbits and Popeyes, Bye-bye Bye-byes.
Let me tell you now, Revolution, Evolution, Mastication, Flagellation,
Regulations, Integrations, Meditation, United Nations, Congratulations.
All we are saying is Give Peace A Chance.
--John Lennon & Paul McCartney (1969)
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Today’s sermon begins my Lenten series on Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness as recorded in the Gospels of Mark (1:12-13), Matthew (4:1-11), and Luke (4:1-13). How wonderful it would be if we as the Growing in Christ community might take this opportunity to examine these passages that address Jesus’ temptation and respond with our own reflections and interpretations through the Bulletin Board. For all those who “don’t need anybody telling me what to believe,” this would seem like an offer just too good to refuse!
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Pheme Perkins, the author of the Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections on the Gospel of Mark [found in The New Interpreter’s Bible cited in today’s sermon], is Professor of New Testament at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Among her other publications are ‘The Gospel of John’; ‘Reading the New Testament: An Introduction’; ‘The Johannine Epistles’; ‘Hearing the Parables of Jesus’; ‘Love Commands in the New Testament’; ‘Revelation’; ‘Resurrection: The Early Christian Witness and Contemporary Reflection’; and ‘Jesus as Teacher’.
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The Daily Guides feature which began in January seemed like a good idea at the time, but the readership has not grown beyond an average 4.682 per day (the highest number of visits on a given day was 11). As was expressed in an earlier edition of this newsletter, this kind of response simply doesn’t justify the amount of time required to manually enter each Daily Guide to the site. Therefore, the few of you who are finding value in the devotionals really need to call the phone number at the top of the Daily Guide page and request your own subscription to the “Science of Mind” magazine. You will have the added benefit of receiving all the other articles that appear in this outstanding monthly publication. The last Daily Guide to appear on this website will be March 31, 2003.
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In the March 8 Daily Guide, Maria Shamaya Clemente writes: “As a spiritual community of kindred change agents, we can come together, share our experiences, and love each other into our highest spiritual promise.” I could not express any more beautifully my hope for the mission and ministry of this virtual community of faith called Growing in Christ. May the love of God, the peace of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit empower us to become such an agent for change in a world so desperately in need.
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Until next week…….Shalom!

Volume 1 Issue 27

Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me;
let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be.
With God our creator, children all are we.
Let us walk with each other in perfect harmony.
Let peace begin with me; let this be the moment now.
With every step I take, let this be my solemn vow;
to take each moment and live each moment in peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.
--Sy Miller and Jill Jackson
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I’ve never claimed to be the sharpest tack in the box, and so it has taken me a while to put my finger on exactly what I find so vile about the Bush Administration’s push for a preemptive attack upon Iraq. It goes back to my training to be a cop and the accompanying grave responsibility of that profession as it pertains to the use of deadly force. We were trained to shoot to kill, and so the justification for ever pulling the trigger in the first place had to be absolute even if there were only seconds within which to make the decision. To reasonably perceive myself or someone else as in imminent danger literally required seeing the perpetrator’s finger pulling the trigger and the hammer on his weapon about to fall. To have discharged my weapon before this sequence was undeniably established would have been regarded as premature. And to have ever discharged my weapon simply because I just saw a gun and deduced that it would eventually be used against me would have been grounds for my immediate dismissal and criminal prosecution. I don’t think that any of us have a problem with holding our police officers to this kind of rigid standard, but I do have a problem with a maverick president who regards himself immune to such restraint.
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Two more distinguished writers, Andrew Sullivan and Stanley Hauerwas, appear on the Bulletin Board with their opposing essays on the morality of the impending war with Iraq. Even though I continue to oppose it, Sullivan offers the most cogent argument for war that I have read. Hauerwas offers a compelling argument against from an admittedly Christian point of view. Upon reviewing Growing in Christ’s mission statement, it is affirming to read testimony from the secular media that attests to the significant role of theology in the real world.
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On the other hand, if you’re brave enough to learn about the alliance between the Christian right and the Bush Administration, and can handle reading a document which reads in part: “At present the United States faces no global rival. America’s grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible;” then brace yourself for the “Project for the New American Century.” Their Statement of Principles appears over the endorsement of folks like Gary Bauer, William Bennett, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Dan Quayle, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. Now where have we heard those names before? (I thank Mom for providing this bit of information from “The Billings Outpost”)
www.newamericancentury.org
As Mark Tokarski of Bozeman, Montana points out in his letter to the editor: “I offer here access to a vision document [Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century] written in 2000. The document, which is a vision (as opposed to planning) document, clearly states that the Bush administration intended to take military control of Persian Gulf oil whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power, and that they intend to stay in military control of the region even if there is no threat.”
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For those of the Christian faith, the upcoming Ash Wednesday marks the commencement of Lent, a forty-day period (don’t make the mistake of counting Sundays) for repentant reflection leading up to Easter. This comes only two days after the March 3 New Moon which some are speculating will be the most desirable time for Bush to launch his attack against Saddam. If this isn’t ironic enough for you, the date for the observance of Easter itself has been determined (at least since the sixth century) as the first Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon which may occur from March 21 through April 18 (in 2003 this will be April 16). How fortunate for Jesus to have been resurrected so that he is spared spinning in his grave over current events. I am going to take the opportunity to focus my Lenten sermons on the forty-day wilderness experience of Jesus reported in the synoptic gospels as an examination of Jesus’ way of dealing with temptation and evil. President Bush is certainly welcome to read along.
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The Daily Guides for March are written by the Reverend Maria Shamaya Clemente, who has pastored two churches, hosted a cable TV show on healing, been a guest on numerous radio shows on healing, spirituality, meditation, and women’s issues, traveled as a public speaker and workshop facilitator, and has self-published two books and released two recordings of guided meditations. Currently, she is working as a traveling minister, sharing her message with the many peoples of the world. Her ministry, “Doorway Into The Infinite,” is based in Atlanta, Georgia, and is dedicated to the art of spiritual transformation through embracing the universal principles of spirituality and nonviolence.
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Until next week…….Shalom!