Heaven Above or Hell Below? You say...

Jan Hus Presbyterian Church and Neighborhood House

September 23, 2012
(c)2012 Ray Bagnuolo

pdf file
Readings: Psalm 1; Mark 9:30-37

On the eve of Yom Kippur...

One to two million tons of debris. That is the amount of debris that remains churning in the Pacific Ocean following the tsunami that hit Japan nearly 16 months ago. As recently as this week, the fifth piece of debris, a four by four foot plastic floating bin from one of the power plants arrived on the shore of Oahu. The rest is heading toward the shores of California, Oregon, Washington, Canada, Alaska, and elsewhere.

The good news is that only 1 to 5 percent of it all will ever reach our shores – the not so good news is that that will still account for up to 10,000 tons of debris.

Twenty or so billion pounds.

Try stopping that. Try stopping the massive destruction of any tsunami hitting a populated area. Think about just how powerless we are to so that. Natural disasters are only disasters to we humans and our possessions. To nature, well, they are just natural events – such as a gentle rainfall. For Nature, well – it’s all part of her nature.

Still, we humans do try to prepare for such events, we do all we can to protect ourselves and possessions with state of the art prediction and warning systems and models, programs, and advances in everything from architecture to evacuation techniques. We not only seek to prepare for the future – but to predict when the future preparations will be needed ---

All so we can survive. Or, control our survival. Which is sort of like controlling nature. A bit of insanity, some might say.
It’s not unlike the “soft” insanity we engage to distort the deeper reality of the loss of human life, the names and lives of those lost and those who care about them –by shifting the conversation to plastic bins and the debris of the tsunami –away from the people and the pain. We don’t like pain. It has become – as it always becomes what we do to try and distance ourselves from the reality of our humanity and mortality – a “numbers thing”: this many lives lost, this many plants destroyed; this amount of radiation let loose into the air; this amount of “debris” heading toward our shores. Numbers and distance.

Out of mind and sight. These are now events, out of the headlines, and about people and places, cultures and continents different and at a distance from ours. It might as well be another world, at times.

Some of the writing for this morning’s comments took place in a bit of another world, in the Apple Store in NYC, in the early morning community of the faithful, a 24 hour bazaar of techies, tech users, and tech wonderers. I did have a reason to be there, although I do admit that I sometimes go there for no reason, at all.

This time, I needed to get some functions on my phone updated and it was taking a while for everything to download. So I had an hour or so to wait and decided to do a little writing for this morning’s comments. It may seem strange to think about an Apple Store as being a place to write. Actually, aside from the hundreds of people floating about and the music that is just loud enough to be heard but not cover the sounds of voices, and the tables with no chairs – but hundreds of computers available for use, aside from all this an more – the energy and excitement can make it a fascinating place from which to write.

There were hundred of people milling about, in anticipation of something – an answer to a question? a revelation of how to use something? a discovery that would make lives more predictable and ultimately protected?

The words you hear most often strung together are: “Will it do this?” “Can it do this?” “Will I be able to do this?”

Will I be able to live forever?!

If such a thing is possible, surely it is in this place, amidst the blue-shirted Apple Geniuses and staff who are all around, each as different as the people who came to shop or wander. Glistening, gleaming steel and chrome highlighted designs, centering around a staircase that itself "centers up" from the selling floor to the world above on 5th Avenue.

Is it heaven below the surface and hell above – or is it the other way around.

Is it Dante’s Inferno, the Hotel California, Utopia – or just another store. No, really, its’ not just another store. J

And there is a calmness in the place, almost like the eerie calm that follows a storm – without the debris. No one is standing in shock in the Apple store, surprise, possibility, potential – yes; shock, destruction, debris - no.

But the absorption, the intensity, the “connection” is unmistakable and of the same root. Whether on the shore watching one’s live go out to sea only to become debris on another shore ---

Or whether leaning over the vista of gleaming technology and power about to be placed in your hand –

Both stir the human longing to find answers to questions such as of “Why?” “When?” “How?”

The problem with the longing, seeking answers to the longing – is that the answers are not externally based on a hard drive, operating system, or database. They are intrinsic questions about us, not what we can manipulate. Those are there, too, but these are the deeper ones. These are the questions internally woven into our DNA – these are the questions demanded by the Love that created us all and insists that Love be heard. Insists that God and Love be heard in our lives to know who we are and what we are called to do. It’s the connection. Not the Internet.

As I looked around the store, And, in this diverse place I ask myself the question...

So, pastor, what are you supposed to do? "What am I supposed to do here, below what may be heaven or hell or above what might be heaven or hell, on either surface -- what am I supposed to do to let everyone know how miniscule and unimportant the shifts in tectonic places or operating systems are compared to God's love and presence in our lives and the hopefulness and importance of serving one another to really know who you are and what your relationship with God calls you to do?

And the next question is one that refers to the inherent hubris in such a question: Who am I to think that any of these people need me -- or who am I to think that I know what any of these people need in their lives -- when there are times when I am not even sure what I need in mine?

There are times when I really do admire the courage of the street preachers. You know the ones. On the soap box, standing up in subways, calling people to God to repent. I wonder, “Am I supposed to do something like that here?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, Apple and tech lovers one and all, may I have your attention please…”

Then I shake my head.

Isn’t all of this in some way arrogant? To think that somehow I know what others need? Isn’t a little out of sorts to think that I (or any of us) can be first in leading others to heaven, fullness, completion, satisfaction, riches, --

Isn’t it sort of like being among the disciples in this morning’s readings, arguing about who will be first because they were the best of the disciples? Who will be #1?

It seems the desire for being number one in the first century already had its roots before we though we created the ad campaign or Sinatra sang the phrase…

And isn’t the message, the simple, humble, “unself” elevating command, the secret of living a faithful life as it always has been, as Jesus responded to the disciples jockeying for position:

If you wish to be first, you must be last. For it is in service to others, caring for other’s needs that the true heart and faithfulness are achieved. Be like the children, welcome them in my name (in words or in the quietness and actions of your heart) and you welcome the one who sent me. Welcome them and you welcome God. This is the message, the way, the path…

No matter what, love others; serve others. Even when the best you can do is to refrain from saying anything, letting go, forgiving from a distance…or being unsure of what to do. Love. Serve. Be still. And know God is.

So much of the confusion stems from the past; after what I have done how can it really be different; how can I be right with Go; maybe it’s just easier to speed up my wireless download speeds and hope for the best…

All kidding aside. What am I supposed to do? How do I get over the mistakes I’ve made, the times I’ve come up short, not taken the actions I’ve needed to help others or myself, been confused about when love and tough love are or aren’t, used the words I wished I hadn’t or kept silent the words I wished I had spoken…weren’t said.

On this eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the year for our Jewish sisters and brothers, the day on which Jews see themselves as closest to God and the quintessence of their own souls. Let us do the same.

Let us also pray the prayer of Yom Kippur asking for forgiveness and purification, being cleansed of our sins – those things that distance us from God.

Let us be like little children, washed of all we never needed to know or carry, and somehow let us be content with acceptance – acceptance of our limitations and the unlimited presence of God’s love in our lives.

Let us have no need to orchestrate events, but remember who the great conductor is and follow; listen as directed from the ancient and opening prayer of the Torah - Shema Ysrael

Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One

And as instructed by Jesus when questioned about what was the most important commandment of all:

To love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might and to love one another as you love yourselves.

And in so doing, in so remembering, we will know the one who has sent us all…and there’s a good chance that heaven or hell, tsunami or technology will not dissuade us from loving and serving one another – and for that being enough. Really enough. Welcoming the teachings of Jesus, being childlike, and, in so doing, welcoming the One who created us all. Could it really be that simple? Could it be? Could it?

You say…

Be a Pray-er and the world may become more of a prayer...

Jan Hus Presbyterian Church and Neighborhood House

July 22, 2012

Be a Pray-er

Sermon Notes - PDF File

© 2012 Ray Bagnuolo

Imagery is not always kind to the soul. Think about it, what could ever accurately reflect a soul, anyway?

Keeping up appearances, perceptions, to “show people” who you are, we are -- too often becomes a source of deception, instead. In the process, what is and is not real gets confused, lost, and blended in ways that can create the strangest of actions.

Aside from positive or negative campaigning, consider the way our nation receives the example of mental, spiritual, and physical help modeled by the presidential candidates.

As we approach the elections, the images of these folk will be even more carefully crafted than they have been, making it difficult to get to know people if all we watch or listen to are sound bites and commercials. And even if we do the work to research these folks more carefully – it’s hard to tell fact from fiction.

My comments today that flow from our gospel reading about Mark and are centered about rest and prayer, and how both are presented as a model or witness, if you like. Back to campaigning...

While prayer in this campaign seems to be more of a tag line “God Bless You! God Bless America! (forget the rest of the world) – a tag line that is generally accepted and being either a good thing or without any value as if everybody just sneezed!  – the image of rest produces an extreme response in the opposite direction. And play? Even worse.

You may remember the kerfuffle that Candidate Romney experienced over being seen jet- skiing with his wife; not a bad thing by any means – but considered a bad thing for a presidential candidate when the great majority of the country is under economic duress. It’s bad imagery.

Or remember the beer in the Rose Garde; the golf games; and such of the President.

These days, even the president, mindful of the images and their potential impact, canceled his annual vacation to Martha’s Vineyard, instead delivering a speech that forced him to address the dismal news of less than 80,000 new jobs being created in June.

What’s real what’s not. Please one side anger the other. Where are we supposed to go in our thinking, let alone our voting?

But really… When did family time or rest, within the budget you can afford, become a bad thing? When did it become something that came to mean being out of touch; a zealot; or just plain lazy?

It most likely has something to do with Americans wanting a “working president,” with few Americans really having any idea of what being the president entails  – and a sense of resentment by the many who have to work day in and day out – watching others who “seem to have it all;” as somehow better than they; seeming to have no idea of the extreme hardships of others - outside of sound-bites.

I guess we don’t want a president who looks like he or she is having fun – especially if we are having little fun. In fact, I think that is where the place of “anger” in these campaigns has found some of its footing. “How can they be enjoying themselves when we are so miserable?”

Or is it jealousy and greed, using the outsides of people and forgetting their insides. In the process we become superficial and caught up in the anger and the polarization and the nihilism, the sense that, well, everything is soon going to be shot to hell. And we all get angry!

Whatever it may be, it is unfair to expect presidents, presidential candidates, or any one of us to be a “working machine, living on the surface only, discounting time by looking for everything now – willing to trade down the future results of consistent, steady effort.

And the struggles and tragedies are real and daunting. The shooting in the theater in Colorado is real and, yes, somehow incrementally fostered by our society’s anger and divisions. Or so I think. And, we do have struggles and many of us do work more than one job to make ends meet, including the work to find a job or just get through a day.

Even so. Does that mean we don’t pray or rest? Is there any situation or condition that means we don’t rest? Meditate? Pray? I remember thinking as a kid that I had to be perfect in order to pray. Work hard to get to someplace where I could be “good.” As for rest, well it always seemed I had to do more or better, in work around home or studies in school.

With this in mind, the question for me today, from the fringes of Mark’s gospel, is “Am I a pray-er”?  Am I someone who rests, stops, prays, meditates – suspends, with practice – the noise around me. Drops below the surface, enters into the space that produces no products or calculable outcomes…but feeds me and guides me in who I really am in relation to God.

“Oh, I can’t stop! There’s too much to do!”

“I don’t have time to pray right now, maybe later.”
“I will be late…this is silly…I have too much on my mind…I am too worried.”
“I am too anxious to pray right now…”

Yet Paul in Philippians 4:6 says: “Do not be anxious about anything. Instead, tell your requests to God in your every prayer and petition—with thanksgiving.”

Pause. Rest. Pray. Listen. Be guided. Be thankful.

In today’s reading of Mark, the passage is a familiar one about the feeding of the 5,000. It is, in fact, where our offertory response comes from. That passage is so familiar, that it overshadows the parts before and after –

Just before,

• the disciples return from going out into the villages and communities spreading the Good News, returning they tell Jesus “all they had done and taught.” They had been working, cold-calling if you will – entering into places not always friendly, not always ready to listen and they had achieved some wondrous things. And Jesus’ first response according to Mark wasn’t “Great job!” It was compassion for these faithful disciples, whom he loved and who were exuberant and exhausted and Jesus says,
• “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves (away from the crowds) and rest a while.”

Take a break. You deserve it. You need it. There is more to do, but first, eat, rest, pray.

And still the crowds pursued them, so much so that by the time Jesus and the disciples got to the other side of the lake, the crowds had rushed there to be with them, in their presence. And Jesus had compassion on the lost souls and taught them, fed them, and in the end collected more food than they had started with, for the generosity of those present began to flow…and there was abundance for all.

And when they had finished, Jesus “immediately” made his disciples get into the boat and go on to the other side to Bethsaida to rest, while he remained with the crowds so that they could get away for a while.

There is an expression in 12 step meetings that hinges on the word “HALT.” It means that if you are starting to feel anxious, nervous, troubled, or tempted to do something you don’t want to do…stop. HALT! Get away from the situation for a minute or two and think about whether you are:

Hungry

Angry
Lonely or
Tired

Because one or more of those conditions can “change your thinking and behavior” just as they can impair your health, well-being, or interaction with others.

It seems Jesus knew this and part of his teachings, in fact much of his teachings intersect and interconnect with each of these time and again.

Eat. Rest. Pray. Listen. Be guided. Be with others in rest. Prayer. Compassion.

These things, too, are teachings of Jesus.

Above all, Jesus emphasized the personal aspect of prayer with God, so intimiately that he referred to God as Abba.

And he taught this to us.

When you pray, don’t pray in fancy, public ways for everyone to see. Pray behind closed doors to God: “do not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray while standing in synagogues and on street corners so that people can see them. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your God in secret. And God, who sees all in secret, will reward you.” Matthew 6: 1-4

In other words however you pray, however your prayer develops changes and grows, or even forms into moments and times of silence…it’s just fine.

In other words, public worship such as this brings us together and is important, just as the disciples came and rested and prayed together, but so too important is the quiet place between you and God, where we can be heard and listen and be guided. Refreshed, reconnected, and feel God’s love.

No showcases here. No carefully crafted images to spin opinion or perception. Just real, deep, uncertain -  Rest and Prayer. Prayer and Rest.

There will be plenty to do when done resting and praying, and the plenty will be better done once we are rested and filled with prayer.

Simply put: Be a pray-er and life will become ever nearer to being a prayer.

Amen.

Overture Advocates for the Marriage Amendment: Audio

7/2/12 - GA220 Overture Advocates on Marriage Amendment


Advocate               Start time
Scott Clark:           0:06
David Kingsley:      5:50
Myra Kazanjian:    10:04
Andrew Stehlik:     15:57
Lara Marsh:           20:20
Ray Bagnuolo:       24:12
End:       26:04

GA220: A Display of Rainbow Grace!

I know. We ended up this assembly with ANOTHER STUDY. True. But what continues to be most amazing about this assembly is not the outcome but the demonstration, the promise of what is to come.

Think about what happened here. We had a vice moderator who resigned because of pressure she received for marrying a lesbian couple. We cringed at how she was treated. And, at a meeting to process the swirl of rumor and fact that surrounded her stepping down, ministers stood up and identified themselves openly as having performed same gender weddings. Ruth Hamilton, David Ensign, Mieke Vandersall, and I made it clear that we, too, conducted and will continue to conduct these marriage in states where they are legal - as being faithful to our ordination vows.

Others will follow as we simply refuse to accept the injustice. More will come...

Rev. Ruth Hamilton, a commissioner to the GA from National Capital, in a powerful statement from the plenary floor called others to COME OUT and identify themselves, their churches, and councils as having been part of the growing number of ministers and churches marrying same gender couples.

Looking for prophetic voices?  We haven't heard anything yet!

I don't know if you remember, but to get someone to even whisper such things in the not too distant past was almost impossible except for a very few. And they often found themselves quickly charged. It seems such threats, whether based in polity or out of efforts at intimidation have lost their salt. 

And, consider that it was at the last assembly that we passed Amendment 10-A that is now ratified and in our Book of Order. We are now ordaining pastors who would have been kept out with G-6.0106b, just two years ago. And today, at the very next general assembly we are in the process of bringing marriage equality to a mainline protestant denomination - the PC(USA). 

Yes, we are behind...but we are catching up in a hurry.

I can't help think about how many years it took to get G-6.0106b out of the Book of Order.  

And marriage? 

Remember, it was at the last general assembly that a parliamentary procedure was used to prevent marriage from even being discussed. We never even got to talk about it, following the exceptional report compiled by the marriage committee. And this year we not only get the amendment to the floor of the presbytery, we come back and nearly pass an amendment to change the constitution to become more welcoming for same gender couples in marriage with a margin of less than 5% separating the voltes: 308 - 338! 

And! In the process of getting to this vote, the commissioners turned back two minority reports, did not limit debate, and dismissed a series of claims about whether or not the amendment was even in order. What followed was more than a four hour conversation on the lives of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender - those who love them, their pastors and families, and what this church is not doing to make us as welcome and safe as we all should be as baptized sisters and brothers. 

The evidence of grace is everywhere. I truly believe that every minute every single person who ever worked for justice and love in this church for the LGBT community is building to critical mass. Call it a crest, a tipping point, an emergence, or the Holy Spirit - it is happening and we have a terrific community building in numbers and strength to take us forward. Just take a look at the YAD's, TSAD's, and others - who even in disagreement came together. Courage, too, was on display.

Yes, there was some snarky stuff that happened, the comments that took the air out of the room, the extreme anger and ignorance that surfaced here and there, not to mention the treatment of the Tara and Neal. It was on display for more and more people to see just what we face all too often - and what no one should ever face in the church, any church, especially not this church.

I also have to mention the powerful sermons of The Rev. Dr. Margaret Aymer Oget and Elder Tony De La Rosa, with thanks to Cindy Bolbach for bringing their message to us all. My friend Joe Gilmore, the pastor of South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry, NY once told me that he often thought of God pacing the horizon, waiting, waiting for us to catch up. We're on our way God, on out way...and we've got a rainbow scarves around our necks, flowing in the wind!

I came here expecting to leave with it all. And, honestly, we will leave with more than we expected -- and work to do.

Thank you all for your hard work and faithfulness in staying true to this call. We have only just begun, and the clock to the 221st General Assembly has already started. 

In all the ways you may know God, give thanks - as I do for each and every one of you.

Ray

Elusive Courage: GA220 Presses Leadership

A disclaimer of sorts...

The caution in writing about things that are "observed" is that such perceptions fall short of knowing what actually caused the observable event.

Yesterday's resignation of the General Assembly's Vice Moderator the Rev. Tara Spuhler McCabe was seen by many. The events that led up her stepping down are known to a very few. I have no inside information, just an inside response. I have my observations and my perceptions based on what I saw and what I read. I have these reactions within the context of the last six days of being at GA, but in the end these comments are intuitive and subjective.

Tara's resignation is in the middle, in this sense: behind Tara is all that led to her decision. Before her are all of us receiving her choice. Her action most likely satisfies the desire of the General Assembly to conduct the business of the church decently and in order. In many ways, her resignation was a business decision, as well as a pastoral choice. I say this because within minutes she had resigned, the name of a new vice moderator was offered, and the assembly was back on track. That is until a commissioner stood and asked this Christian body, "What just happened here? Are there any feelings of compassion or the need for some of us shocked by this decision to have some voice, some discussion..." The answer to that was no, by a vote of 232-233-17. We needed to vote to talk to one another as part of the human and church story that had just been exploded upon us. Our own pastoral care toward one another had slipped away, for the moment. 


And some of us remained silent.

Remember I said this is about my perceptions, and to me, it appeared that the leadership of this church "for the good of the body" exerted its power to chill us all down so that we could move forward. For those observing, many believed this was a good thing. Others, like me, disagreed. And it seemed that the overnight hours produced reflection that prompted a set-aside of fifteen minutes after lunch today for a "speak out." We will see how that goes.

For now, though, I have two things on my mind that might be described as the difference between what I hope for and what has happened, so far.

And, here, another clarifier. These General Assemblies tend to intensify everything. Thousands brought together in limited spaces and times with packed agendas and work to be done. It is a time every two years when those seeking entrenchment or change sit across from one another, too often dig their feet in and argue with passion and little openness for compromise. Yes, all too familiar.

Yet there are also here the signs of remarkable change and movement. It is amazing, for example, that in our time we have stepped beyond the discriminatory boundaries on ordination for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) folk, and we now seek a constitutional change for marriage equality in the Presbyterian Church(USA). The cumulative effect of more than forty years of sacrifice and work by thousands to welcome folk who are LGBT into the leadership of the church has changed this church.

Considering all that has been reformed around welcoming the LGBT community, it is not surprising that there are forces in our church represented here that will attempt to roll back such changes. Where that is not possible, these forces will create an entrenched presence to stop the church from any further advance in welcoming our community.

In small spaces and with limited timeframes to influence outcomes, some segments of the opposition become over zealous. The "pushbacks" can become so hurtful, un-Christian, and so pernicious that they obscure the loving embrace of the great majority of this church. There is an incredible cloud of witnesses here, witnesses who, whether in agreement or disagreement, have not forgotten who we are, whose we are, and how we are called to love one another. This is not about us who are such witnesses.

This is about our work. It is in this space and time that we are called to serve. And it is not easy. And, courage is sometimes elusive. Yesterday's resignation of the vice moderator spoke volumes for me about the shortcomings of love, patience, and understanding in our leadership and the void in courage it created. In the vice moderator's statement of resignation, she stated that she did not want to become a distraction to the work of the church. I am of the opinion the the "distraction" and that which causes it is, in fact, the work of this assembly, this church, our communities, our country, and our world. Our great desire to be macro-oriented in the work of the church has had the creeping effect of dwindling us into a limited, brittle, and fractured institution attempting to control outcomes, confusing courage and acquiescence. Therein lies much of our decline. It is self-imposed.

The resignation of Tara McCabe Spuhler was not the outcome of disagreement in theology, polity implications, or pastoral care. She signed the marriage license for a same gender loving couple. We all knew that before the assembly and Tara addressed it directly in her comments in the nominating process. And we elected her and a moderator who disagreed with her action but respected her decision of conscience and pastoral care in the matter. As a diverse church, we embraced that tension in the shared leadership role of the the moderator and vice moderator. Many of us hoped it might reflect a model for how we could grow more united, even with our differences in many areas.

No, the resignation was the result of bullying and the decision of the leadership not to stand up to the bullies. We chose the order of the church and its business over one another. And no one on the leadership team stood to say, "No."


Martin Niemöller"s words come to mind: "First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I did not speak. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak for me." 


Seventeen abstentions did not speak...


I admit it. I have long hoped for leadership in our church made up of leaders who would stand and speak out against the bullying that has poisoned our process, even if it meant that their jobs were at risk. Yesterday, the opportunity to do so slipped away.

• I wonder what it might have been like yesterday if the moderator had said, "No." 
• I wonder what today might have been like had this church stood up against the forces that now pervade us, causing us to cower and cave. 
• I wonder what tomorrow and this witness might have been like for those who day in and out experience the impact of the bullies in our world.
• What might it have been like had this assembly stood up to our own bullies, even if our jobs were at risk.

It did cause at least one person their elected position. But more, it caused us to be seen as elevating bullies in the Church of Jesus Christ, instead of saying get thee behind us...


Yesterday proved how, once again, courage will always be elusive unless we have the courage to say, "No." Yesterday, those who bully - not all those who disagree and love one another - but those who bully won the day.


Perhaps had their actions been a table in a temple we would have overturned it. One can still hope.

Memorial Day 2012 - In my own words...

In my own words…

On May 29, 2009, Jan Hus Presbyterian Church gathered in worship to observe Memorial Day. In this bulletin, the readings have been taken from that day’s order of worship (during which they were read) for our own reflections over this Memorial Day 2012 weekend.

Today as then, in remembering those who have served this nation and are currently on active duty or in reserves, we also challenge the practice of war, it morality, effectiveness, and the remoteness that makes it too easy to forget. We see war as pandemic, its “easy access” too quickly ready to be used to resolve conflict. War is not a uniquely American phenomenon. It landed on our shores as the first inhabitants of the Americas once did; carrying forth traditions of violence we struggle to end today – once and for all.

Standing in opposition to war, recognizing the impact it has on all peoples and nations should never be an indictment of those who place themselves in danger for their country. Rather, we should see those in the armed forces as sacrificing for our inability to peacefully co-exist on this planet. 

Today, we honor and thank all those who have placed themselves in harm’s way as the result of our own shortcomings in making peace on this shared Earth. We pray and work and protest toward a time when their sacrifices will no longer be required. In the meantime, we thank and pray for them all, asking their forgiveness for us and our inability, as yet, to have found a better way. The best we can do to honor all those we remember, is to end war, once and for all, in their names and in the names of all who have loved them.  

~Ray Bagnuolo, Stated Supply Pastor;
Jan Hus Presbyterian Church and Neighborhood House; www.janhus.org