Isaiah 61:10 - 62:3
Luke 2:22-40
What will you be when you grow up?
It is a question we ask children the moment they begin school, and one we never fully answer. Visiting with a couple who had been married the better part of 55 years, she reported , and I am not done with him yet! It is a burden so severe, that a fifteen year old was heard tearfully explaining, but I don't know what I want to be, so how will I know what College to apply to.
To ease that burden, I would affirm that there are many days when I am not certain what I want to be when ever I finally grow up. The concept behind New Year's Resolutions, is that a whole new year is about to begin, rather than continuing bad habits, continuing for another year as we have been, consciously choose to start life differently. The point is not that New Year's Resolutions are easily broken, even if you fail ten times the first day; the point is that you have a fresh outlook a new goal and hope.
The great tragedy of Christmas, is how quickly we move back to our routine unchanged. As soon as the children came downstairs, we began taking down stockings, as gifts were unwrapped we gathered up the paper, and before kick-off the tree was undecorated, stripped bare and lying beside the road as rubbish. For over four weeks, in the longest darkest nights of the year, we waited and hoped for God to enter in, for Salvation, for God to change the world. And the miracle of Christmas is that God did! Almighty God, who taught spiders to crochet webs, planted the Red Woods, and furrowed the Grand Canyon, whose Finger prints upon Creation are known to us by the lakes right outside our door, and in the beauty of a newborn, God chose to be one with us, to live this life, vulnerable and humble, taking all of life in.
On Christmas Eve, we read the ancient story and imagined how the shepherds felt, having witnessed the Heavenly Host, an entire choir of Angels sharing good news, who then went to Bethlehem and saw what was described as the greatest miracle ever given, in a babe wrapped in swaddling rags, lying in a humble feed trough. ALL of which God did, the question of faith is what do you imagine was the response of people in the days that followed, what did they grow up to be? As shepherds who had seen this awesome wonderful sight, the gift of the Savior, the coming of the Messiah, would you go back to life unchanged? The Christmas story waiting to be told, is not how the Animals at the manger began to talk; not what rhythm and tune the Drummer boy would play for him; not even whether Joseph and the Shepherds built a snowman; or Santa and his reindeer visited the Christ-child; but rather what happened to those Shepherds, and to the Wise-men, after witnessing the birth of the Savior, what did they grow up to be?
From that day forward, all the most common of things, would not seem common to them. If a baby born in a stable of dung, and laid in the trough of cows and donkeys, could be the Anointed Messiah of God, then a Thunder storm and rain would be both God's washing the earth clean of soot and debry as well as planting the Creation with water. Winds that blow throughout the night, would be the Holy Spirit of God brooding over us, deciding how next to motivate and challenge and inspire. The death of loved ones would be seen as something natural and holy, helping us to realize how much we loved them, took them for granted, the true gifts they gave us in inspiration and kindness never boxed.
According to Luke, Mary and Joseph took the Baby to the Temple at Jerusalem that he might be circumcised. Luke serves a wonderful record that otherwise we might have lost, for no other evangelist names what took place. Ironically, parts of the Church, overtime, particularly in the last three decades has been identified with politics and moral conservative-ism; yet what the community rarely addresses are harder topics to discuss of sexual taboos and intimacy, of money and death. This brief section of Luke names all three, though we might easily have missed it. My mother describes that things are far more blatant today; in years gone by, Paul Henried lit two cigarettes and gave one to Betty Davis, and you knew what had taken place. Heathcliff came into the Bridal Chamber, the curtains blew apart with a storm and below the waves crashed upon the rocks, and your mind filled in the rest.
According to the Covenant of Abraham and the Law of Moses, as a male 8 days old, Jesus would be circumcised, to be set apart. And the parents were to offer two sacrifices. First, the sacrifice of a turtle dove, a love bird, for Mary's virginity, that no longer was she a child, having given birth regardless of her age, she was a woman. What a powerful teaching moment. Christmas is far more than a holiday for very little children. Christmas is a time for all of us as families, to talk about life's changes and our family's customs. To talk with Adolescents, as well as Aging Parents, and to mark the changes in this family relationship with a Sacrifice, as something holy. I am not talking about sacrificing Parakeets on the second of the 12 days of Christmas! But giving a gift to Vera House for protection against Domestic Violence. Making a commitment to serve as an adult advisor on Youth Mission Trips, or the Collective's Open Mic Nights, or visiting at the VA Hospital or Van Duyn.
Second in this story from Luke, is recalling the sacrifice of Isaac, as well as the sacrifice of Moses for all the firstborn of Egypt, there was to be lamb, yet if the mother were poor a second turtle dove could be offered. According to Jerome in the Early Church, it was a powerful symbol to the world, that the Mother of Jesus, who was to be called The Lamb of God, was as poor as any common person, and as she offered the offering of the poor for the firstborn so could everyone. When a child is born in our families, life changes, and we need to begin even as young as 8 days old with College Savings Plans, and reading to our children, and changing our schedules/our very lives for their needs.
Third, that we would listen to the voices of our elders. Simeon and Anna each offer wisdom, of what they have been waiting for in life, what the birth of a child, this child means, not only to Simeon and Anna, but to the whole human race and especially to the child's parents. Recently, my father phoned, which inspired what I think is one of our finest Christmas presents. He said, “You know, I have been thinking, and the thing I hope I am remembered for, more than anything else, is having read to your children when they were very small.” At one time, 20 years ago, he had read into a tape recorder Kipling's “The Just So Stories” and Dr. Suess's “Bartholomew and the Ooblick”, which they treasured because different from Mom and Dad, tis was their grandfather reading to them. So we sent him a new Tape recorder and several blank tapes, asking that as he had learned as a child to memorize poems of Browning, Dickinson, Cummings and Longfellow, that he might recite these anew for us.
Salvation comes in many ways, perhaps different for us as children imagining being all grown up, than for adults imagining what may yet be. But the vital element of faith, is not only knowing God and what God might do in our lives, but imagining what we might become because we have seen and believed.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Dec 21, 2008 Not What the Country Can Do, But What Can Make of You
This week waiting outside the Montessori Nursery School an older brother was heard complaining to his mother, “But why should we go to the Mall to see a Store Santa, when we could go upstairs to the Church and tell God what we want, and God could tell the Real Santa for us?” Our traditions and customs fulfill what we want to do, and occasionally point up what God might being doing with and trough us.
Forty-eight years ago, in January 1961 a young President-elect was sworn into office promising the end of one era and the beginning of a new, pledging renewal and change. He ended that Inaugural Address, with the immortal charge “Think Not what the country can do for you, but what you can do.” Rereading these words, half a century later, we cannot ignore the planting of seeds of the Cold-War, and those of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Hopes for a United Nations and for the end of All war. In so many ways, that time resonates with our own, as well as with the time centuries before, when David sat on the throne of Israel, an era at the end of many bloody wars and terrorist acts, when the nation had known affluence and dared dream of something more. Different in the time of King David and Mary and JFK from our own, there once was a parity, an intrinsic bond between the individual and Nation, the individual and all humanity. As Mary receives the gift and responsibility of being the Mother to God, she does not dwell on what she will accomplish, how she will be immortalized, but on what God is using her to do for all humanity.
Recorded in 2nd Samuel is a Bold statement of Covenant Commitment.
To Abraham and Sarah, God had pledged that IF they were faithful, God would provide them a land, a name and future generations. To Moses, God had committed that IF the people would keep God's Commandments, God would continue to save and to protect. Consistently, there was this IF/THEN clause; and God's covenant had been to each as individuals. Suddenly with David there is a change, a commitment still awaited to this day, that NEVERTHELESS God would be faithful, humanity would sin and God would rebuke but the IF/THEN is changed to a never-ending statement that God would be present. The first word to Mary from the Angel is FEAR NOT GOD IS WITH YOU.
Faith is not the guarantee of a life without pain and suffering. Faith is not permission that you will always be forgiven, as if sin and harm we do did not matter. Faith is the covenant that NO MATTER what we do, no matter where we go, we are never alone, God is with us. We cannot pray that Grandma's hip will miraculously heal, that would be magic or at least wish fulfillment. Too often people have heaped guilt on themselves and one another, that if only they had believed more or better, or been part of the right church, they could change the outcome. We cannot pray that our Mother will never die. But we can believe that even when hips are broken, when strokes occur, our loved ones, are not alone, and neither are those who sit in the hospital and wait.
There are times when our celebrations and traditions are misappropriated. This weekend, we celebrated two weddings. In the one a teen-aged granddaughter left the reception and came into the Sanctuary quietly crying. She described that she felt more comfortable dressed as a man, acting like a man, than as a woman. Yet hearing these vows of marriage, in her grandmother's second marriage, she wondered if she would ever find anyone, if she were to be all alone. Why had God made her like this?
In the other wedding, a Bridesmaid sought me out afterward to confess that while only married three years, she and her husband were in the midst of divorce, and hearing the vows was painful.
More even than a statement of commitment, the passages we read this morning are sacred vows, that God will USE us for God's purposes. What a different orientation that would be for us.
As described in the Call to Prayer, instead of Reacting: It is time for this, do it. Instead of following directions and being assured of the outcome.
Instead of searching for what we want, or what will please others.
If we prayed for an absence of distraction, not needing to please authorities or our own desires. Rather than questioning what do you want for Christmas, what would make you happy, how much will it cost, even the noble prayer that what we want for Christmas is Peace on Earth, what if God were to re-orient our lives to What are we doing to bring peace on earth? the question How is God using you? How can we work to fulfill God's design? What are you being transformed to be?
What if, instead of questioning What we wanted the Government to do for us, what we wanted bailed out, or what we wanted to do; if we questioned, how is God using us?
There is a beautiful symmetry to the Annunciation of Mary and her singing the Magnificat, to all that has gone before in Scripture. Elizabeth and Mary are unlikely mothers, one beyond the age, and one far too young. Pregnant at the same time, the infants within them are like twins, reminiscent of an earlier set of twins in the Old Testament. But instead of wrestling in the womb for dominance, this elder one leaps for joy at the coming of the younger.
Different from philosophies or theories of the reason for our existence, Christianity is historically bound in the life and death and resurrection of a very real family. This is not a set of laws to follow, or beliefs to memorize, even to understand. This is an historic reality. That God demonstrated for us a Complete Revelation, throughout one human life, of what it is to live as we believe, to live our commitments, to struggle to follow the covenant.
Forty-eight years ago, in January 1961 a young President-elect was sworn into office promising the end of one era and the beginning of a new, pledging renewal and change. He ended that Inaugural Address, with the immortal charge “Think Not what the country can do for you, but what you can do.” Rereading these words, half a century later, we cannot ignore the planting of seeds of the Cold-War, and those of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Hopes for a United Nations and for the end of All war. In so many ways, that time resonates with our own, as well as with the time centuries before, when David sat on the throne of Israel, an era at the end of many bloody wars and terrorist acts, when the nation had known affluence and dared dream of something more. Different in the time of King David and Mary and JFK from our own, there once was a parity, an intrinsic bond between the individual and Nation, the individual and all humanity. As Mary receives the gift and responsibility of being the Mother to God, she does not dwell on what she will accomplish, how she will be immortalized, but on what God is using her to do for all humanity.
Recorded in 2nd Samuel is a Bold statement of Covenant Commitment.
To Abraham and Sarah, God had pledged that IF they were faithful, God would provide them a land, a name and future generations. To Moses, God had committed that IF the people would keep God's Commandments, God would continue to save and to protect. Consistently, there was this IF/THEN clause; and God's covenant had been to each as individuals. Suddenly with David there is a change, a commitment still awaited to this day, that NEVERTHELESS God would be faithful, humanity would sin and God would rebuke but the IF/THEN is changed to a never-ending statement that God would be present. The first word to Mary from the Angel is FEAR NOT GOD IS WITH YOU.
Faith is not the guarantee of a life without pain and suffering. Faith is not permission that you will always be forgiven, as if sin and harm we do did not matter. Faith is the covenant that NO MATTER what we do, no matter where we go, we are never alone, God is with us. We cannot pray that Grandma's hip will miraculously heal, that would be magic or at least wish fulfillment. Too often people have heaped guilt on themselves and one another, that if only they had believed more or better, or been part of the right church, they could change the outcome. We cannot pray that our Mother will never die. But we can believe that even when hips are broken, when strokes occur, our loved ones, are not alone, and neither are those who sit in the hospital and wait.
There are times when our celebrations and traditions are misappropriated. This weekend, we celebrated two weddings. In the one a teen-aged granddaughter left the reception and came into the Sanctuary quietly crying. She described that she felt more comfortable dressed as a man, acting like a man, than as a woman. Yet hearing these vows of marriage, in her grandmother's second marriage, she wondered if she would ever find anyone, if she were to be all alone. Why had God made her like this?
In the other wedding, a Bridesmaid sought me out afterward to confess that while only married three years, she and her husband were in the midst of divorce, and hearing the vows was painful.
More even than a statement of commitment, the passages we read this morning are sacred vows, that God will USE us for God's purposes. What a different orientation that would be for us.
As described in the Call to Prayer, instead of Reacting: It is time for this, do it. Instead of following directions and being assured of the outcome.
Instead of searching for what we want, or what will please others.
If we prayed for an absence of distraction, not needing to please authorities or our own desires. Rather than questioning what do you want for Christmas, what would make you happy, how much will it cost, even the noble prayer that what we want for Christmas is Peace on Earth, what if God were to re-orient our lives to What are we doing to bring peace on earth? the question How is God using you? How can we work to fulfill God's design? What are you being transformed to be?
What if, instead of questioning What we wanted the Government to do for us, what we wanted bailed out, or what we wanted to do; if we questioned, how is God using us?
There is a beautiful symmetry to the Annunciation of Mary and her singing the Magnificat, to all that has gone before in Scripture. Elizabeth and Mary are unlikely mothers, one beyond the age, and one far too young. Pregnant at the same time, the infants within them are like twins, reminiscent of an earlier set of twins in the Old Testament. But instead of wrestling in the womb for dominance, this elder one leaps for joy at the coming of the younger.
Different from philosophies or theories of the reason for our existence, Christianity is historically bound in the life and death and resurrection of a very real family. This is not a set of laws to follow, or beliefs to memorize, even to understand. This is an historic reality. That God demonstrated for us a Complete Revelation, throughout one human life, of what it is to live as we believe, to live our commitments, to struggle to follow the covenant.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Comforting the Challenged and Challenging our Comfort
Isaiah 40: 1-11
Mark 1:1-11
This morning, we focus on Advent in a different way, a new beginning, a new center.
A Century and a half ago, America went through radical change. There was a rapid increase in the number of new settlers, there had been famine, draught, economic collapse across the developed world and the Midwestern Frontier was opened for expansion. Settlers raced across the face of the countryside, as if devouring the unspoiled wilderness, they had never seen such natural resources. They fished indiscriminately, they chopped down trees for being the closest rather than being deadwood. They killed what they did not know. They shot buffalo for sport. They herded the indigenous people, as if animals, to be bought and sold, abused. A Great Cheyenne Chief was asked by his Tribe “Why are they doing this?” He is recorded as saying, “This is a people who have lost their way, lost Center, they no longer know what provides balance, meaning, what is needed or what is evil. They kill and hurt and destroy, because they are off-center.”
Advent is a time of “Preparing the Way of the Lord”. Different from the Season of LENT which is 40 Days of Fasting and Prayer and Reflection; Advent is the wisdom of knowing God is sending “Innocence into the world”, God is offering Grace. Lent is sacrificial because we know we crucified him, humanity made the Son of God suffer and die. Humanity was wrong, in Lent we pray for forgiveness. But Christmas, Christmas is God's choice to enter in, not based on anything we have done, or have avoided doing, but simply because God loves us. Advent then, is our attempt to re-Center, to confess brokenness and hope to begin afresh. We prepare so we do not miss Christ's coming.
Friday evening at the Community-wide blessing of the Creche, we described that each of the Four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John begin differently, telling a different story. John begins at Creation itself, poetically, symbolically reading back into the Creation. Matthew begins at the Genealogy fulfilling each of the Covenants of Abraham, David, the return from Exile in the reality of Jesus. Matthew and Luke both begin with the Birth, the infancy of this most human child. Mark begins differently.
Friday night we had a Biblical Storyteller, who recited The Gospel of Mark. This is NOT a history of Jesus, or the meaning of that history, or the meaning of all history, this is, this is the Beginning of the Gospel, the Salvation of the world, not as an abstract theoretical event to be taught and learned. His presentation was avant-gar-de, this ordained minister was stepping over the pews, getting in our face, allowing us to hear the Gospel not as a 2000 year old text, but as real words of real people encountering Christ in their lives.
Salvation is experienced, lived and felt as something far more than going through the motions of life. As the Poet Laureate Billy Collins described in this morning's Call to Worship, Salvation is more than SEEING where a fictional character tells you to LOOK, Salvation is pointed to in the Word: BEHOLD! So often we see and respond, we recognize and react. Life has become a Race, where the quickest to the answer regardless of the MEANS, wins; and everything seems to be about winning, having the most, the fastest, the biggest and flatest, the most miniaturized.
We have routinely confused Theology with Politics, pushing one agenda, liberal or conservative to declare our intent as God's Will. The Gospel is different because this is not about Theology, but about Christology, recognizing and seeing more than the Created Order, Choosing to enter in, because of Justice responding to Evil; or Love for the Lost. Christology is The Centering of humanity, more than a reactionary response of Fight of Flight, to stand with those who are impoverished, alone, victimized, because Communion with one another is Righteous. To Love and act with Compassion for those who are lost.
Years ago, there was a woman who came as a visitor and sat among us. By the second week we had learned her name. By the third we were inviting her to consider claiming this church as her own. She declined but continued to participate, to be part of the communion, to listen, to pray, and to sing. One morning she looked horrible, and she named she had had a recurrence of Cancer. We would go and sit together while she had her treatments, driving slowly on the way home, so we could pull off when she needed to. Then one day she decided she did not want the treatments anymore. She continued to worship, then because of her body's schedule she shifted from Sunday morning to taking a Bulletin and sitting in the Sanctuary whenever she was able. We tried to call, but she did not answer. After a few months, someone called the Church one afternoon. They identified themselves as her sister. She had had a falling out with the family several years before, and they had lost all contact. Then, a call her sister had died. She was cleaning the apartment, and found a whole stack of Church Bulletins, worn from being held tightly, read over several times, tied with a ribbon to a Bible. The sister was in shock, saying “I didn't think my sister believed in God, and here after she is dead and buried, I learn she has been part of a church?” We shared what we knew, and her sister said “Thank you. Thank you for being there when/and/as my sister needed. You helped her find peace, when we were at war with each other. You helped her find God.”
The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in Mark, begins with this private conversation between God and Christ: BEHOLD! See, I am sending my messenger before your face, to prepare a way for you. Like John the Baptist, our role at Advent is to Prepare The Way for Christ in the World by Challenging our Comforts and Comforting those who are Challenged.
These words from the Prophet often called II Isaiah, are strange to us. Seeming to have come from a different time and place. “Comfort, O Comfort my People says your God” is dissonant with a people who have so much. In 2005, when I went to South Sudan for the first time, Isaiah 40 is the passage we read in worship on Sunday morning. The 25 year long civil war had just barely ended. As people gathered at the church, from out of mud huts and steel box cars, they lay their rifles near but outside the place of worship. And we named that universally, they described themselves as the Suffering People of God, yet for their sons and daughters who were refugees in America, this place infested with flies and mosquitos, malaria heat of 120 degrees and rain for nine months was Home, with all that Home means. But whether to that people or our own, the centering-gospel comes through: All Flesh is grass, the grass withers the flower fades, but the Love of God endures for ever.
Mark 1:1-11
This morning, we focus on Advent in a different way, a new beginning, a new center.
A Century and a half ago, America went through radical change. There was a rapid increase in the number of new settlers, there had been famine, draught, economic collapse across the developed world and the Midwestern Frontier was opened for expansion. Settlers raced across the face of the countryside, as if devouring the unspoiled wilderness, they had never seen such natural resources. They fished indiscriminately, they chopped down trees for being the closest rather than being deadwood. They killed what they did not know. They shot buffalo for sport. They herded the indigenous people, as if animals, to be bought and sold, abused. A Great Cheyenne Chief was asked by his Tribe “Why are they doing this?” He is recorded as saying, “This is a people who have lost their way, lost Center, they no longer know what provides balance, meaning, what is needed or what is evil. They kill and hurt and destroy, because they are off-center.”
Advent is a time of “Preparing the Way of the Lord”. Different from the Season of LENT which is 40 Days of Fasting and Prayer and Reflection; Advent is the wisdom of knowing God is sending “Innocence into the world”, God is offering Grace. Lent is sacrificial because we know we crucified him, humanity made the Son of God suffer and die. Humanity was wrong, in Lent we pray for forgiveness. But Christmas, Christmas is God's choice to enter in, not based on anything we have done, or have avoided doing, but simply because God loves us. Advent then, is our attempt to re-Center, to confess brokenness and hope to begin afresh. We prepare so we do not miss Christ's coming.
Friday evening at the Community-wide blessing of the Creche, we described that each of the Four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John begin differently, telling a different story. John begins at Creation itself, poetically, symbolically reading back into the Creation. Matthew begins at the Genealogy fulfilling each of the Covenants of Abraham, David, the return from Exile in the reality of Jesus. Matthew and Luke both begin with the Birth, the infancy of this most human child. Mark begins differently.
Friday night we had a Biblical Storyteller, who recited The Gospel of Mark. This is NOT a history of Jesus, or the meaning of that history, or the meaning of all history, this is, this is the Beginning of the Gospel, the Salvation of the world, not as an abstract theoretical event to be taught and learned. His presentation was avant-gar-de, this ordained minister was stepping over the pews, getting in our face, allowing us to hear the Gospel not as a 2000 year old text, but as real words of real people encountering Christ in their lives.
Salvation is experienced, lived and felt as something far more than going through the motions of life. As the Poet Laureate Billy Collins described in this morning's Call to Worship, Salvation is more than SEEING where a fictional character tells you to LOOK, Salvation is pointed to in the Word: BEHOLD! So often we see and respond, we recognize and react. Life has become a Race, where the quickest to the answer regardless of the MEANS, wins; and everything seems to be about winning, having the most, the fastest, the biggest and flatest, the most miniaturized.
We have routinely confused Theology with Politics, pushing one agenda, liberal or conservative to declare our intent as God's Will. The Gospel is different because this is not about Theology, but about Christology, recognizing and seeing more than the Created Order, Choosing to enter in, because of Justice responding to Evil; or Love for the Lost. Christology is The Centering of humanity, more than a reactionary response of Fight of Flight, to stand with those who are impoverished, alone, victimized, because Communion with one another is Righteous. To Love and act with Compassion for those who are lost.
Years ago, there was a woman who came as a visitor and sat among us. By the second week we had learned her name. By the third we were inviting her to consider claiming this church as her own. She declined but continued to participate, to be part of the communion, to listen, to pray, and to sing. One morning she looked horrible, and she named she had had a recurrence of Cancer. We would go and sit together while she had her treatments, driving slowly on the way home, so we could pull off when she needed to. Then one day she decided she did not want the treatments anymore. She continued to worship, then because of her body's schedule she shifted from Sunday morning to taking a Bulletin and sitting in the Sanctuary whenever she was able. We tried to call, but she did not answer. After a few months, someone called the Church one afternoon. They identified themselves as her sister. She had had a falling out with the family several years before, and they had lost all contact. Then, a call her sister had died. She was cleaning the apartment, and found a whole stack of Church Bulletins, worn from being held tightly, read over several times, tied with a ribbon to a Bible. The sister was in shock, saying “I didn't think my sister believed in God, and here after she is dead and buried, I learn she has been part of a church?” We shared what we knew, and her sister said “Thank you. Thank you for being there when/and/as my sister needed. You helped her find peace, when we were at war with each other. You helped her find God.”
The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in Mark, begins with this private conversation between God and Christ: BEHOLD! See, I am sending my messenger before your face, to prepare a way for you. Like John the Baptist, our role at Advent is to Prepare The Way for Christ in the World by Challenging our Comforts and Comforting those who are Challenged.
These words from the Prophet often called II Isaiah, are strange to us. Seeming to have come from a different time and place. “Comfort, O Comfort my People says your God” is dissonant with a people who have so much. In 2005, when I went to South Sudan for the first time, Isaiah 40 is the passage we read in worship on Sunday morning. The 25 year long civil war had just barely ended. As people gathered at the church, from out of mud huts and steel box cars, they lay their rifles near but outside the place of worship. And we named that universally, they described themselves as the Suffering People of God, yet for their sons and daughters who were refugees in America, this place infested with flies and mosquitos, malaria heat of 120 degrees and rain for nine months was Home, with all that Home means. But whether to that people or our own, the centering-gospel comes through: All Flesh is grass, the grass withers the flower fades, but the Love of God endures for ever.
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