Getting God Into Our Schools

This has been an issue for virtually my entire life. And I'm tired of it.

A quick review - in 1963 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the subject of school prayer in Abington Township School District v. Schempp . This was actually the SECOND case dealing with the issue (the first was Engel v. Vitale). Schempp very clearly states that teachers and administrators can neither promote nor disparage religion. This means they can't lead a prayer, recommend a prayer to be used or tell students they can't or shouldn't pray. That's it. The rulings were made to maintain a clear division between state (the school) and religion, a view consistent with the Supreme Court's long standing interpretation of the Constitution. The ruling was specific in noting that there was NO intent to bar the discussion of religion as a historical force. In fact Justice Tom Clark wrote:

“It might well be said that one’s education is not complete without a study of comparative religion or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilization … . Nothing we have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, may not be effected consistently with the First Amendment.”

And since then virtually no one has bothered to pay attention to what the Court was actually saying or trying to do.

I see on Facebook the latest "backlash" attempt. A group dedicated to putting "God Back in School". Different versions of this have been floating around for decades.

So here's my two cents:

I don't know whose God it is that's being kept out of school but it ain't mine. There are no nine men and/or women in the history of the world who can block my God from going where he will. If your God can be barred from any where by a court decision might I suggest you follow a pretty puny God.

There is now and always has been a lot of praying going on in school. Some of it is quite pious and some of it is just panic. In my time I did a bit of both. Today there is plenty of praying going on in groups led by students. They can get together during lunch time or before or after school and pray and read the Bible or whatever they feel called to do. All perfectly legal and above board. The Supreme Court does not now, nor did it ever have a problem with this. Those are the clear and simple facts.

What this is really about are people who want to see religion (more specifically their idea of religion) institutionalized in our culture. They want to do that by getting their understanding imprinted on all children as soon as possible. Apparently they don't trust the children's parents to raise their children properly or their churches to instruct them properly in religious matters. They want the school to do it.

And that's stupid for a whole raft of reasons.

If my child doesn't have God in her life when she walks through the school doors how is saying some generic prayer at the start of classes going to help? If she DOES have God in her life then what value is there in a generic prayer that she's required to say/hear? I want the schools to spend their time doing what they need to do - teaching math, history, science, language, literature, music, art and the like. I want parents to teach their children morality and faith. I want the church to model what a faith based community looks like and acts like because that will encourage our young people to want to join one. Rather than have someone else's faith forced them.

So to the well meaning people who are passing around this latest version of "Getting God Back into School" I say this: Take another look at what the Court actually said and what you actually believe. Can your God REALLY be kept out of school? Is school prayer really the most important issue facing our families, our youth and our faith?

I've done my analysis on the subject and I'm not wasting any more time on it. God is where God needs to be. Always and everywhere. I've got more important things to worry about.

Peace
JP

Resource Review - Sacred Space

(This is part of a year long series of resource reviews I've been doing. 52 resources in 52 weeks. You can see all the reviews in one place here)

OVERALL - Sacred Space - More faith and worship oriented resources. Sacred Space is a work of the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus. It originated in the offices of the Jesuit Communication Centre in Ireland in 1999. Being a ministry of the Irish Jesuits, it is inspired by the spirituality of Saint Ignatius of Loyola (Ignatian spirituality)

WHAT'S IT ABOUT? How about 10 minutes out of your day for some peace and quiet? How about 10 minutes out of your day to spend with God? Sacred Space will walk you through a short Scripture reading and offer questions and ideas to think and pray about. A great quiet break for in a day. They even offer a stripped down version for use on mobile devices.

RESERVATIONS Great quality stuff (it is the Jesuits after all) but again very little interactivity, pretty straight forward stuff. I can't help thinking that a little music might be an improvement.

RECOMMENDATION A great place for someone looking for quiet time, or for someone who is more comfortable looking to go a little deeper.

Resource Review - Daily Office from St. Clare's Mission

OVERALL - Daily Office from the Mission of St. Clare - Thought it was time to add some more faith and worship oriented resources. Mission of St. Clare offers a chance to pray the Daily Office plus has resources for Compline, Noonday plus the Prayers for Individuals and Families.

WHAT'S IT ABOUT? Just as described. If you're looking for a place for you or your youth to worship online this is a great resource. Music is included in the service when appropriate and can be played from your computer. It includes the appropriate readings for the day so you don't have to go looking for them. Everything you need all in one place.

RESERVATIONS This is very traditional Episcopal worship and so is the music. This will work for some adults (and surprisingly to some of us, for some youth as well) but not for everyone. It IS one of the most comprehensive personal, Episcopal worship sites but it's not very interactive or contemporary.

RECOMMENDATION For someone looking for straight ahead BCP worship this place is great.

Christianity - FAIL!

I try to avoid politics here. What follows is not a political post but a theological one.

There are lots of folks who disagree with me on a variety of points. I'm friends with a fair number of them. So what follows is not in any way shape or form about the politics of the story.

You can dislike President Obama.
You can disagree with every single one of his positions and policies.
You can believe that the United States is in serious trouble because he was elected.

No this is about the theology of the following story. I have no trouble climbing out on theological limbs and staking my claim. You may still disagree with me, that's fine but this is a theological argument.

Pastor Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe Arizona has publicly stated (and reiterated the statement in subsequent interviews) that he prays that the President die of a brain tumor and go to hell. You can find a summary of the story here from Fox News (don't want anyone to accuse me of relying on the "liberal" media here). He prays for another man to die, for God to kill him (relying on David calling for the same kind of thing in some of the Psalms). He prays that another man be separated from the presence of the Holy for all eternity.

And he claims he's a Christian.

The kids have a word for a situation like this - FAIL.

How does a follower of Jesus justify this kind of thing coming out of their mouth in light of the teachings about loving one another, about forgiveness, about turning a cheek to someone who wrongs us? How do you hold such a point of view in light of Christ's own command to love each other as he loved us, a love expressed by asking the Father to forgive us as nails were driven through his flesh?

We are called to follow in Christ's footsteps. So if he was willing to forgo the chance to pray for his tormentors to be sent to Hell how can we turn around and do otherwise? As Christians are we not called upon by our faith to pray for the healing of those we believe to be broken? Must we not pray for God to save these people?

If Pastor Anderson's theology has room to pray for the death and damnation of specific people I am hard pressed to explain how it remains Christian.

It is certainly NOT the Christianity that I practice or that I find in my reading of the Gospels. Pastor Anderson can dislike the President all he wants. When he tries to cloak this kind of stuff in theological clothes he needs to be called on it.

I will pray for God to open the Pastor's heart and mind to understand his brokenness and the disservice he does to the Good News. No matter how much his words may irritate or anger us THAT would be the proper, faithful, Spirit filled response.

Peace

Prayers for children?

H/T to the folks at Youth Specialties for pointing this one out.

What might children hear in a bedtime prayer?
This is from comedian Tim Hawkins


Peace

Words Along the Way - Prayer (Part 2)

Last time I talked about prayer. After I'd posted I realized I'd done something dumb. It's the kind of thing adults do with youth all the time and the kind of thing church people do to non-church people.

I'd talked about the "How" of prayer before I'd talked about the "Why". If you don't have any reason why to do it why would you care how to do it?

The real problem is that for those of us who already are working on it the why usually boils down to "Well, because you have to/are supposed to/that's the way we've always done/stop pestering me with these questions!" It's simply such a part of who we are we don't think about it much any more.

But that's no excuse and not much help to you if you're not sure about this whole prayer thing. I've got to admit from the outside the whole "I'm talking to God" thing seems a lot like the character in the movie "Harvey" who talks with a six foot tall invisible rabbit. It certainly looks like someone needs their screws tightened.

So why pray?

Hmm, theological answers first. Because God has been pretty clear he wants us to and Jesus did. If it was good enough for the Big JC it's good enough for me.

Not good enough for you? OK.

Because it helps us look a little deeper, to think things out, to take burdens that just feel too damn big to carry and hand them over for a little while. When I'm praying (and you'll recall from last time that my prayer style is, shall we say, casual)I'm placing my thoughts into a holy place. I'm amazed at how much different they often look in the light of that place. Don't worry if you're not sure you've got the "holy place" stuff down perfect. It isn't necessary. God will work with you wherever you are. As with any conversation it's very important to listen. As much to yourself as for God (for the record I've never had God speak in words to me. But I have gotten some very clear communications from the Big Fella. I'm not sure how to explain what that means. It's one of those you'll know it when you get there things. No special effects, flashes of lightning. Just knowing.) Some of my best prayer moments is when God just kind of reruns what I just said and I go "Umm, wow. That was really stupid. Let me keep working on that one"

Why do I pray? Because it comforts me. It teaches me. It consoles me. It gave me courage one night driving through a blizzard all by myself out in the middle of nowhere. It's given me strength at times when I was pretty sure I was empty. Prayer has been a time to vent, to just really give God a piece of my mind. And that kept me from turning that on someone who couldn't handle it or didn't deserve it.

I pray because it makes me feel closer to God.

You'll need to find your own personal "why". You may want to experiment with someone else's "why" but don't let anyone force you into one particular "why" or another. Find the one that works for you.

God will be happy to hear from you, no matter what.

Peace

Words Along the Way - Prayer

I find it interesting that very often we Episcopalians have trouble when we're asked to pray off the top of our heads. I've heard lots of reasons but I think there are two that cover most of the problem.

First, we are children of the BOOK (the Book of Common Prayer that is). While the BCP is one of our greatest resources and additions to the larger church I think it's made us think that prayer is always a formal, planned activity that only uses a certain kind of language. This is quite simply wrong. Yes the BCP gives us a wonderful collection of beautifully written prayers for virtually any situation. (As examples, just skimming quickly I found prayers for your school, rain, young people, our enemies, for VACATION!!!,two for birthdays and no less than five graces for meal time) The problem is that with such a great wealth of ready to use prayers we don't get much practice just making them up as we go.

Which brings me to the second point. I'm not sure we get enough practice away from church time and the BCP. Because of this mindset that prayer needs to be formal and in the "right" form we haven't ever explored anything else. You just need more practice.

So don't worry about the words. They aren't important. In fact we recognize at least one form of prayer that doesn't require words at all. (Did you know that the catechism in the BCP lists 7 principal kinds of prayer?)

An exercise I use to help "loosen" people up about prayer is called the "Hey God". A lot of young folks will greet one another with the word "Hey". So start your prayers the same way you'd start a conversation with a friend. Then just keep on rolling. Yeah, prayer is a form of just talking with God. As time goes on you may find you'd like to use some of the more formal versions too. Great.

So just relax and find your own way to talk with God. He'll be good with it, no matter what. You should see how some people have spoken to him in the Bible!

So let us pray.

Hey, God. There's a lotta folks down here who feel kind of uneasy about starting the conversation with you. Please help ease their way into those first couple with you. Bring them the peace and joy that our conversations bring to me. And later on, I've got a couple other things I need to talk with you about. Ok? Cool. Amen.

Till the next time,

Peace (and keep prayin')

The Goldberg revelation

I offer this with the utmost in charity and love. A prophet is someone who speaks for God. A prophet called today.

I'm in my office, desperately fighting off the desire to take a nap when the phone rings. Since I'm the only one in the office I answer it.

"Are you the priest?", say a female voice.

"No Ma'am"

"Are you one of the prayers?"

This throws me for a moment.

"Well,uh, I can arrange to have someone prayed for if you'd like..."

"No, no I have a story that has to be told", her voice begins to speed up, "I prayed for 8 hours a day for 8 months. I prayed that single moms would be able to see their children every day, that the homeless would have homes, that everyone would be attractive, that all marriages would be happy".

I must confess. My eyes may have rolled, just a tiny little bit. The faintest hint of a smirk might, might mind you, have flickered across my face. Words like "nutter" and "crackers" peeked into the central room of my mind wondering if they needed to step in.

But there was something in her voice, that high almost girlish voice that stopped me. She told me that after praying for all that time God spoke to her. The Divine gave her a message for all the Christians of the world.

Let's say her name was Mrs. Goldberg and leave it at that. She told me stories of anti-semitism against her and her family as she grew up. She talked of her many friendships over the years with Christians. She told me what the message was. It's quite simple really. Mrs. Goldberg knows how much we want Jesus back. We want him back so much "...you'd dye your hair purple...". God told Mrs. Goldberg that we need to love the Jews. As soon as we do, as soon as we eliminate anti-semitism Jesus will be right back with us. There will be no war, no judgement day.

The conversation went on for many minutes. Her words spoken quickly but without any sound of anger or judgement. It was important and wonderful and she needed to get her story told. Did I have contact with any Catholics? I told her that I had a little. She told me that the Pope and all the bishops needed to be told that it was time for the priests and nuns to give up celibacy, to marry one another and go to Africa to care and raise the AIDS orphans.

How can I describe the calmness, the sanity of her voice in my ear? The peacefulness as she poured out her story and entrusted it to me. The assurance as she told me that there was so much more for her to say but that I didn't have time to hear it today.

In the end she finally thanked me and said goodbye. I sat in my office and thought about the revelation given to me. She's right of course. Jesus gave us a new commandment, that we should love one another. I don't know if actually getting that right will hurry Jesus along in his return but it strikes me that it's not a bad idea under any circumstances. Jew, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist. Mono-theist, poly-theist, atheist and agnostic. Every part of his creation. We need to care for them all. We need to treat them well.

Maybe we need to dye our hair purple.

Thank you Mrs. Goldberg. I hope God keeps talking to you.

And then maybe you'll talk to me again.

Peace

Spamming God

(This is my column for the March issue of our diocesan newspaper)

I hate spam. I mean the useless junk e-mail, I actually love the meat in a can. Every day I get tons of it(e-mail spam) for things I don't want, don't need and usually don't want to think about. But it keeps rolling in. Over the years I've found ways to help slow down the spam and to filter it out quickly so I can find the stuff that's really important.

I'm not quite sure how that led me to think about God but it did. I began to think about all the things that people pray for, some good, some bad. And I wondered if God ever thought of it as spam? Are we wasting the divine bandwidth with a lot of nonsense, a lot of selfish stuff? Is His inbox just overflowing with offers, requests, deals, and demands that He's just NOT interested in?

The more I thought about it the more my thoughts began to change on the subject. My first thought was “Yes, we all spam God with junk and we ought to stop”. I know in my own case some of what I pray for is pretty “poor, poor pitiful me” kinds of whining. I'm not proud of it, but there it is. But the longer I thought about it the more I thought “Are you really going to write a column telling people to pray less, to censor their talks with God? Do you really think WE should be deciding what is or isn't a waste of HIS time?”

So upon further reflection I've decided that God has the bandwidth to handle whatever we decide to send his way. His inbox has no upper limit on his storage space. There is no spam in the prayer life that exists between us and God. That's not to say that some of what we send out isn't whiny and selfish and not what is best for us. I keep remembering a line from the 1970's movie “Oh God” where the character of God is asked if he answers every prayer. He answers “Yes, and sometimes the answer is no.” God reads every e-mail we send him, spam or not. He considers our needs, our real needs, not just what we think our needs are. And every e-mail gets an answer. In real life the experts tell us not to respond to spam because you'll just insure that you get more spam. You let the other person know that there really is someone there and they'll keep sending you more and more and more.

I think that's just fine with God. Every request, no matter how important or trivial is a place for you and God to continue to talk. I think that's the goal. Just keep the lines of communication open, knowing that sometimes the answer will be no.

So keep on spamming.

Peace

In response

I've been going round and round about whether I should respond to a comment on the blog. There are plenty of good reasons not to do so. It's so easy to OVER react to the lack of emotional content carried in electronic communications. But the more I think about it the more I feel the need to respond. I would have done this privately but I can't figure out anyway of reaching this person except through where we met.

Which is right here.

Let me say at the start - this person said a very nice thing about me at the beginning of her comment and I thank her. This is also NOT personal since we don't know each other and aren't likely to meet (we live a long way apart).

It has to do with Angela, the youth ministry coordinator in Edmonton who is fighting leukemia. She posted recently about a person who had left comments that Angela just didn't find comforting or supportive. I responded with some flip but blunt comments (as I am wont to do) about such people and the hope that Angela would let it roll off her back.

Well apparently the person who made the comments (I have to take her word for it since Angela didn't identify them) took exception to my remarks and posted the following on my blog:

But I also want to say that when she posts about a friend who has given her brutal advice which she didn't need, she's actually referring to a comment that I left on her blog in love and care, hoping only that she will try her hardest to heal and return to her previous life of joy. So please be gentler in your responses when you don't know whose emotions are involved. I know it's hard to judge a situation from afar, and to be quite honest it's hard enough to judge it from right here in the middle of it, but you never know what words have actually been spoken and interpreted the wrong way. I'm sorry if this seems like an intrusion. Or a lecture. Not intended so. Just a sad friend praying for another sad friend who seems to think I've betrayed her.


Here are my thoughts:

First you need to know - I'm a middle aged guy married to his college sweetheart. Over the last 20 years she's developed one, then two, then three and now four chronic illnesses. A couple of which could be very nasty if they so chose. Which, God being gracious, they've not done so far.

In that time I've seen folks say silly things (and I've done it myself) to my wife or other sick people "trying to be helpful". Or be supportive or whatever. One thing I learned in the years I worked in the media is that perception IS reality. If your friend's perception is that you betrayed her, that your advice was brutal, then her reality is just that. No doubt her illness is playing a role in that, so what? Trust me as someone with long sad YEARS of experience in this - there is only one possible response if you love your friend. You apologize and you beg, BEG for forgiveness. Then, if they'll let you, you hold them in your arms, tell them you love them and ask if there's anything you can do.

And that's not what I'm hearing in your comment. You're upset that she's mad at you. You're upset that I'm being mean to you. It's all about you. Guess what? At this point in her life it's not about you. Not one tiny little bit. And it shouldn't be. It should be about your friend while she quite literally fights for her life.

Did she misinterpret you? Could be. Does that matter? No. What matters is that she's been hurt. By you. Intentionally or otherwise.

And the real question - what are you gonna do about it?

Peace

Prayers for Angela

As a diocesan youth minister I belong to a fairly small club. There's just not that many of us in the great wide world. So when I hear that one of us is struggling it strikes particularly close to home.

I've never met Angela but beyond being my sister in Christ and a fellow Anglican she's a diocesan youth minister in Edmonton (that's Canada for those of you flunking geography. Do they even teach geography any more?). Beyond that she lists both the Bible AND Winnie the Pooh as her favorite books which makes her OK in my book.

She's been diagnosed with leukemia, which quite frankly sucks. I know some folks don't like that word but I can't think of a more appropriate time to use it.

If you have a spare prayer lying around any time soon, or if you have room on your list please add Angela to your prayers.

Peace