And it came to pass . . . (Audio - approximately 10 MB, right-click to download.)

And it Came to Pass . . .

 Jonah (Link to Text)

Once upon a time is the way this story begins. The Hebrew says, “jahe” which means, “and it came to pass.” It’s a fairy tale. Fairy tales are wonderful because they can reach people at all different levels of development, at all different stages in their lives, and all different circumstances. Take Little Red Riding Hood, for instance. A six year old listens to that story and gets a little afraid and realizes that things are not always as they appear and they ought to be careful. If you are a parent reading that story to your six year old, maybe you are thinking, you’ve got to make sure that your child is not alone and exposed to this kind of danger without you being around to help. I suppose if you are a predator you could read it and get some ideas.

Fairy tales meet us where we are, no matter what the stage, and so it is a little odd to be preaching about a fairy tale. I could tell you what it means for me, but it is a little difficult for me to tell you what it means to you. So I thought I would walk through the story and ask you some questions. They are questions that I am not expecting you to answer out loud, though if you are really anxious to answer them out loud, you could raise your hand. 

I come to this fairy tale recognizing that it is about an interaction with God. Jonah, you would have to say, had a very complicated relationship with the Divine. It was not exactly easy. I’m thinking I know a little bit about that. How about you? It is not always simple to figure out how we relate to that which created all this. Sometimes it’s so overwhelming we forget about it. Not always a bad strategy, but at some point – if we’re at all sensitive to it - we can feel a call. Just some sense that there is some direction we need to be going. We sense that our life is moving us in a particular way. We can explore it, but it’s ethereal. It is not like we hear voices, (though I suppose occasionally that can happen.) But we sense this call and sometimes these calls are going to take us somewhere we don’t want to go.

When I was seventeen years old, I was called to the ministry. That, at least, is what my mentor says. I ran like Hell for seventeen years. Again, that’s what my mentor says. There is a resistance sometimes to moving in the direction our life is carrying us. I wonder why? Why does Jonah resist? I know at the end of the story he says it is because “you are going to be a nice God and they are rotten people.” I understand that, but I’m not so sure that is the only reason we resist a call.  That is a good reason not to go to

Nineveh, but it is not a terribly good reason to go to Tarshish. 

What else might be happening? Well, why would Jonah be so angry at the Ninevites? Have they hurt him? Yes. They were the arch enemies of the people of

Israel at the time. They have destroyed the ten northern tribes. Wiped them out. There was some deep seated hurt in Jonah. It is the kind of hurt that can go deep enough that maybe you are not just blaming the Ninevites. Maybe at some level you are, in fact, angry at Adonai, angry at God. I know there is no God up there that fidgets and fudges with things, but nevertheless we are relating to some creative power that often times seemingly lets us down. That’s the way we feel about it anyway. Life doesn’t go the way we think it should go. And that can create a distance, a separation between us and that which creates us.

So off Jonah goes to Tarshish. Afraid. Maybe even afraid he will be called to do something he feels like he can’t do. Does it feel that way sometimes for you when you are called into something and you wonder if you should do it? I’m wondering about parenting on that one. When I first was thinking about having a child, I wondered, ‘Is that something I can do? Especially in a world like this?’ So Jonah avoided the call and it then turned out that the circumstances of life would not let him go. A storm blew up. The circumstances of life began to call him to account.

Remember this is a fairy tale. Your storms may be entirely different. Maybe it’s a job loss. Maybe it’s a surprise pregnancy. There are lots of things that can conspire to move in your life and make shifts and changes. The thing is that when something difficult happens, when a storm comes into your life – I love this about this story – it is not necessarily about you. Think of all those poor sailors. They were just going to Tarshish. They may have even been following their call, for all I know. But Jonah is around. To his credit though, Jonah banded together with these people to try and figure out why  this storm is occurring.

What is happening in our lives? Where is it driving us? Tough questions. When we are in a call, when we are trying to discern the direction we need to be going in life, we need to be with a group of people who are also seeking to move in a direction that moves them toward more completion and wholeness, that is a society of people that can support us and help us discern. I’m not so sure that casting lots is the best idea for discernment. But the groups discernment feels right. There is a sense of community discernment in whether or not you determine that you need to be a nurse. Because without a community around you that says, yes you are qualified to do this; without a community to educate you into it, you are not going to get there. So we have communities that guide us and help us with our call.

But in Jonah’s case he experienced the storm and recognized that the things that were happening to him at that moment were in some ways his responsibility. He recognized that the storm was about him in this case. So he took responsibility for what was going on;  he could not escape the consequences. Oh, how I wish that we had a different kind of God! Somebody at 8:30 worship said, “Well, couldn’t Jonah have just stood up in the boat and said ‘All right God, I’ll go back to

Nineveh’ and then all of that drama would have been over.?” Sure, but it would have been a lousy fairy tale and it also wouldn’t have been very realistic because we cannot always escape the consequences of our actions.

So Jonah is thrown into the sea and swallowed by a giant fish. Here is the amazing part of the story. His fate is not sealed. He doesn’t know what is going to happen next. He is in the dark. And he starts thanking God!  Oh, how I wish I had that much faith. They tell you over and over again, you learn from your mistakes. You grow from your mistakes. You become more whole from your mistakes. You can move forward from your mistakes. Thankful in the midst of mistakes?

Most of the folks here know that I was in another church a few years ago and it didn’t go very well. It was kind of hurtful. I was upset and angry and frustrated. I would think to myself, God is doing this to me. God is doing this to me so that I can suffer and that will let me later on be able to connect with more people more deeply and become a better preacher.  I can tell you I was not thankful at all.

Jonah is quite remarkable. He really did take up that attitude. He said I am going to be thankful for what God has offered me. Even in the belly of the fish. Even in the midst of the darkness. So he was spewed out back on the land, having gone through this dark, deep night. Does this sound familiar to any of you in your life?

So Jonah moves to

Nineveh. He goes in and proclaims what God wants him to. Now I doubt seriously that God is calling you to go to

Washington, D.C. and tell us all we are going to Hell in a hand basket. . . though, maybe.  But whatever the call is, when you have come through the belly of the fish you come with a great deal of strength and power that you didn’t otherwise have. The man went a third of the way into the city, yelled at the top of his lungs and everybody believed him.

One wonders where he got that kind of strength and power. It seems to me it came out of a deep passions of the experience of having met the Creative One and being able to speak for the Creative One.

That’s a little too neat though, isn’t it? Life simply isn’t that tidy. My whole life up until  maybe eight years ago, I wanted to arrive. I wanted to get there. I didn’t know where there was, but I wanted to get there. I wanted that place where, Okay, I’ve learned enough, I’ve grown enough. I’m Okay. I guess what I was looking to become was worthy – maybe lovable. I’m not sure, but I wanted to get there. I figured if I got there, I could have some impact on the world, then I could make some changes. Jonah got there. He made some changes. He, in fact, made an impact on the world after he went through all that stuff.

But it is not all that neat and tidy and I’m really glad the story ended the way it did. Jonah completely dissembled. It turns out that he didn’t have to arrive some place to become some particular thing, worthy and holy and loving in order to be productive and to make a difference in this world. What do we see at the end of it? We see that hatred starting to burn again. We see the anger and the pain that had driven him through those experiences he had into the belly of the fish. We see all of that bubbling up again and beginning to hurt him again; pulling down, polluting him again. Isn’t that the way with us? There are things that on the one hand pollute us and on the other hand, they drive us.

Jonah was a very independent guy. A very independent voice. He was arguing with God Almighty after all. Doesn’t it take that kind of independent voice and drive to walk into an enemy city and tell them they are to be destroyed it they don’t repent? The very thing that makes him difficult makes him the right person for the job.

I know someone who is deeply emotional. The moment something happens the tears start to flow. The pain just begins to overwhelm her. But that same person can connect to peoples’ lives and hearts like you would not believe. It is the same thing. I know someone else who is almost impervious to tears. Tears just don’t come. There is some emotional distance and it frustrates him so. Yet, this is a person who can be steady in crisis. You see, the very same thing that makes this person incomplete makes him valuable, able to make a contribution. I know someone who is, as they say, incredibly controlling. You know folks like that. It is often those people who pay attention to the details and create something of great beauty and worth. Because if you are really trying to focus and make something happen you can’t be haphazard.

Those shadows in our own hearts are often times the very seed of the great thing that the Divine is building within us. I would ask you this. What is the thing in your life that you are ashamed of? The character trait you are disappointed in? Something you would like to get rid of, that hurts you? I would ask you to imagine now what strength and positive part of your personality would disappear if that negative thing went away.

Once upon a time there was a human person named Jonah. He was called by God. He interacted with God. He resisted the flow of where his life needed to go. As a result he entered a storm, felt the consequences of that storm and yet his character was derived in some way from that storm.  So he was thankful for what was happening to him. He was able to work with great energy coming out of that experience. He made a difference. But he remained very human. Conflicted and confused. Throughout it all God  - - loved  - - Jonah.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to our church.

Torah - Prescritpive or Descriptive (Audio about 10 MB right-click to download)

Synopsis: (Text will be up in a week or two.)

OK, so let’s say that God’s law is a gift that allows the people of God to reflect the creative love that is given them. It is not a bunch of rules you have to follow to get God to love you. Because God’s grace comes first.

There are two steps to living out this law of love: First, we get in alignment with the creative love of God so that we become more of what we were created to be. Second, now formed in that love, we express it in creation so that creation reflects the creative love of God. Granted, it’s really hard to figure out how that works in daily life, but we’d have to call it good advice. But apparently that’s not enough motivation to follow it. Especially since there does not seem to be a one to one correspondence between an individual’s moral behavior and her circumstance in life. (Still it’s nice to know it’s there so I can use it to tell other people what to do.)

On the other hand, while it may not work out on an individual case by case basis, it is also true that things don’t go well for societies whose general ethos runs contrary to the law of God. Tyrannical behavior elicits rebellion. A society where stealing is an accepted way of life would quickly deteriorate. We know that; it keeps us in check. The law restrains us.

I go 60 MPH in a 55 MPH zone, not 70 MPH. I go 70 MPH in a 65 MPH zone though. The law restrains me. The trouble is that if the law is seen as that which restrains me, then I’m always looking for a way to push its’ limit and end up distorting the law.

Think about it - the reason I don’t’ get pulled over when I go 60 MPH in a 55 MPH zone is that so many people go 60 MPH there aren’t enough Police to stop us. So 60 MPH is the effective speed limit even though the law says 55 MPH. Follow me one more step here. If all of us who drive 60 MPH in the 55 MPH zone, could just agree to go 63 MPH, then the effective speed limit will be 63 MPH even thoughn the law says 55 MPH. We will have distorted the law. In fact we already have by going 60 MPH. Of course, if we distort the law enough – say we get up to an effective speed limit of 120 MPH, then we’ll lose control and die.

That’s the trouble with viewing God’s law as that which restrains; we distort it. We don’t even know what it really looks like. Which brings us back to the question, “How do we know the law of God?” Which begs the question, “Do we want to know the law of God?” I ask that first because when we do seek it, God’s law has a way of showing us up for who we are. It makes us take a long look in the mirror and that is painful. But we do so knowing that as we seek to understand God’s law, God’s love and grace is always within and surrounding us, enabling us to live in a way that reflects that very love.

So do you have to follow the law, or do you get to follow it?  According to Jeremiah you get to follow the law . . . or else. You decide.

Beyond the Curtain - a sermon by Rev. Tim Mooney deliverd at FPCSR on July 13, 2008 (Audio approximately 10 MB right-click to download)

Beyond the CurtainExodus 32:1-6; Ephesians 3:16-21 

 

NRS Exodus 32:1 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2 Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the

land of

Egypt!” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD.” 6 They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel. 

NRS Ephesians 3:16 I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen._____________________________            Do you remember the Wizard of Oz?  By your smiles I see you love this movie.  Just to put us in the mood let’s sing the song we all know by heart: We’re off to see the Wizard,The wonderful Wizard of Oz.We hear he is a whiz of a Wiz,If ever a Wiz there was.If ever, oh ever a Wiz there was,The Wizard of Oz is one because… Because, because, because, because, because…Because of the wonderful things he does.We’re off to see the Wizard, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.             This song captures the essence of the heart in mid-skip as it first responds to God, the heart as it learns to skip again after a dry spell in the desert of faith.  The heart as it skips towards God in high expectation, perhaps as we skip toward worship with high hopes. We’re off to see our God, The wonderful God of Godz.  We hear God is a God of a God, If ever a God there was.  If ever, oh ever a God there was, Our God of Godz is one because…Because, because, because, because, because…Because of the wonderful things God does.  We’re off to see our God, The Wonderful God of Godz.               Like our beloved friends in the Land of Oz, (and we are so like them) we set forth on the yellow-brick road of faith, skipping.  Because when we arrive we are sure that somehow, someway, God will:                               load us up with what we lack,                         fill full our enormous empty,                         exchange our oh-so-human self with something oh-so-much more,                        and finally provide a way for us to be at home in our skin.               Who among us has not set out toward God with the high-skipping hopes of Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin-man, and the Cowardly Lion?  We skip because of who we hear God to be: all-powerful, regal, shimmering and shiny with golden glory, wizard-like with extraordinary power and might.  If anyone can meet our longings, our needs, and defeat the chaos in our lives it’s God of Godz.             And what do we do to prepare for our encounter with God of Godz?  Why we fix ourselves up pretty and handsome!  Just like Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tinman, Lion, and Toto, in order to make ourselves presentable, we make a stop at - do you remember? - the “Brush and Mop-Up Company.”  The church is often looked at and experienced as the “Brush and Mop-Up Company”: We must look right, act right, sound right, smell right, be right, to be acceptable to God of Godz.             So we do everything in our power to make ourselves acceptable.  And then at last we are spic-and-span ready, we smooth our wrinkles, straighten our tie, for our moment arrives: we enter into the presence of God.  Our deepest desires - a heart, a brain, courage, a way back home - will be granted.  Our enormous empty filled full.  Our lack loaded up.  Our oh-so-human self made into oh-so-much-more.  Our skin made into a home.  We have all been there, on the brink of hoped-for fulfillment, where the soupcon, that little sip of anticipated satisfaction, is so sweet.             Which makes our first disappointment all the greater.  God of Godz bellows, “Not so quick, first bring me the broomstick.”  The broomstick of the wicked witch.  This disappointment, not getting what we longed for, is a necessary disappointment on our journey of faith.  Each one of us must deal with our shadow-side, bump around in our dark, face the wicked witch of our fears, wander in and be forged by the chaos, the wilderness.             We resist, we fear, the wilderness.  In the wilderness our lack seems even greater.  Our enormous empty, emptier.  The Israelites resisted the wilderness, too.  Dying in

Egypt would have been better than dying out here, they exclaimed.  They would not trust the wilderness.  They would not trust this God, whose name Moses said was, “I am.”  What kind of God is that?  Give us a God-like God, they cried.  So Aaron fashioned an idol, an idol more suited to their image of a Wizard-like God.  And when their leader, Moses went missing for a day too long, the anxiety about the chaos, about the wilderness around them, the wilderness within them, caused them to become frightened.             It’s not easy trusting the wilderness.  We don’t want to face the wicked witch of our fears, our mess of unruly desires.  It’s not easy letting go of a Wizard God who is supposed to magically give us what we lack.  But in the darkness of our wilderness, our chaos, if we are willing, we begin to see God and ourselves differently.  For in the darkness, there are treasures.  At first our wilderness seems void of light and life.  But, just like standing still on a dark, moonless night, over time we notice there is more light in the darkness than we thought, and our wilderness is not lifeless but full of life.  Our dark is not as frightening, or lonely, as we feared.               In the wilderness, we distill our longings: Do we really want what we say we want?  What is the deepest desire of my soul?  These quest ions, these journeys into the wilderness, activate in us the very things we long for.  In their quest for the broomstick, our friends in Oz developed the brains, heart, and courage they thought they were without.  Through the journey into our wilderness, God summons out from within us what God has already given to us.               We’ve all journeyed in the dark some, wrestled with the wicked witch of our fears.  We’ve been in counseling, spiritual direction, 12-step groups, support groups, Bible study groups; we’ve written in our journal, prayed, cried, toiled, worked for justice; and now we have a hard-won broomstick in our hands.  A skip has returned to our step.  We’re off to see our God, the Wonderful God of Godz.  We’ve done our part, now God, please do yours.  Our heart’s desires, honed razor-fine in the wilderness, sharper now than ever before, are at stake.  Like Dorothy and her friends, trembling with hope, we lay the broomstick down before the God of Godz.               But the broomstick – do you remember? - isn’t enough.  There is a bargaining, conditional quality dealing with a Wizard God.  A Wizard God is never, ever satisfied.  There’s always something else that needs to be done first.  More and more is asked of us.  Come back tomorrow.  We now free fall past the low place of disappointment, to the lower place of disillusionment.  We despair that our longings, our needs, will go unmet.  Dorothy speaks for all of us at these moments: “Now I’ll never get home.”             The fall into the tears of disillusionment and despair is often followed, have you noticed, by a bounce of hope.  Now that we’ve totally broken down and are completely contrite, hope revives that God at last will give us what we long for.  The thick green doors open and we stand before the Wizard, the God of Godz.  At this point in the movie, and in our journeys of faith, we are stripped bare of bargains and bravado, scrubbed clean of pretty and pretense.  Now, at last, we are ready.             But we have not yet fallen to the lowest place of all.  Toto pulls back the curtain.  And beyond the curtain they see that the Wizard, the Wonderful God of Godz, is just a human being.             “You humbug!” Scarecrow yells for all of us.  We don’t like our God being human.  “You’re a very bad man,” says Dorothy.  “You eat with tax collectors and sinners.  You’re a glutton and a drunkard.  You’re a madman.  You’re a sham.  You’re not very religious at all.”  Jesus is a bad man and a bad messiah according to the co-dependency of a Wizard God and hapless humans.  The Wizard’s words to Dorothy are very telling: “No, I’m a very good man, I’m just a very bad Wizard.”  In his words and his actions, Jesus refuses to reflect a Wizard God.  We want God to be a Wizard, to give us what we obviously lack.  But the unveiled Wizard turns the tables on us.  In the movie the unveiled Wizard gives symbols of validation for what is already within Dorothy and her companions: a diploma, a medal, and a testimonial.  In the words and acts of Jesus, we see him bestowing upon others this same sense of validation.  The untouchable leper is touched.  The outcasts are invited in.  Everything in us that is untouchable, unwelcome-able, outcast, unacceptable - the entirety of us - is embraced, befriended, validated, beloved.              The Wizard of Oz is a rich metaphor for the journey of faith.  The God of Godz we first imagine, is not really God at all.  The Mystery we call God is always be yond the God of Godz in our minds.  God is transcendent, Wholly Other, yes.  But what we usually mean by that is that we try to make God more God-like than before!  But what could be more transcendent than God revealed in human flesh?  “And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  Beyond the curtain we find that God is not nearly God enough for us in the ways we thought God ought to be.  And we find that God is more than human enough in ways we never thought God could be.  God believes in us more than we ever thought possible.  Why shouldn’t we?             The Wizard of Godz does not want to be found out: “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”  But the Mystery we call God, the God of all creation, longs to be found out, and pulls back the curtain on Jesus and says, “Pay attention to that man, and pay attention to what he pays attention to, the realm of love in your midst.”             We build up God to be a Wizard, sometimes, yes.  But we also do it with spiritual directors, professors, mentors, music ministers, organists, elders, deacons, pastors.  We’ve heard their faces shine like Moses, and we skip to retreats where they’re speaking, or to their offices where they’re counseling.  We endow them sometimes with such powers.  We hope these people, too, will give us what we’re longing for.  Thank God for Toto.  The Toto’s in our life pull back the curtain.  Why you’re just a man, just a woman.  Just like you, just like me.             All this disappointment and disillusionment on the journey of faith, causes our images of God and God’s representatives - these idols of clay - to come crashing down around our feet.  And there, finally, at last, we are looking in the right place.  One of the most universal symbols of liberty, freedom, and power in world mythology and literature, is the shoe.  Upon our feet, are Ruby Red Slippers: the ability to be at home in God right where we are, with all that we are and all that we are not.             The God image in the Wizard of Oz is spread around liberally.  God the Wizard, a figure of mostly male energy, holds our big God projections long enough until we’re ready to see the human face of God, the face o f Jesus, which summons out and validates what is already within us.               God the Good Witch, a figure of mostly female energy, directs Dorothy and us, to go within.  It’s a classic spiritual direction stance: What do you notice within you, what are you learning?  Our heart’s desire is in our own backyard.  It’s not outside, it’s inside.  Someone once said: “The next frontier is not ahead of us, it’s inside us.”               The final God image in the Wizard of Oz is the Ruby Red Slippers, which Dorothy has worn from the beginning.  Dorothy has been in God all along, endowed with a God given power, though she wouldn’t have believed it at the beginning.  And neither would have we.              Listen to these words from Nelson Mandela’s inaugural address of 1994, and see if it doesn’t capture what Dorothy learned, what we are learning. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?  Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.  There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.  We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.  It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.             Perhaps God always starts out in our imagination as Wizard-like.  We need God to be that way initially because we are afraid of chaos.  We need God to be that way at first, so that we will seek hard after God to fill full our enormous empty, because, like Dorothy, we won’t believe that God resides deep within.  The journey toward an all-powerful Wizard-God, doing as he bids, cowering before him, is part of the process of finding the Christ within, who has been with us from the beginning.  When we wake up, as Dorothy does at the end of the movie, we too will discover that we are already home in God, and God is at home in us; our heart’s desire is already there, we are always home.  We will “comprehend with all the saints,” as Paul writes, “what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.”             How is the curtain being pulled back on your God of Godz?  How is the humanity and love of Jesus welcoming you into your own humanity and the humanity of others wherein the fullness of God dwells?  How is the path of your life, its placid waters and its whirling storms, activating the very things you think you lack: growing your wisdom (brain), forming your heart, calling forth your courage?  How is your disappointment and disillusionment with who you think God to be, helping you discover the Ruby Red Slippers God has put upon your own feet?  How are you already in God, already at home?               I was in

New Orleans recently and heard the Archbishop of New Orleans speak.  He said that the word “hurricane” in a

Caribbean dialect means “divine wind.”  At the beginning of the Wizard of Oz a tornado disrupts Dorothy’s world.  A real hurricane named Katrina blew across

New Orleans and in its wake of chaos revealed the chaos that had been covered over, buried, and long denied.  And my guess is that storms have blown, still blow, or soon will blow across your lives and my life: relationship struggles, a crisis of faith, a tiredness that seems to live in your bones,a difficult apple-cart upsetting transition,an unexpected tragedy,a doubting of one’s call,the consequences of choices ill-made. In these storms, in the chaos, it is so very tempting to yearn for a Wizard God.  But I hope today we have been reminded of the One who is well-acquainted and comfortable with chaos, who uses it - like an artist uses paint – to create form and beauty out of nothing, whose love of and for you is the deepest truth.  And I hope that by celebrating that truth you and I will find that it calls forth from within us the mind, the heart, and the courage we need to live life to its fullest, and with God and others, to gradually turn your chaos, my chaos, and the world’s chaos, into co-created beauty.              If happy little blue birds fly,             Way beyond the rainbow high,             Then why, oh why, can’t you and I?             Amen.