We are encouraged in Scripture to ask God to meet our concerns. Indeed we are invited by Jesus to cast our burdens upon him. Too often, however, we pray with the idea of “my will be done”. Caught in the urgency of our needs, we forget that when Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he used a different phrase, “Thy will be done.” These were the same words he used while he prayed in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.

“We need to remember,” writes Tom S. Sampson (Cultivating the Presence: A Spiritual Guide for a Journey Toward the Presence of God), “that we are part of a larger fabric of life. Instead of praying for relief from an affliction, it may be more important to pray for strength to accept and overcome the trouble.”

But this is a hard lesson to learn.  Like so many of us, St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226), the Italian Catholic friar and preacher, struggled with the self-centeredness of his prayers and with the notion that God did not answer his petitions. Eventually, learning to pray as Jesus prayed, he grew in faith and insight and wrote this memorable poem.

    I asked God for strength, that I might achieve,
    I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey;
    I asked for health, that I might do greater things,
    I was given infirmity, that I might do better things;

    I asked for riches, that I might be happy,
    I was given poverty, that I might be wise;
    I asked for power, that I might have the praise of man,
    I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God;

    I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life,
    I was given life, that I might enjoy things;
    I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I had hoped for.
    Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered,
    I am among all men, most richly blessed.

  From its’ title, one might get the impression that Eric Larson’s best selling book, The Devil in the White City, is about religion. Yet other than a reference to the Sabbatarian Movement, which opposed all commerce on Sunday, a five thousand voice choir, which sang Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus at a dedication ceremony, and a few scattered references to influential clergy, religion is hardly mentioned. The devil in the book is not Satan, but a mass murderer, and the White City is not heaven, but the spectacular, all-white buildings that housed the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

   Reading Larson’s book is like going through a museum packed with American cultural icons. Devices, products and concepts first introduced at the fair have become so much a part of our lives, that it is difficult to imagine they were once considered new. In a chapter entitled, “Night Is the Magician”, Larson provides a brief summary of the wonders encountered by those lucky enough to attend what became known as “the fair of all fairs.”

    They heard live music played by an orchestra in New York and transmitted
    to the fair by long-distance telephone.  They saw the first moving pictures
    on Edison’s Kinetoscope, and they watched, stunned, as lightning chattered
    from Mikola Tesla’s body. They saw even more ungodly things—the first
    zipper; the first-ever all electric kitchen, which included an automatic                 dishwasher; and a box purporting to contain everything a cook would need
    to make pancakes, under the brand name Aunt Jemima’s. They sampled a
    new, oddly flavored gum called Juicy Fruit, and caramel-coated popcorn
    called Cracker Jack. A new cereal, Shredded Wheat, seemed unlikely to
    succeed—“shredded doormat,” some called it—but a new beer did well,
    winning the exposition’s top beer award. Forever afterward, its brewer
    called it Pabst Blue Ribbon. Visitors also encountered the latest and
    arguably most important invention of the century, the vertical file,
    created by Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey Decimal system
    (pp. 247-248).

  At the dedication ceremony, writes Larson, Francis J. Bellamy, an editor of Youth’s Companion, thought it would be a fine thing if the schoolchildren of America, in unison, offered something to their nation. “He composed a pledge that the Bureau of Education mailed to virtually every school. As originally worded, it began, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands . . .”
(p. 181)

  Larson’s book is both a time capsule of American history and a tribute to those creative individuals, largely unknown to us today, whose vision, talent and influence – focused on a venue that lasted fewer than 200 days  -- changed the world’s perception of America and America’s perception of what was possible.

 According to a recent article in the New York Times, “weekly church attendance is good for your health” (April 21, 2013). The reasons for this discovery are not entirely clear, writes the article’s author, T.M. Luhrmann, a Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University, but evidence suggests that  “religious attendance – at least religiosity – boasts the immune system and decreases blood pressure. It may add as much as two to three years to your life.”

  Based upon observations of Christian Evangelical churches he has studied, Luhrmann offers three possible explanations.

Larger social networks:   Frequent churchgoers have larger social networks, with more contact with, more affection for, and more kinds of social support from those they know than their unchurched counterparts. “People in churches”, Luhrmann observes, “really do seem to look out for one another”.  Many churchgoers, for example, belong to small groups (bible studies, choirs, fellowship groups, mission teams) that meet frequently and provide opportunities for people to talk about their faith and lives.  “We know that social support,” Professor Luhrmann writes, “is directly tied to better health.”

Healthier behavior: Studies indicate that although many churchgoers struggle with behaviors they’d like to change, on average, regular church attendees drink less, smoke less, use fewer recreational drugs and are less sexually promiscuous than others. Churchgoers who have stepped away from risky behaviors find the support and encouragement of their faith and faith community to be crucial to their success.

Sense of transcendence: Churchgoers experience the world as more than what is material and observable. Because God is immaterial, believers must use their imaginations to represent God. This does not mean that God is imaginary, but rather that the experience of God is dependent upon one’s capacity to imagine what God is like, a capacity that can be taught, learned and improved with practice. “What I saw in church as an anthropological observer”, writes Luhrmann, “was that people were encouraged to listen to God in their minds, but only to pay attention to mental experiences that were in accord with what they took to be God’s character, which they took to be good. I saw that people were able to learn to experience God in this way, and that those who were able to experience a loving God vividly were healthier – at least, as judged by a standardized psychiatric scale.  Increasingly, other studies bear out this observation that the capacity to imagine a loving God vividly leads to better health.”

   So there you have it. Evidence suggests that weekly church attendance is good for your health! Although Christians don’t generally pursue the religious life for reasons of health per se, experience has taught us – now affirmed by anthropological study -- that the faithful practice of religion, combined with intentional participation in the community of faith, can lead not only to a greater awareness of the presence of God, but to an increased sense of wellbeing, hopefulness and purpose. 

Snow today!  Again!

Many of our conversations this winter have been about snow. The blizzard of February 8-9, when 31 inches of the heavy white stuff immobilized much of Long Island, reminded us how troublesome and dangerous life can be. Even though weather forecasters offered persistent warnings that a “big one” was on the way, few, including the Brookhaven Town Highway Department, took the warnings seriously. Caught by surprise, motorists were stranded on roadways. Trains and buses stopped running. Emergency workers were unable get to work.

The day after the storm the sky was clear; yet most roadways and sidewalks remained blocked. For several days almost all community activities, including school and church meetings, were cancelled. With muscles sore from shoveling, residents waited impatiently for electricity to be restored, streets to be plowed and life to return to normal. There were a few tragic deaths and some injuries attributed to the storm, but considering the population of Long Island, the blizzard, which was named, “Nemo”, was for the majority of us more of an inconvenience than a disaster.

Without doubt, the Blizzard of 2013 will long be remembered. Yet compared to other great storms of history, it pales in significance. Growing up on the Great Plains, for instance, I often heard accounts and saw old photographs of the blizzard of 1888. David Laskin in his book, The Children’s Blizzard, provides a dramatic account of the storm in which more than a hundred school children died. Exact records were not kept, but it is estimated that up to 500 individuals and thousands of cows, horses and other farmyard animals were killed. Of the innumerable hardships faced by those flatland pioneers, Laskin writes: “A thousand storms of dust and ice and poverty and despair have come and gone since then, but this is the one they remember. After that day, the sky never looked the same.”

   Stephanie Pauls, Houghton Professor of the Practice of Ministry at Harvard Divinity School, studies the points of intersection between the academic study of religion and the practices of ministry. Commenting in The Christian Century Magazine (December 26, 2012) on the installation of Jonathan Walton, the new minister of Harvard’s Memorial Church, she asks: “What are university churches for?”

   Having previously served as a pastor in a university setting, her answer is shaped by personal experience. Churches within universities, she writes, are places where people are free to experiment with religion. They are communities of faith where no questions are off limits, where those who are uncertain about religion can offer themselves in service and where people who struggle with the concept of God can learn how to pray. Churches within universities, says Pauls, “are laboratories for trying out new ways of living”.  

  All churches, she concludes, not just university churches, ought to be places to cultivate what the philosopher Simone Weil called experimental certainties. “There are things we can’t know, [Weil] argued, unless we practice knowing them, things we can’t believe until we act as if they were true, things we can’t understand until we find out what they mean through practicing them with others. We need places to practice having faith: faith in one another, faith in ourselves, faith in God. We need places to pray as if someone were listening, to study as if we might learn something worth writing on our hearts, to join with others in service as if the world might be transformed. Churches are places to learn to practice, with others, a continual conversion of life, a permanent openness to change.”

  Through the gift of his Son, God reaches out to us. This is the plain message of Christmas, of the incarnation, of the coming of Christ to earth as a human being: God's purpose was and is our salvation.
  Each Christmas brings with it an invitation to accept this gift, to reach out to the extended hands of God and make God's gift your own. When you do, you discover the power, the peace and the love of Christmas. You experience God's excessive gift for you!

  It makes sense for the retail and entertainment industries to begin the Christmas season as early as possible, which is why pre-season sales, cheerful “holiday”music and sentimental Christmas television programs made their debut this year a few days before Halloween. One possible effect of this lengthened season is a sense of Christmas weariness. Over saturated by the “all-things-Christmas” theme of these days, one can easily grow tired of Christmas before it even arrives. Ironically, one of the best ways to escape this Christmas hubbub, other than vacationing in an Islamic country, is to participate in the Advent or pre-Christmas worship services of a Christian congregation like ours. Yes, there are signs of Christmas in this setting as well -- special projects, missions, and rehearsals, things which must be
accomplished before December 25. But the tone of our liturgies, the themes of our worship, and the topics of our sermons are intentionally “not yet Christmas”. The season of Advent is for us a spiritual respite – a time of reflection, repentance, preparation and longing in a world easily wearied of Christmas.

I am currently reading, “1861, The Civil War Awakening”, by Adam Goodheart. In the process I am learning things about American history that I either didn’t know or had long forgotten.  It is especially interesting to read the book in the midst of the 2012 presidential campaign.  Whereas today our presidential contenders travel almost everywhere to make their pitch for election, in 1860, the year Abraham Lincoln was running for president, he never left Springfield, Illinois! Writes Goodheart, “Following the precedent set by nearly every presidential nominee since Washington, Lincoln did not go out on the stump himself, which would have been unseemly. The man who would become known as the nation’s greatest communicator did not even offer a single public statement to the press.”  In August, when thirty thousand of his supporters gathered at the fairgrounds in Springfield for a rally, Lincoln, against his wishes, was persuaded to at least drive his carriage over to the rally. “When he arrived,” writes Goodheart, “the mob hauled him out of the carriage and carried him on their shoulders across the fairgrounds, landing him with a thump on the speakers’ platform. The candidate spoke only a few awkward words of appreciation to the vast assembly before he managed to wriggle off the dais, squeeze his way through the crowd, jump onto the back of a horse and gallop off homeward as fast as the beast could carry him.”

Each edition of The Christian Century Magazine features a two-page section entitled "Century Marks", which offers brief thought provoking snippets form other religious publications. Two entries in the September 19, 2012 edition caught my interest. The first, from the journal Word & World, rephrases the Ten Commandments in reference to the technologies we use in our everyday life. “Technology is a gift,” says author Adam Copeland, “but a problematic and challenging one.” The commandments Copeland offers are intended to speak to the moral challenges our small handheld devices can pose. His first commandment is: “You shall have no other gods, so don’t treat your cell phone like one.” The third is: “Honor the Sabbath day; give the gadgets a rest.” The fifth states: “You shall not kill, so of course you shall use the Internet for peace.” The seventh: “Steal neither goods nor time from yourself and others.”  Some families, writes Copeland, have a designated technology basket where cell phones and music players are placed during meals and other family times so as not to be distracted by them.

A second snippet, again from the September 19, 2012 edition of The Christian Century Magazine, tells about Chinese Cardinal Paul Shan Kuo-hsi, who died this summer after a six-year battle with lung cancer.  For the Cardinal, according to the magazine Vatican Insider, cancer was a blessing, as it gave him a chance to explain his faith to many people. In his final years he gave priority to ministering to three groups: intellectuals, condemned prisoners and people of other religions. When asked if he was afraid to die, he responded: “No! Dying is falling into the loving arms of God”.