Praying about the Election

What an Election season!  It’s almost over.  However it comes out, we’ll all feel some relief, won’t we?  Meantime, during this coming week, we can do something important.  Pray.

A few weeks ago, my Bishop, the Right Rev. Lawrence Provenzano of Long Island, issued a formal statement requesting all members of this Diocese to offer daily prayer during the “octave” between November 1 and November 8.  His solemn letter, published on October 10, calls for “those who are able in each parish to use this time for fasting, abstinence and deliberate prayer, and to make use of all the resources our faith provides us to refocus on God's will and purpose.”

Then, last week, on October 26, all of the Bishops in Indiana issued a relevant and helpful press release.  These bishops include the current Bishop of Northern Indiana, two retired Bishops of Northern Indiana, the current Bishop of Indianapolis, and the Lutheran Bishop of Indiana and Kentucky, ELCA.  Their joint press release also urges us to pray, and they quote the Prayer for Sound Government from the Book of Common Prayer 1979 and the Prayer for Responsible Citizenship from Evangelical Lutheran Worship 2006, which follow here:

For Sound Government

O Lord our Governor, bless the leaders of our land, that we may be a people at peace among ourselves and a blessing to other nations of the earth.

To the President and members of the Cabinet, to Governors of States, Mayors of Cities, and to all in administrative authority, grant wisdom and grace in the exercise of their duties.

To Senators and Representatives, and those who make our laws in States, Cities, and Towns, give courage, wisdom, and foresight to provide for the needs of all our people, and to fulfill our obligations in the community of nations.

To the Judges and officers of our Courts give understanding and integrity, that human rights may be safeguarded and justice served.

And finally, teach our people to rely on your strength and to accept their responsibilities to their fellow citizens, that they may elect trustworthy leaders and make wise decisions for the well-being of our society; that we may serve you faithfully in our generation and honor your holy Name. Amen.

The Book of Common Prayer 1979, page 821

Responsible Citizenship

Lord, God, you call your people to honor those in authority. Help us elect trustworthy leaders, participate in wise decisions for our common life, and serve our neighbors in local communities. Bless the leaders of our land, that we may be at peace among ourselves and a blessing to other nations of the earth. Amen.

Evangelical Lutheran Worship 2006, page 77

In addition, we were also reminded recently about the Episcopal Church’s “Prayer for an Election”, copied here from the website of the Episcopal Public Policy Network (EPPN) http://advocacy.episcopalchurch.org/EpiscopaliansVote.

Prayer for an Election

Almighty God, to whom we must account for all our powers and privileges: Guide the people of the United States in the election of officials and representatives; that, by faithful administration and wise laws, the rights of all may be protected and our nation be enabled to fulfill your purposes; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Finally, perhaps an obvious statement.  It’s always important to vote.  But it seems more crucial than ever this time.  People are skeptical of the candidates, both of them, regardless of which side they are on.  Thus, we need to do our civic duty with more attention than ever.  Please do vote – and pray.

May God Bless the United States of America . . . . . 

Floods & Fires -- and HELP!

In an eMo earlier this week, Barbara Crafton mentioned Episcopal Relief & Development as a worthy recipient of contributions for aid to people needing help following disasters.  That gives us a particular opening to urge specific contributions toward their Disaster Relief Fund following the flooding in Louisiana.  The flooding was really awful, the worst disaster since Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and the recovery has just started.

On a Fox News program the other evening, we saw an interview with Tony Perkins, the head of an evangelical Christian organization, the Family Research Council.  I don't know exactly what that group does, and the group's work was not the subject of the interview.  Mr. Perkins was featured that night because he lives in Baton Rouge, and he and his family had had to row away in a canoe from their flooded home.  This put a personal feeling to that whole situation.  They went first to a Baptist church, which was actually too crowded to take them in.  But a member of that congregation took them to his home for shelter.  Then we saw a picture of the campus of Louisiana State University - LSU - immersed in water.  What can you say?

Soon, we got an email from Episcopal Relief, urging gifts toward their relief effort.  We replied the next morning.  We like Episcopal Relief a lot, because they come in the midst of the disaster and then they also hang around to help rebuild too.  With no apology, we urge you to pitch in.  Here's a link: http://www.episcopalrelief.org/. 

Yesterday, we heard again about Episcopal Relief, that they are also working in California with the fires.  They are providing gift cards to people who had to evacuate briefly during the fires themselves or for longer periods because their homes were destroyed.  Our local churches there are providing space for training for people who can provide support in the protracted aftermath: helping the volunteers understand what people feel whose homes have just vanished.

All the more reason to donate.

Or, if you're not Episcopalian, you might think of Samaritan's Purse, which is also doing major work in Louisiana:  https://www.samaritanspurse.org/.  They have teams of volunteers helping with recovery efforts.  Their work was even the subject of a TV commercial asking for donations.  This Billy Graham-founded organization isn't shy about requesting your help for these people.  They sure need it!

Alcohol Problems and Getting Help

Readers who follow developments in the Episcopal Church may know that resolutions were passed at the recent General Convention calling our attention to the role of alcohol in the church and among its clergy and people.

This is certainly enough on its own to elicit commentary from us.  But we were in fact already checking out issues on alcohol that we might explore in a Ways of the World article, and the General Convention resolutions only add to the timeliness.  Perhaps our information here can serve as one small step in discussion within the church that carries out the mandate of the resolutions calling for all of us to give attention and action to the impact of alcohol in our lives.

We had previously been working on this topic for two reasons.  First, we had lately become acquainted with the Right Rev. Chilton Knudsen, current Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Long Island.  She visited our home parish, St. Ann and the Holy Trinity in Brooklyn, to conduct the ordination of our deacon into the priesthood.  This indeed took place on June 13 and was a very exciting celebration.  But Bishop Knudsen is about to leave Long Island and move to Maryland; beginning in the fall, she will minister there to people and clergy left quite troubled after their now-former Suffragan Bishop (a kind of associate) was involved in a car accident while driving under the influence of alcohol.  A young bicyclist was killed.  Bishop Knudsen is a strong advocate of recovery programs and a very good, compassionate person to work with the heartbroken people of Maryland at this sensitive time.  Meeting her just when her move was being announced thus brought this tragedy closer to home for us.

Secondly, just over a month ago, results of a brand new government study of alcohol and alcohol use disorders were published on a major AMA journal website.  The work, which we learned about in a brief New York Times feature, presents a substantial body of information on the scope and treatment of alcoholism.  Its major conclusion is that, regardless of the type of treatment, only a modest fraction of people with alcohol use disorders seek out any treatment in the first place.  There remains so much stigma that people continue to hide their situation from themselves and others, so that it continues to plague them, their lives and their companions.  This study, like the General Convention resolutions, urges us to bring this problem out into the open and work on it; it can be managed with constructive effort.  We'll try to do at least a little of that here.

The government study provides important background.  It comes out of a nation-wide survey taken in 2012 and 2013 of more than 36,000 people over age 18.  It shows that during the 12 months before the survey, 13.9% of this adult population experienced some kind of drinking problem and 29.1% had experienced such a problem sometime in their lives.  Recalibrated to the total civilian population, this is equivalent to 33 million in the last year and 68.5 million during their lifetimes.  It is all clearly worth talking about.

What is a "drinking problem"?

"Drinking problem" is our phrase.  It has only partly to do with the total amount of drinking and is also concerned with symptoms that arise as a result.  In terms of drinking amounts alone, lots of people do it; in this survey, some 71% of respondents had done some drinking in the past year, including beer, wine and liquor.  Of those who drink, nearly 40% had occasions when they consumed 5 drinks in a single day, and almost 10% of those who drink had 5 drinks in a day at least once a week.

Alcohol affects people differently, of course, and even moderate drinkers can show reactive symptoms.  They may repeat prolonged drinking sets and suffer the attendant hangovers; the drinking may interfere repeatedly with other activities, including job, school or family relations; the people may believe they can take undue risks while or right after drinking, which might include driving, swimming, or unsafe sex; they may feel repeated cravings or believe they need to drink more before any desired effect is felt.  Alcohol use disorders are defined as the occurrence of two or more of these reactions, out of a total of 11.  Two to three conditions constitute a "mild" alcohol use disorder ("AUD"), four or five make a "moderate" AUD and six or more, a "severe" AUD.  The phrase  "alcohol use disorder" is in fact a medical term and comes from the latest American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, known as DSM-5; so these people have a medical condition.

Over the 12 months before the survey, 7.3% of the population had "mild" AUD, 3.2% "moderate" and 3.4% "severe," bringing the total to 13.9%, or the 33 million people we mentioned before.  The mean age at onset for these disorders was 26.2 years, that is, pretty young.  The share of 18-29 year-olds with an AUD was 26.0%, while among 30-44-year-olds, it was 16.2%, and 10.0% of 45-64-year-olds.  Even if you notice that this share goes down with age, it's still unnerving that 10% of upper-middle-age people have had an identifiable "drinking problem" in the last year.  Over their whole adult lifetimes, 37% of 18-29-year-olds have had a problem, 34.4% of 30-44-year-olds and 28.2% of 45-64-year-olds.

What about Treatments?

If this is a medical situation, do people seek treatment for it?  Unfortunately, not a lot.  Of the people with an AUD over the past year, just – just – 7.7% of them have sought help.  Now, maybe you could say that it could take longer than a year to realize there is something amiss that needs treatment.  Sure enough, in the survey, the mean age for seeking help was 29.4 years, that is, three years after the mean age of onset of AUD.  However, the survey still shows that for people with AUD sometime during their lives, only 19.8% have sought help.

This "help" comes in lots of forms.  By far the most prevalent is AA or other 12-step-type approach, in which 15.4% of those with AUD participate.  The next most frequent are rehab programs, 9.1%, followed by physicians or other health-care professionals, 8.7%.  The doctors often prescribe a drug called naltrexone hydrochloride, as well as at least two other widely used medications.  Some doctors also use something called "12-step facilitation."  Various cognitive-behavioral therapies also help.

It's important to be clear that these treatments do help.  Apparently the current survey results do not cover effectiveness of treatment, but other previous surveys do report on it.  Thus the authors of the report we have been citing here make this statement:  ". . . participation in 12-step groups increases the likelihood of recovery, consistent with randomized clinical trials testing the efficacy of 12-step facilitation administered by health care practitioners.  Reviews . . . of randomized trials involving thousands of patients have demonstrated the efficacy of brief screening and intervention in primary care settings among individuals whose alcohol problems are not yet severe."  This discussion goes on to comment on the effectiveness of other treatment forms, including the medications we mentioned above.  In one of the previous surveys of this type, people were interviewed in two rounds, three years apart, and asked in the second round about the extent of any recovery.  Results there showed in particular that attending a 12-step program was distinctly helpful and that it enhanced the outcomes of other treatment programs.

Why People Don't Get Help

This latest survey asks people who didn't go for help, why that was.  A list of 29 reasons was provided, and people could mark all that applied.  Here are some of the most frequently chosen answers, shown as a percentage of people who had thought about going for help, but never did:

                               

            I should be strong enough to this handle alone     37.5%

            Thought it would get better by itself     33.8%

            Stopped on my own or with family help      26.4%

            Didn't think it was serious enough     23.3%

            Too embarrassed to talk about it     23.2%

            Didn't want to go          23.1%

Much less frequently chosen reasons include not knowing where to go or lacking insurance coverage.  A few respondents mention lack of child care, even as others fear that their children will be taken from them if they go for help.  Do note that about a quarter of these people who didn't get help were in fact able to solve the problem by themselves.  But this means that three-quarters of them couldn't or didn't.

So indeed, we all have a ways to go in education and reassurance.

Other Conditions Can Complicate

We've not mentioned another major issue called "comorbidity".  Alcohol problems often accompany other illnesses and the two or more conditions work together.  PTSD, identifiable personality disorders, prolonged depression, drug-abuse and nicotine disorders, among others, are found, complicating the treatment and recovery of people with AUDs.  These added conditions make it all the more important to address the subjective concerns, like those listed above, of people who have "drinking problems" but don't seek help.

Finally, we want to mention AA again.  An article in the April issue of The Atlantic asserts that AA has not been medically proven to be effective, and that writer is critical of the weight given to it as the primary approach to treating AUD.   We are hardly in a position to take an informed position on this topic.  We do know a number of people who are active in another 12-step program and that has certainly worked for them, many of them for many years.  You probably know such people as well.  It is the case that it's hard to conduct scientific, controlled studies of the effectiveness of these programs due to their voluntary and anonymous nature.  What we see in the studies we looked at here is that AA is by far the most widely used source of help and that earlier survey work showed clearly that AA enhanced the recovery prospects of other treatments.  A major point to be made is that there are a number of treatment formats and people can certainly try more than one at any given time.  That earlier survey work also noted that belonging to a religious community is constructive in facing an alcohol problem.  Participating in a community of caring people and regular attendance at services are indeed good things.

________________________

We could have broken the text with numerous footnotes throughout, but the material is already complex enough not to break the sentences with the source designation.  So here are the sources.  We call your special attention to the NIAAA treatment guide, the fifth item below:

The "current survey" is the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions III, often called NESARC-III, conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) of the National Institutes of Health.  The survey was taken from April 2012 through June 2013.

The main report of results:

Bridget F. Grant, PhD, Risé B. Goldstein, PhD, MPH, and co-authors, "Epidemiology of DSM-5 Alcohol Use Disorder".  JAMA Psychiatry.  http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2300494.  Published June 3, 2015.  This article is free to the public; no subscription is necessary to access it, though a simple account identifier must be devised and registered to download the pdf.

We accessed the "General Codebook" of the main survey for various details not cited in the article.  This information is found here:  http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/research/nesarc-iii.

The New York Times reference is "Problem Drinking Affects 33 Million Adults, Study Finds".  The New York Times, June 3, 2015.  http://nyti.ms/1JqkdG6.  Accessed July 17, 2015.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has a treatment guide.  One early section of it is a quite readable list of the "Signs of an Alcohol Problem".  Find this guide at http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/Treatment/treatment.htm .  A 20-page pdf "Print Version" can be accessed right by the title.  The list of symptoms is given on page 3, and the entire guide looks quite helpful.

The "prior survey" we mentioned is NESARC, taken in 2001-2002, with follow-up interviews of many of the same people in 2004-2005.  Information from it on recovery prospects is reported in Deborah A. Dawson, Risé B. Goldstein and others,  "Correlates of Recovery from Alcohol Dependence: A Prospective Study Over a 3-Year Follow-Up Interval".  Alcohol Clinical & Experimental Research.  Vol. 36, No. 7, July 2012.  Pp 1268-1277.

The Atlantic magazine article:  Gabrielle Glaser, "The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous." The Atlantic.  April 2015.  http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/03/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/ .

And the news story about the General Convention resolutions can be found here:  http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2015/07/01/general-convention-takes-a-first-step-admits-alcohol-affects-us-all/ Bishop Knudsen is quoted in it, as is the Right Rev. Mark Hollingsworth, Bishop of Ohio.

Prayers after the Shootings in the South Carolina Church

A week ago, a young man shot nine African-American people in cold blood in a church in Charlston, South Carolina.  We interrupted work we were doing to send an email to Ways-of-the-World readers.  As the funerals for these dear people are about to begin, we post much of the text of that email here.  Note that this was written just as people were first hearing about this awful act.

My own Bishop, Lawrence Provenzano of the Diocese of Long Island, has responded immediately, and I write just now to share his message with you all.

"From the Office of the Bishop:   

The BBC reported this morning at 8 am, EDT [June 17], that "Nine people have been shot dead at a historic African-American Church in Charleston, SC, and a hunt is under way for a white gunman. 

Police described the attack at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church as a 'hate crime.' 

They issued surveillance images of the suspect and said he had sat in the church for an hour before opening fire.

____________________________________

Bishop Provenzano sends the following Pastoral Message to the clergy and members of the Diocese of Long Island: 

Prayer.  Deep, deep, soul-stirring prayer for the victims,  their families, their church community, the city of Charleston, and for this nation! 

Words can no longer suffice for the senseless hatred of this sinful act. Prayer and the witness of prayer by God's people must be our response. 

I call upon our Diocese to pray with each other across parish lines, and neighborhood lines, and county lines.

Hold each other in prayer and witness to the unity in Christ we profess. 

This is our response to hatred and sin.

The Right Reverend Lawrence C. Provenzano  

Bishop of Long Island

Also included in that message is a note from the Brooklyn Borough President's office, which contains the information that among the dead is the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was also a state senator.

May Rev. Pinckney and all those killed rest in peace.  May light perpetual shine upon them.

+ + + + +

As we write this afternoon, June 24, Rev. Pinckney lies in state in the South Carolina Capitol Building.

Putting a Face on Economic Inequality

Perhaps you have read the press coverage over the past couple of weeks about James Robertson, a factory worker in Rochester Hills, Michigan.  Until two weekends ago, James walked every day, Monday through Friday, from his home in Detroit to the factory, a total hike for him of 21 miles a day.  He also traveled some segments of his commute on buses, but they did not cover the whole route.  James had had a car, a 1988 Honda, but it broke down irreparably in 2005, and since he could not afford a replacement, he began his daily walking routine.  Despite the burden, Robertson has had perfect attendance at work for 12 years, rain, snow, whatever.

Over time, Blake Pollock, a bank vice president who passed Robertson frequently, noticed this hardy walker along a road where there obviously weren't very many pedestrians.  He began picking Robertson up, and they became friendly.  Then, young Evan Leedy, a computer science student at Wayne State University, learned about Robertson and set up a crowd-funding site to raise some money to buy him a car.  The hope was that they'd get about $5,000 to purchase some good, reliable used one.  Instead, there is about $350,000.  A story appeared in the Detroit Free Press, and in the wake of all the interest,  a car dealer donated a 2015 Ford Taurus.  Leedy and Robertson were to have met last week with financial advisors to set up trust accounts for maintaining the car and its associated expenses.

Robertson's job pays $10.55 an hour, well above Michigan's minimum wage of $8.15 an hour but not nearly enough for him to buy, maintain and insure a car in Detroit.  According to one insurance information website, Detroit has the highest car insurance rates of any city in the country.  Those of us in New York and some other major cities have no real appreciation for the life turmoil that can ensue when one's car breaks down in car-centered locales.  We have access to prolific public transportation; they don't.  The only thing they can do is walk.

This Is Exactly What Trinity Institute Was About

We relate this story after attending Trinity Institute in late January.  The vignette highlights exactly the kinds of people whose situations constituted much of the discussion there.  As we noted in our preview post, the subject was income inequality; speakers mainly emphasized concerns over those at the low end of the income spectrum.

In our example here, Robertson is distinctive for getting befriended by people with sufficient means to help him out of his tough circumstances.  Such personal attention is surely rare for folks in his position.  A Trinity speaker, Rachel Held Evans, a blogger on these issues, highlighted the fact that she herself has befriended a couple of people in a low-income range.  Getting to know them closely gives her a special appreciation for them as individuals just like herself but with the extra burdens of trying to get along with insufficient resources.  It brings the poverty issue into sharp relief, rather than confining it to the vague picture one gets just reading tables of numbers.

Some Commentary on What Being Poor Means

Numbers and lists can be helpful, though.  Barbara Ehrenreich's presentation brought us surprise and even shock as she listed a collection of local ordinances in cities and states around the country that interfere with the public's treatment of the homeless.  In some Florida cities, for instance, it is illegal to share one's own food with homeless people on the street or in a park.  Ms. Ehrenreich, who noted that she is not a religious believer, expressed the opinion that such regulations hardly seem Christian to her.  We all agreed, and quite audibly so.  When introducing Ms. Ehrenreich, Robert Scott, the director of Trinity Institute, spoke favorably of the fact that her book Nickel and Dimed remains a familiar read on these issues even 14 years after its publication.  Ehrenreich replied that while she is gratified that the book is still read, she is very unhappy indeed that the problems and circumstances she describes there in fact remain relevant after such a long time.  We again agreed.  Further, some local jails actually bill inmates for room and board expenses.  Would you believe??

Her presentation was part of a session on "class" matters; she was obviously emphasizing the difficulties that attend being poor, that is, the simple lack of sufficient income.  One of the panelists, R. R. "Rusty" Reno, editor of First Things, further argued that class comes first, that is, social position and one's cultural orientation.  Without sufficient "social capital", people cannot be permanently lifted out of economic poverty.  He was especially concerned about families headed by single mothers.  Few agreed with this viewpoint, especially Reno's comments about single parenthood.  Still, our own reading and even some material we've written here indicate that such two parents in a home are important in the improvement of the whole family's station in life. 

These arguments  brought the discussion to what might be done to lift the lower classes into better life positions.  Education holds a key place here.  On the Friday evening, we watched Robert Reich's film Inequality for All, after which he answered questions from his office in Berkeley, California, via Skype.  He suggests that most education efforts focus on advanced, graduate-level work, and not enough on ordinary schooling for young children.  We need education of all kinds.  At the Saturday morning session on what we can do about inequality, Nicole Baker Fulgham added weight to those views on education, much as her work which we cited here in early December relative to the racial concerns over the killing of African-Americans by police in Ferguson, Missouri, and Staten Island, New York.

Plentitude Helps Everyone Live More Sustainably

There are other facets to improving quality of life and diminishing economic differences.  Juliet Schor, author of True Wealth, was the keynoter at that Saturday session; she brought attention to innovations in the organization of economic activity, which lead to what she calls "plentitude": collaborative grass roots efforts that involve urban farming, food co-ops, small business financing through crowd-sourcing and credit unions.  In our example above, that crowd-sourcing tool indeed helped James Robertson get his car.  And one of the efforts the Archbishop of Canterbury (who was another of the keynote speakers) has promoted in own his local church-work in Great Britain is credit unions, which can displace ultra-expensive payday lenders.  Other kinds of economic sharing include open-source software, like Linux and Wikipedia, and forms of  transportation, such as car and bicycle-sharing enterprises.

Churches Provide Facilities and Teach About Love

How can the church contribute to all of this?  At Thursday evening's worship service, the Archbishop told us of efforts in Liverpool – one of England's poorest regions – in which the Anglican bishop and the Roman Catholic bishop worked together to set up relief efforts for unemployed coal miners.  At Saturday's panel presentations, Nicole Baker Fulgham explained how the education efforts of her group, the Expectations Project, are centered in churches, where tutoring and after-school activities can take place, which deepen education opportunities.  Other speakers brought us back to Rachel Held Evans's theme of befriending those with different positions in society; churches' outreach efforts make this part-and-parcel of their mission.  At the same time, we were admonished that when we ask questions about people's needs and desires, we have actually to listen to their answers and be prepared to take actions toward their fulfillment.  That's part of "loving our neighbors" and sharing in the Kingdom of God.

Walmart Announces Pay Raises!

And one final note as we were "going to press" with our article, Walmart, the store everyone loves to hate, announced today that they are raising the wages of thousands of their lowest-paid workers and making their work schedules more orderly and predictable.  This will hurt the company's profits in the short-run, but it is in direct response to the current concerns about the income gap.  The Walmart Foundation also announced a parallel plan to work with local community colleges and other nonprofits to increase educational and advancement opportunities for their employees.  Social pressure is having an effect.  We'll talk more about these actions – Walmart isn't the only one – as time goes on.  All of everyone's commentary about inequality is having an impact!

* * * * *

Links to Presentations and Musical Offerings

Our commentary here barely scratches the surface of this powerful conference, which included Cornel West and the Bishop of Panama, among other speakers.  But Trinity Institute does us all the wonderful favor of maintaining videos of presentations and the opening worship service, so you can see it all.  We send you here for a collection: https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/videos/ti2015?shs_term_node_tid_depth=677&sort_by=field_display_date_value&sort_order=ASC.

Besides the presentations, be sure to enjoy the choir's anthem at the opening worship: "The Dream Isaiah Saw".  https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/video/church-anthem-leaves-us-speechless.   Note that its title among the individual links is "Church Anthem Leaves Us Speechless" – and it did!  Also, if you need to be cheered up or have your spirit raised, watch the two Melanie DeMore segments; Ms. DeMore is called a "vocal activist" and she is indeed inspiring.  First, for the Friday morning session, https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/video/friday-melanie-demore-musical-gathering and second, on Saturday morning,  https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/video/saturday-melanie-demore-musical-gathering.  Watch the audience each time get into the spirit of Ms. DeMore's songs.  Regarding the very last song, "Standing Stone", perhaps the way we began our discussion here about James Robertson, who walked to work, means that a whole collection of people around the country are "standing stones" for him and they stood by him, wanting to help him get to his job every day.

Finally, just yesterday, February 17, we found more gifts from Trinity Institute in the form of a brand new course from the website ChurchNext.  It features an introduction to plentitude by Juliet Schor and applications from community and church groups.  https://www.churchnext.tv/school/catalog/course/economic-equality-and-the-church-with-trinity-institute-for-groups .  We only just learned about ChurchNext as we were preparing to attend Trinity Institute, and they have numerous courses on a variety of church- and spirituality-related issues; not all of their presenters are Episcopalian, but several denominations are represented, giving a broad perspective.  The cost is quite nominal and the courses are very popular, involving online interaction among participants.  Barbara Crafton even has a course on growing old gracefully, which coordinates with material in her recent book, The Courage to Grow Old.  Check it all out!

Trinity Institute on Economic Inequality: a Preview

From this evening, January 22, through Saturday, we will be attending Trinity Institute at Trinity Church in Manhattan.  This year's theme name is Creating Common Good, and the majority of the discussion will be about economic inequality.  Speakers are people you may well have heard of: Cornel West, Juliet Schor and the Archbishop of Canterbury, to name a few.

Perhaps some of you are even attending via livestreaming into your own church or other center.  If you are at Trinity Church, let's try to find each other.

Next week, afterward, I will write at least one article on the content.  Friday's speakers highlight the problem of inequality and Saturday's program emphasizes actions to try to ameliorate it, such as better early-childhood education.

Meantime, a couple of facts on the broad topic:

For the five years through 2013, Census Bureau data show the most unequal distribution of income in the 60-year history of their calculations, measured by the so-called Gini Index, a composite gauge of income spread.  The top 5% of households have just over 22% of total money income.  Separate IRS figures show that the vaunted "1%" paid 38% of the income tax in 2012.  Median household income – that is, half of households are above and half below – was $51,939, down 8% in inflation-adjusted terms from the pre-recession level in 2007.  The share of the population with income below the poverty level was 14.5% in 2013.  This is an improvement from the 15% level of the previous three years; but in the mid-2000s, ahead of the recession, the rate hovered around 12.5%.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development ("OECD") calculates that through 2012, the U.S. has a wider range of relative income spread, that is, a higher Gini Index, than 19 of the other 21 countries in that group.  Only Mexico and Turkey had showed more inequality in incomes.  All but two countries did experience steady or widening inequality over the previous 25 years, but only four countries showed a larger change than in the U.S.

A couple of our own recent articles have spoken to related issues.  We have noted a decline in labor force participation and an associated phenomenon called "job polarization".  Compared to historical patterns, people seem discouraged from seeking work, and some of that discouragement may be associated with a decrease in job opportunities in the middle-income range, such as factory work and office administration.  At least some post-high-school education or some re-orienting of high school course offerings toward mechanical skills seems needed.  We've also been concerned about poverty, which came to specific attention in the recent police killings.  Answers to this particular poverty situation involve better education as well and some kind of business investment – or at least business interest – in lower-income neighborhoods.

That type of material will be the subjects of Trinity Institute presentations, so we'll see if there are new, helpful solutions in the works.  Stay tuned!

  

Two New York City Cops Are Killed; Our Local Bishop Speaks

Just over two weeks ago, we posted commentary here [directly below] on the grand jury decisions in the Ferguson and Staten Island police brutality cases not to indict the police officers who killed two presumed criminals they were trying to arrest.  The demonstrations against the police have continued since then, mostly in New York, but also in other cities.  It all came to a head this past Saturday afternoon when a man drove from Baltimore to Brooklyn and proceeded to shoot to death two cops sitting in their patrol car.

We were thinking perhaps that our blog post, in which we advocate efforts to offer preventive help to, and lift up, people in low-income, high-crime areas, skipped too many steps or missed the point of the demonstrations altogether.  They were, after all, anti-police demonstrations, not necessarily outbursts from demoralized people about their own seemingly powerless states of life.

Whatever the real goal, the situation got way out of hand and led to the deaths of two ordinary cops doing a routine patrol job on a Saturday afternoon.  They were not taking any actions and, as it happens, they weren't even white.  One, named Wenjian Liu, is the son of immigrant parents from China.  The other, Rafael Ramos, is Hispanic.  Officer Ramos was hardly a violent man; he was due to graduate later that very afternoon from a program that trains lay chaplains for public service in crisis times just such as this.

Feelings are heavy today in Brooklyn.  The 84^th Precinct, the officers' station, is our local precinct, the station house four blocks down the street from where we live.  We just now returned from adding some flowers to a growing collection at the front door of the building.

Brooklyn is in the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island.  Our Bishop, Lawrence Provenzano, happened to have been in Brooklyn yesterday, making a long-scheduled visit at a parish in a neighborhood not far away.  Afterward, he visited the scene of the shooting at Myrtle and Tompkins Avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant and talked to local police and to the people of that community.  Then when he got home last night, he wrote to the clergy of the Diocese; the letter is posted on the Diocese website.  His own pain is palpable and he urges a second look.  Listen to some of what he says.

At Myrtle and Tompkins, I stood and talked with police officers, people on the street and residents standing on stoops or in the doorways of the Tompkins Houses. The police officers talked about their fears and those of their families. They talked about being accustomed to dealing with critical situations - homicides, rapes, domestic disturbance, robberies, but not being able to rationally deal with "their own" being murdered.    At Myrtle and Tompkins people talked to me about being scared by all the killings, the rhetoric all around them, and now the possible negative reaction in the community following the murder of the two officers.

It became clear to me today that regardless of what happens next; what organizing goes on, what investigations are launched, programs developed and rhetoric shared, the church . . . must not engage in grandstanding, instigating, organizing, or even marching any longer.  People are scared, hurt, confused and bewildered.  The place of the church in all of this is not to seize the moment to be relevant or for that matter prophetic.  Our place in all of this for right now is to incarnate peace - peace in language, peace in program, peace in attitude and peace in church.

I am calling upon the clergy of the diocese to be agents of peace in the neighborhoods and communities we serve.  Our young people need some assurance and security. Our young people of color need to know that we will stand with them, that we will protect and guide them in sensible and responsible ways. They need to know that we will teach them how to stand up for their rights and stand with them when those rights are violated without resorting to violence.  Those who serve us and protect us need to know that we do not wish them harm and that we see them for who they are and aren't. The police need to know that we are allies with them in service to the community.

. . . . I am asking that we strive, and teach and practice peace and peacemaking. I am asking us to put the needs of our young people, their families and communities first. Violence cannot be a response to violence. Hatred must be remedied by love - love incarnate, made real by those who are called to be the Body of Christ.

. . . .

May Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos rest in peace.  May their families know the comfort and mercy of Jesus. And may the people of our communities find and know peace.

We are struck by the strength of our Bishop's words.  And there are more in his full text.  As we work for peace in our cities, perhaps our own suggestions for fostering more education and encouraging business opportunities in low-income neighborhoods aren't too far-fetched after all.  They're long-run, to be sure, but these situations will keep cropping up and need to be tackled at the base.  We'll be following up soon with some more specific ideas along these lines.

Meantime, may you all enjoy peace – and joy – for Christmas and for many days after. 

A Remembrance of Robin Williams

We have an article in process on consumer finances and their role in the broader economy.  Even as we are working on that, we recognize that these days are full of heavy-weight events in the world.  In the last few weeks, we have written of praying for peace (July 18) and we have offered internet links to aid for the child immigrants in Texas (July 11).  Now, we also need to pause and remember a prominent man who has passed, Robin Williams.

There is much we could say about Williams.  We could choose the serious side of his passing, including his illnesses and the manner of his death.  But in this moment, we choose to be light-hearted and remember the fun he brought us.  For Episcopalians, perhaps the easiest and most sentimental expression of this is a recitation of the gift he gave to us in particular, "The Top 10 Reasons for Being Episcopalian", which he presented during an HBO special in 2002.  These have been making the rounds this past week and you may have seen them already.  There's even a tee shirt, which you can find here: https://www.episcopalbookstore.com/product.aspx?productid=3171.

The Top 10 Reasons for Being Episcopalian:

10. No snake handling.

9. You can believe in dinosaurs.

8. Male and female God created them; male and female we ordain them.

7. You don't have to check your brains at the door.

6. Pew aerobics.

5. Church year is color-coded.

4. Free wine on Sunday.

3. All of the pageantry - none of the guilt.

2. You don't have to know how to swim to get baptized.

And the Number One reason to be an Episcopalian:

1. No matter what you believe, there's bound to be at least one other Episcopalian who agrees with you.

May Williams help us to laugh at ourselves, which we need to do often and especially right now! 

Links for Helping with the Immigration Crisis in South Texas

Not your usual Ways of the World essay.

We are – as many of you are, too, probably – very concerned about the throngs of Central American children coming across the Texas border.  Yesterday, July 10, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, called our attention to the work on this crisis issue by various bodies of the Church.  Her specific emphasis was on advocacy and policy.  She also certainly feels compassion for the kids themselves, and she urges us to pray and give as well.

As we read her published statement in a daily email from Episcopal News Service, we were moved to check on the website of Episcopal Relief & Development for possible news of actual relief efforts.  As many of you know, the Geranium Farm are long-time supporters of ER-D's work.  Sure enough, they are helping get resources to the relief center being run in McAllen, Texas, right on the border across the Rio Grande from Reynosa, Mexico, and between Brownsville and Laredo.  St. John's Episcopal Church is pitching in at the center, which is located at Sacred Heart Catholic Church and being managed by Catholic Charities.  At least one of the local Baptist churches is also participating and possibly other churches.

Here is a link to Episcopal Relief & Development, where you can make a monetary donation to that work: https://www.episcopalrelief.org/press-and-resources/press-releases/2014-press-releases/responding-to-central-american-migrant-crisis.

If you want to send supplies directly to the center, here is information from Sacred Heart Church: http://sacredheartchurch-mcallen.org/immigrant-assistance/ .  This includes the address of the drop-off center and an itemized list of what they need; it's pretty basic daily-living stuff for adults and little kids.

Here is a link to the Diocese of West Texas, which has posted pictures of the work and in-kind donations that are being provided.

Finally, today's New York Times ran a strongly worded op-ed by an unlikely group of immigration reform advocates: Sheldon Adelson, CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, and Bill Gates, Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a founder of Microsoft.  These three, who begin with the disclaimer that they don't have common political perspectives, strongly urge the Congress to get its act together on immigration reform legislation.  This presently appears unlikely to happen before the November election as everyone wants to run away from the hot-button issue before constituents vote.  But those little kids down there in Texas and the adults who sent them need some clarity.  So too, as Adelson, Buffett and Gates argue, do the graduate students from abroad working hard at our universities, and others anxious to come here legally or to regularize their current status as residents of our country.  Contact your Representatives.  While the Church's advocacy work helps, constituent contact will count too.

Please respond somehow.

About Someone Else Who Died November 22, 1963

Another major figure of the 20^th Century also died on November 22, 1963.  His name is C.S. Lewis.  As yesterday's Christian Science Monitor noted, Lewis's passing was far overshadowed by JFK's assassination and few people paid attention.[1]  The Gospel Coalition website[2] explains that Lewis collapsed and died at his home in Oxford early that evening, apparently just an hour or so before Kennedy was shot.

The Episcopal Church does pay attention today, though, and since 2003 has remembered Lewis in its calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts.  The commentary there highlights the fact that Lewis did not come by his religion easily, but went through a long period of atheism from his adolescence in the 1910s until 1929.  The profile also notes that his reconversion, fulfilled in 1931, "inaugurated a wonderful outpouring of Christian apologetics in media as varied as popular theology, children’s literature, fantasy and science fiction, and correspondence on spiritual matters with friends and strangers alike."

Here are a few quotes from Lewis, taken from a variety of his writings and assorted websites:

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

As we copied-and-pasted those words a little while ago, we didn't know, but quickly learned, that they now appear on the plaque which just yesterday was dedicated to Lewis in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey.[3]

Some other of Lewis's words:

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point."

"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair."

"Whatever men expect, they soon come to think they have a right to: the sense of disappointment can, with very little skill on (the devil's) part, be turned into a sense of injury."

"You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society."

“Each new power won by man is a power over man as well. Each advance leaves him weaker as well as stronger.”

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one."

"Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither."

"The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed."

And here is the Collect for this Day in Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 2006 (page 465):

O God of searing truth and surpassing beauty, we give you thanks for Clive Staples Lewis, whose sanctified imagination lights fires of faith in young and old alike. Surprise us also with your joy and draw us into that new and abundant life which is ours in Christ Jesus, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Finally, one other notable also passed away that day: Aldous Huxley, aged 69, died of cancer in Los Angeles at 5:20PM PST, seven hours after Kennedy's shooting and eight hours after Lewis's death in England.[4]

-----------------------------------

[1] http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2013/1122/C.S.-Lewis-10-thought-provoking-quotes/Taken-unawares

[2] http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/11/22/9-things-you-should-know-about-c-s-lewis/

[3] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10452711/Does-CS-Lewis-deserve-a-place-in-Poets-Corner.html.  Also see an interview with Lewis's stepson Douglas Gresham (Joy Davidman's son), here: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/cs-lewis-in-the-shadow-of-jfks-death-8955470.html.  Other Telegraph stories note that Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, officiated at the unveiling of the Poet's Corner plaque.

[4] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/10465714/JFKs-assassination-not-a-slow-news-day.html

Stewardship: God Needs Caretakers for the World

To best experience the context for the commentary here, watch this video.  The commentary – hopefully – is clear enough on its own, but will gain extra meaning if your mood is set by watching the video first.[1]

After God created the world and all that is in it, God needed help keeping it going and maintaining it.  God needed someone with specific skills and interests and talents, so God created people in God's own image.  We are farmers helping crops grow and raising animals, as in the video, while others of us live and work in many, many other facets of life.  All this helps God's dream for creation come to fruition, become a reality.

Our part in this is stewardship.  We are God's stewards.  Stewardship is a holistic concept, a way of life for us.

So "stewardship" is not just giving money to churches and other charities.  That's only one manifestation of it.

All this was introduced to a group of lay people the other night at a workshop at the Mercer School of Theology at the Diocese of Long Island in Garden City, New York.  The presenter was the Rev. Laurel Johnston, Executive Director of TENS, The Episcopal Network for Stewardship, a national organization.  We offer a summary of her remarks here on Ways of the World precisely because there are so many roles for stewards in the world.  We are currently watching – and some of us are feeling the ramifications of – the lack of stewardship sentiment among our federal government officials, so we see what happens when the sense of stewardship slackens off.  And surely we want people in business to recognize that they are stewards too.

Participating in the stewardship way of life is nurturing for us.  We have been, like the farmer in the video, called and marked by God, and we are living God's dream.  In seeing our lives this way, we acknowledge our identity as God's stewards.

What are some aspects of this identity?  We find ourselves called to be parents, managers, caretakers, teachers.  All of these facets involve trust.  We are Managers of Trust – or perhaps "Managers in Trust".  God's trustees:  a high calling, indeed.

 The Genesis creation story relates that God gave humans dominion over creation.  But Mother Johnston points out that "dominion" should not be seen as  domineering ruling like a tyrannical king; it is bringing about an environment of peace and justice.  This fosters conditions of shalom, helping all creation reach its potential.

All of this is a gift to us.  All we have is God's gift to us.  We want to be generous with what God has given us.  God's own generosity is seen in the gift of his Son.

At this time of year, the activity churches pursue is not a "stewardship campaign", but an "Annual Giving Campaign".  The stewardship campaign, seen in the broader sense presented here, goes on all year round.  At one or two specific seasons, we are more precise in asking members of our community to help us plan by telling us about their intended giving amounts.

We do need to be specific in talking about money and giving.  Mother Johnston told her own story of making her career working at the international poverty organization CARE.  At first she felt she didn't need to make money gifts to charities and her church because she was devoting her career to this work.  But she came to understand that she has resources at her disposal which she needs to share.  Her walk with God and her walk with her own wallet had become separated.  But they must be together.

She mentioned the Biblical statistics: Jesus talks on prayer 500 times; He talks on faith more than 500 times, but He talks about money 2,000 times.  This is because the role of money so frequently got misaligned in his followers' lives – and it surely does in our lives too.  Money gets in the way.  It becomes an idol and we begin to violate the 1^st Commandant about not having any other god before God.  So Jesus is not opposed to wealth, Mother Johnston stated explicitly, but He wants us to keep our money and our faith in the proper perspective.  As she said, we have passion, purpose and purse, and we want to keep all three of those in the right relationship.

Giving is an act of worship, a statement of faith.  We acknowledge that God is the source of everything and we place our ultimate trust in God, knowing that in God we have ultimate security.  One of the Episcopal Eucharistic Prayers describes the offering as a "sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving", and we don't want to offer God "cheap praise".  We give to fund God's dream in our communities, and when our offerings are brought forward, they are blessed, even as we are.

=================================

For more specifics about an Annual Giving Campaign, visit the TENS website, www.tens.org/resources. Mother Crafton has authored one of the bulletin inserts in this year's theme program "Flourishing in Faith", about Zacchaeus.

[1]The video is a commercial by Dodge Ram trucks for the 2013 Super Bowl.  We are hardly meaning to advocate for Dodge Ram trucks, but we do applaud the creators of the ad.  The overlay speech was given by broadcaster Paul Harvey at the 1978 convention of the Future Farmers of America.

Wetlands, GMOs and Rogation Day Prayers

Last week on Earth Day, we spoke of Nature's Fortune and how businesses are prospering by making investments that enhance Nature and the environment instead of eroding them.  At the end, we made casual mention of two items that are worth more attention: built wetlands and GMOs.  There is actually a suitable church-calendar occasion for this further commentary on Nature, the upcoming Rogation Sunday and Rogation Days.  The Sunday is observed on the 6^th Sunday of Easter in the Episcopal Church calendar and the Days are the following Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday immediately before Ascension Thursday; the petition is for blessing of crops as they are planted and for the stewardship of creation.

Ways of the World has offered prayers before at this time of year, especially since our current Prayer Book commemorates industry as well as agriculture in the prayers it presents.  This year, as we googled a bit on "Rogation" – it means "asking", as in "interrogation" – we came across commentaries from priests in rural settings in Alabama and in Wyoming who worry about this shift in emphasis away from agriculture and nature, fearing that it will lure people away from their role as stewards of Nature.  Perhaps.  But as our own current lessons are teaching, we now see that we can use this occasion as a catalyst for talking about both wetlands and GMOs as they clearly represent the meeting of industry and Nature.

Why Would a Company Build a Wetland?

In 1996, Dow Chemical was pressured by regulators to do something about water pollution at its Seadrift, Texas, plant; a new wastewater-treatment facility was clearly necessary.[1]  The company's engineers began the design work for a big concrete system they estimated would cost about $40 million.  But one of them had a different idea: "build" a wetland.  This would work because as wastewater flows through such a wetland, as the EPA's website explains, "it slows down and many of the suspended solids become trapped by vegetation and settle out. Other pollutants are transformed to less soluble forms taken up by plants or become inactive.  Wetland plants also foster [the development of microorganisms, which] transform and remove pollutants from the water."[2]  The Dow version at Seadrift occupies 110 acres and treats 5 million gallons of water a day.  This "green infrastructure" cost $1.4 million, a tiny fraction of the much more involved "gray" installation.  Wildlife also like these places, so here is one instance in which man has helped Nature along in at least a couple of ways.

You've read and heard plenty about how big companies, especially chemical companies like Dow, hurt the environment.  This is an example of how they are evidently coming around on this issue.  The EPA reports[3] that there are more than 1,000 constructed wetlands in the US and 5,000 altogether around the world.  Dow also has a one at Pittsburg, California, and their enormous plant at Freeport, Texas, is becoming an experimental center for a huge project with The Nature Conservancy.  Sustainability officers at many companies are now part of the main operational management, not just offshoots of P.R. or public affairs departments.  As seen in the Seadrift example, the company's bottom line got big help from the built wetland innovation, and such cost considerations are part and parcel of these decisions.  The lower cost way was the better way.

What Good Are GMOs?

The GMO issue is trickier, since not all the science on GMOs agrees about their safety.  They have also not been handled in the most helpful way by the companies that produce them.  Here's some of what we do know.  Genetically modified plants are meant to help food production in three ways.  They are intended to make the plants more resistant to insects so less insecticide is needed, they are meant to increase resistance to viruses so plant yields are greater and they are meant to make plants more resistant to herbicides so weeds can be killed without killing the plants themselves.[4]  These are all good things.  But the chemical formulas to achieve these characteristics must be varied for each growing region according to the soil content and the weed situation in each locale.  So GMO production and distribution are more customized, leaving farmers and consumers more dependent on the individual companies making the seeds.  This has generated a kind of monopoly situation, with public emphasis often focused on the profits made by the companies over and above the benefits of the GMO plants.

There is also concern over what the genetic modifications might do to the soil and whether people might have a greater tendency to be allergic to GMOs than to un-modified plants or to have other reactions to the genes in the modified plants.  Information from the World Health Organization (WHO) assures that for GMOs traded in world markets, no additional "allergenicity" is present; they do urge caution in the use of antibiotic-resistant products in which the modified genes might get transferred to those who consume the foods, though WHO says chances of this are small.  In the main, the WHO experts inform us[5], plants sold in international markets have been found safe.

So why use these if they are questionable?  Because plant yields are indeed greater, and less chemical application, such as insect-killers and weed-killers, is needed in their production.  Being able to produce more food with less raw material will be absolutely necessary in coming decades as the world population grows, Mark Tercek of The Nature Conservancy points out, and all the more as people are lifted up out of poverty into more active lives; that's one of the main reasons he wrote the book Nature's Fortune.  Business and industry must invest in and be stewards of agriculture and nature for all of us, all 7 billion of us, to grow and prosper together.[6]

Indeed,

Almighty God, Lord of heaven and earth: We humbly pray that your gracious providence may give and preserve to our use the harvests of the land and of the seas, and may prosper all who labor to gather them, that we, who are constantly receiving good things from your hand, may always give you thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

And

O merciful Creator, your hand is open wide to satisfy the needs of every living creature: Make us always thankful for your loving providence; and grant that we, remembering the account that we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of your good gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

------------------------------------------------

[1] Mark R. Tercek and Jonathan S. Adams.  Nature's Fortune: How Business and Society Thrive by Investing in Nature.  New York: Basic Books. 2013.  Pp. 168ff and various Dow Chemical Company reports.  See www.dow.com.

[2] Office of Water, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  "Constructed Treatment Wetlands". http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/pdf/ConstructedW.pdf .  August 2004.  Accessed April 30, 2013.

[3] Ibid.  Some of the constructed wetlands are associated with farms as well as industrial uses.

[4] World Health Organization. "20 Questions on Genetically Modified (GM) Foods".  http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/biotech/20questions/en/index.html .  Accessed April 30, 2013.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Tercek and Adams.  Page 3.

Remembering Our Friends on World AIDS Day

This coming Saturday, December 1, is the annual observance of World AIDS Day.  On this day, my home parish will celebrate at a memorial service the life of one of our members who passed away on November 18.  Bob was HIVpositive, but, miraculously, he did not die of AIDS; he had a form of lung cancer which itself had been in remission for several years.  He is the second person among our congregation who has lived for years with the HIV virus, but been successfully treated with anti-retroviral medications.  Bob, almost 71 years old, had participated in clinical trials for the HIV meds and was the subject of medical journal articles following his lung cancer treatment; he bragged that he was down to "1 pill a day" to keep the HIV at bay.  The other gentleman, named Michael, lived to 79 and died suddenly of a heart attack while walking down a street in Munich, Germany.

In their memory, and to lift up HIV/AIDS patients everywhere, we offer these two prayers.  The first, "For a Cure" is original to the National Episcopal AIDS Coalition, found at www.NEAC.org .  The other, "A Prayer for Remembering" is adapted currently by NEAC, but it happens also to be one we were given many years ago by someone who took it from a Jewish prayer book to be offered by those grieving the loss of loved ones who had taken their own lives.  These prayers are available on the NEAC website in a form suitable for reproduction as prayer cards to be distributed.  Find them here: http://www.neac.org/resources/neac-prayer-cards .

 A Prayer for a Cure

 Oh Blessed Lord Jesus Christ, whose Name alone under heaven is given for health and salvation, enlighten those researchers, scientists, and technicians who seek a cure for AIDS and its related conditions; be present with them in their perplexity and, at last, prosper their efforts with such success that those who were without hope may rejoice and those who were considered dead may be raised up; who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

 A Prayer for Remembering

In the rising of the sun and in its going down,
we remember them.

In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of the water,
we remember them.

In the opening of buds and in the rebirth of spring,
we remember them.

In the blueness of the sky and in the warmth of summer,
we remember them.

In the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn,
we remember them.

In the beginning of the year and when it ends,
we remember them.

When we are weary and in need of strength,
we remember them.

When we are lost and sick at heart,
we remember them.

When we have joys we yearn to share,
we remember them.

So long as we live, they too shall live, for they are a part of us,
and we remember them.

Amen.