MORGAN'S MOMENT
I’m conflicted about Christmas cards…
    liking those with a personal touch…
    even hand-signed?

But I rarely send them anymore…
    wishing I did
    envying those who get them out.

I rationalize
    that my frequent mailings
    allow an excuse.

Will friends ─ even relatives
    know I still care about them
    if I don’t send a card?

Is the email greeting sufficient
    without a personal comment
    or written signature?

Will those whose only Christmas
    is the card delivered at the door
    look for a card I never sent?

Will the card-senders we love
    cross us off their list 
    because I failed at my end?

Should I skip my mailing a month
    and send personal cards
    to everyone @ .45 plus the card?

I’m conflicted
    and start the New Year like the last...
    hoping to be better next year.

— Art Morgan 

BOOK CORNER
   I was surprised and pleased to read “The Invention of Air” by Steven Johnson. It is the intriguing story of Joseph Priestley, probably the most important person I had never heard of.
   He was a scientist, preacher, teacher, inventor, philosopher and political thinker. He collaborated with Benjamin Franklin in the study of electricity.
   He believed that ideas had to move and to circulate for them to be improved. He didn’t copy- right or patent anything. He also was a co-founder of the Unitarian denomination.
(I can send my one page summation of the book
as an attachment to anyone interested)


MOMENT MINISTRIES
– January 7, 2010 –
    A MOMENT MINISTRIES production – Art Morgan
a-morgan@peak.org

SOME CHANGES
    This has been coming for a while, and is now happening. More blue sheet readers are receiving this as an e-mail link than by postal mail. In fact, the list has almost reversed itself. The number that originally received our postal mail is now less than ¼ of what it used to be. That means that the number receiving by email link has multiplied four-fold and more.
     We are still trying to figure out who is on which list. We are still mailing by postal mail to those who request that delivery (as well as those that don’t have email).
      We are rapidly adding more email addresses from people who had been reading a second-hand copy. We’ve added some church secretaries who used to read the blue sheet before passing it on to the pastor. We’ve added spouses who claim that their partner was not good at passing on email messages.
       If you wish to change your place on our address lists in any way PLEASE write us a note or email a-morgan@peak.org

ORAL TRADITION
    Human beings have been illiterate longer than they have been literate. Most of the Bible was unwritten for centuries. Even after it was put in writing, few could read it.
    While many are avid readers, either from printed pages or electronic messages, more words are heard than read. Even books are available on tape or CD.
     Many get most of their news on internet. I get most of my news by public radio. NPR at night, and Oregon Public Broadcasting in the morning. All orally.
      I suspect that the Bible, like Shakespeare, would be better by listening than by reading.
      In either case the receiver of what is heard and read needs to practice basic filtering. This applies to Bible reading as well. Who is saying it? Who wrote it? Is the report or quotation or interpretation accurate? Is the material in context? Why was the material written or spoken? Was there a political or partisan or theological bias?
      We look to what is spoken or written as having authority. It is more important than ever to question authority. Whenever I see a preacher hold up the Bible and say, “This is the Word of God,” I say, “Really? How do you know that?”
      I hope those who read my words also question. I hope they think for themselves. I encourage those who share thinking.

 


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SPIRITUAL WORSHIP – IN A GYM
   A clergy guy who works out at our gym walked by my machine as he was leaving. I had asked if the New Year was off to a good start. We don’t talk often. He remembers me as one of the long-ago, infamous “liberal Art’s” of Corvallis. The other Art is a retired Unitarian minister.
   Our banter led to church talk, as it often does with those in the trade. I asked him about attendance at the first Sunday service of the year. Always a low blow question, because the first service in January is like losing the Rose Bowl after an undefeated season. Christmas fills the church. New Year’s Sunday empties it. In fact, lots of preachers take that Sunday off…”to recover from Christmas.”
   Here we were at the gym, along with a bunch of other people. The paper reported a surge in gym memberships after the New Year. Exercise machines sold well. We see more people on the road walking and jogging.
   Let’s face it: the first thing people think of after New Years is personal survival, health, and living. Spiritual issues don’t come to mind as first priority. There’s no rush to church.
   I think there’s room for compromise. For those who still appreciate a good Bible verse, a good one for a New Year’s resolution could be found in Romans 12:
Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
   (Do I need to warn any of those who have read me for the last half century about using any single text as authority for anything, without concern for its context?)
   Disclaimer aside, that text has come to mind at various times. It works in a dental chair, for instance. Or when having a colonoscopy. Or getting a biopsy. You can probably think of other times when you were presenting your body as a living sacrifice.
   The “holy and acceptable” part moves from meddling to preaching. Try standing on the scales or viewing your shape in a full length mirror and thinking that what you see is holy and acceptable to anyone, including God, and would qualify as “spiritual worship,” (whatever that means).
   We’d just as soon separate spirituality from our bodies. The theological statement of Christmas takes that option away. Think about “the Word became flesh…
   It’s a heavy idea for God-believers and anyone to think about. What is sacred and spiritual and holy, by whatever name, is part of us. Flesh. The theological word is “incarnation.” So holy moments invite themselves to consciousness in work in the garden, watching a sunrise, changing a diaper, making love, sailing, eating with friends, sharing wine with a loved one, walking by the river, reading, listening to music, singing a hymn ─ or anything. I just thumbed through a hymnal reading hymn words written by Brian Wren. It was a spiritual journey of sorts. Barbara Brown Taylor found these words in one of his hymns (not in my collection, alas) as she thumbed through a hymnal waiting for a sermon to end. It was surprise to see such earthy words in church.
   
      Good is the flesh that the Word has become,
  
          good is the birthing, the milk in the breast,
             good is the feeding, caressing and rest,
 
           good is the body for knowing the world,
 
        Good is the flesh that the Word has become.
 
        Good is the body for knowing the world,
  
          sensing the sunlight, the tug of the ground,
  
          feeling, perceiving, within and around,
 
           good is the body, from cradle to grave,
 
        Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

   I went back to my workout ─ I mean back to my spiritual worship ─ attempting to make my body a bit more acceptable. If not to God, at least to me.
Art Morgan, January 7, 2010