MORGAN'S MOMENT...
Eli’s escape in the Super Bowl
    makes me think of Jonah’s escape
    from the belly of the great fish.
One of those you have to see to believe.
Then to have his prayer of a pass
    caught far down field by a David
    who happened to be a Giant.
That escape and that catch
    holding the ball to his helmet
    happened on the very same play.
Millions became believers in miracles.
A newscaster tried to get a player
    to say that God had intervened
    on the side of the Giants.
The player did not bite.
“I don’t believe God is quite like that…
    He wants both sides
    to do their best.”
That refreshing view is also a miracle.
Events grow into legends then myths
    then believed into miracles
    like this one involving David and Eli
If God were to work football miracles
    I would suggest that many others
    need doing first.
— Art Morgan 

BOOK CORNER
“The Year You Write Your Novel,” by Walter Mosley. I’ve never aspired to write a novel. Mosley is one of my favored authors. This book of 100 pages gives an inside view of how he does it. His advice about writing a novel works with all of life. One page a day. No excuses.
“The Bubble of American Supremacy ─ Correcting the Misuse of American Power,” by George Soros. He is no think tank ideologue, putting 500 million$ a year into his work. Makes one think.
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MOMENT MINISTRIES
February 6, 2008
home address:  25921 SW Airport Ave.
Corvallis, OR 97333   541-753-3942
email at a-morgan@peak.org
EATING DIRT COOKIES…
If you are starving in Haiti ─ if your children are hungry ─ and you don’t have even the $1 a day income that poorest people in the world are said to receive ─ all that you can do is eat cookies made of dirt.
I had never heard of this before, but apparently it’s an old practice. Cookies are made up of clay and grass and who knows what else. They are formed and eaten to ease the pain of starvation.
It shouldn’t have to happen anywhere, but it does. People do starve to death in our world.
Which makes lots of behavior seem outrageous if not obscene.
How easily multi-billions of dollars are added to our national deficit to continue a war that cannot be won with armaments. The President is proposing a 3.1 billion dollar budget. How is that money to be allocated? And who are we borrowing it from?
If your ethical values come from Christian convictions, or come simply from a gut feeling that Jesus was on highest moral ground when he made the sick and hungry and poor a priority, you may be uncomfortable with current national policies and priorities.
I don’t write about political matters very much. Most of my readers think pretty well for themselves. The reminder that people within 100 miles of America are starving on dirt cookies prompts my response, as well as another check to Church World Service that is no doubt responding in Haiti as we speak.
INSIDE – OUTSIDE
Relevant or not, a higher education study compared 2004 freshmen with 2007 juniors.

Freshmen
 Juniors
Attend religious services
 44%
 25%
Pray
 69%
 67%
Importance of spirituality
 42%
 50%
Becoming more loving person
 67%
 83%
Value reducing suffering in world
 55%
 67%
Politics – Liberal 
 29%
 34%
Such studies don’t show whether religious services, or faith, or growing maturity or increased education, or what, causes the differences. There is room for improvement from both inside and outside the church. Where do values come from?
VALENTINES DAY MUSICAL MOMENT…
Our February 14 Thursday Night “Moment” potluck is mostly music ─ in addition to food. Paul will sing some songs of love and romance ─ including some from his concert this Saturday at the Congregational Church. We’ll also sing along some old favorites.
Celebrate St Valentine’s Day.
Thursday, February 14
Gather beginning at 6.     We’ll eat at 6:30

 
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FAT TUESDAY 2008
        What a great day to be in America. Especially in New Orleans where the gods of pleasure dwell for a day instead of Las Vegas. It is said that the day originated with the need to consume foods that were to be given up in spiritual preparation for Easter that might spoil during Lent. It doesn’t matter that we now have freezers, and most of the world ─ even the Christian world ─ mostly ignores Lent.
        I checked my calendar and discovered I was writing an article that would go to the printer on Fat Tuesday. The original article started with a conversation I had with a fellow clergy guy at the gym. He approached me with a bit of a worried look on his face to announce that he had been appointed by his bishop to a committee to deal with the problem of obesity among the clergy.
“It’s embarrassing and shameful how many clergy are out of shape. Nobody wants to talk about it, but at least half of the clergy in our district are, well…obese.”
        He was obviously sad about it. Not judgmental in any critical way. He’d been an athlete who kept up his training discipline for many years. He’s the most fit-looking person in our gym. He knows the price he pays for fitness both at the table and the gym. He knows that most aren’t up to it.
        I interjected that my own denomination had a resolution of some sort on the agenda at its national convention regarding clergy obesity. I thought I remembered the rate as being 60%. He didn’t seem comforted.
        He continued:
“It’s not just a physical problem. It’s definitely a spiritual problem. It speaks volumes when we clergy cannot discipline our own bodies.”
        I tried to suck in my gut so he wouldn’t notice.
        Don’t you wonder how his committee is doing? It’s been a few months. I need to ask him. But my thought is that the issue is a bit personal. Doesn’t everyone have friends who tend toward being obese? Is it our business to monitor them like the lawmaker in Mississippi who proposes a law to ban restaurants from serving obese customers? Should churches refuse to serve communion to obese members during Lent?
        The last Consumer’s Report takes another angle. “Smoking and obesity related illnesses…threaten to overwhelm health expenditures.” A doctor on one of the radio shows said that instead of blaming doctors or hospitals or insurance companies for the high cost of health care, don’t look to the government ─ look in the mirror.”
        Is it a health issue, an economic issue, or what? On the rare occasion when I might be honest with myself, I have to admit that my desire to stay reasonably trim is a cosmetic issue ─ a wish to look good. In more recent times I have tried to face the realities of my gene pool that contains both the lymphoma cancer of my dad and the prostate cancer that came down from my grandfather and has affected two of my cousins and all four of us brothers. Since there is proven effect of diet in the prevention and cure of cancer, one is foolish to spend up to $50,000 for a treatment without adopting a healthier diet that can change your odds.
        Fat Tuesday might be a good time to go through the cupboards and throw out the sugars and white floor and all those good things that feed obesity and heart disease and cancer.
        Just when I had it all figured out, the morning paper came with a report of a Dutch study on the life-time costs of health care comparing the obese with the fit. From ages 23 – 56 it costs more to be obese. Obesity produced more diabetes, but the fit had more strokes. The bottom line was that the trim and healthy actually cost the health system more than did the obese. (We have to take all these studies with a grain of salt ─ no, salt’s not so good, try a grain of whole grain!) The reason for the difference is that by living four years longer, the healthy were in the health care system longer and therefore cost more. Lower costs by dying younger!
        I’m sure you want a Bible text to live by. Two choices. We tend to favor “Eat, drink and be merry…” and have less interest in “Present your body as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God.”
        Clergy obesity is an apparent problem, as my preacher friend says. I’m not sure whether it diminishes effectiveness or not. A couple of the least fit clergy I have known have been good pastors and among the most successful leaders in the social justice movements. Who’s going to cast stones?
        My friend sees it as a spiritual problem in which case Fat Tuesday is an opportunity. We can enter a period of spiritual activity ─ at our own table, or even the gym. What a deal ─ an honest to God spiritual activity with results you can actually measure! Let us pray.  
─ Art Morgan, Fat Tuesday, 2008