MORGAN'S MOMENT
“Just add water…”
      the thought came to mind
      while sitting in front of our cabaña
      looking at a nice stone birdbath.
Something was missing…
      the numerous bright colored birds
      we enjoy watching and hearing
      while we sun and soak in Mexico.
If finally soaked into my barren brain
      that the nicest sculpted birdbath
      was only a useless knickknack
      unless you added water.
I went to the sink and found two water glasses
      and filled them full
      taking two trips
      to fill the birdbath.
Even without birds
      that piece of shaped concrete
      seemed to come to life
      with sun reflected off the water.
Within minutes golden and orange and yellow birds
      were vying with each other
      for the right to splash and preen 
      and display their glory.
Sink water became holy water
      and the birdbath a baptismal font
      as God’s creations found welcome.
      All I did was just add water.
— Art Morgan 
BOOK CORNER
What to read during our nine days in Baja? I took three books. The one book I always take is John Steinbeck’s “The Log From the Sea of Cortez.” It is a reflective log of Steinbeck’s expedition in the Gulf of California. The log covers territory and time of year similar to ours.
A second book was “The DaVinci Code,” by Dan Brown. I may make it my back page one of these times.
A third book was Michael Moore’s “Dude, Where’s My Country?” I can’t imagine anyone finding comfort in this book. No political party goes unscathed. I wish everyone would read it. 
MOMENT MINISTRIES
May 1, 2004
home address:  25921 SW Airport Ave.
Corvallis, OR 97333   541-753-3942
email at  a-morgan@peak.org
WHERE DID THE MOMENTS GO?
We wonder whether anyone missed our lapse in mailings. We’ve skipped three publication dates. We have been doing so many “moment” that we haven’t been in town long enough to write about them.
We got home from one circuit (the one that included Jean’s aunt in Colorado among others) in time to prepare for Easter—and a wonderful one it was at the Glass Farm.
Only a day later we were preparing to drive to Los Angeles (seeing as many as 30 friends and relatives in 6 short days—missing too many more) than catching a flight to Cabo San Lucas on the southern tip of the Gulf of California. Our place of choice is Punta Colorada, about an hour by taxi for the airport. Our agenda is to soak up sun, soak in the balmy seas, enjoy siesta, Mexican food, and time for reading and writing. Totally decadent, of course. 
There is no land telephone or e-mail connection to the place so we are out of communication the whole time. 
That’s our excuse. We’ll try to put out some extra mailings to make up, before we close up again for the summer.
MOMENT ACTIVITY
It’s not a trip, really, but again it is. We will be spending May 9 on Orcas Island where I will be speaking to the Unitarian group there and being hosted at the Cleary home. We’ll report.
THE NEXT THURSDAY MOMENT POTLUCK
will be
THURSDAY MAY 13
JOHN STEINBECK SAID
“It is a strange thing that most of the feeling we call religious, most of the mystical outcrying which is one of the most prized and used and desired reactions of our species, is really the understanding and the attempt to say that man is related to the whole thing, related to all reality, known and unknowable. This is a simple thing to say, but the profound feeling of it made a Jesus, a St. Augustine, a St. Francis, a Roger Bacon, a Charles Darwin and an Einstein.”
(John Steinbeck, “Log for the Sea of Cortez,” p. 217)

(back page)

MY MOTHER WAS AN OYSTER
          My three brothers will be surprised to hear this. Actually, our mother was more a pearl than an oyster, a lovely lady who lived 97 years. Her name was Mary and her pride was we four boys.
          The oyster thing came about this way.
          I was asked to speak to the Unitarians on Orcas Island. The suggested subject was “The Meaning of the Sea.” Wow! That’s like being assigned to do a 20-minute sermon on the Meaning of God! At least there was room for my imagination to work.
          I usually start my thinking about a sermon with a time of free association. This may last a few minutes, hours or days. I never know what’s going to come up. After I get some sense of direction I begin background reading and research followed by some writing. At some point I organize what might pass for a sermon. 
          I have learned that if I stop at that point I usually end up saying what anyone else would think or say about the subject. So I make that ending point my beginning point. That’s hard work.
          So, I was sitting in my room in Baja, during siesta time, trying to imagine what to say to those folks on Orcas Island who certainly know at least as much about the sea as I do. I was reading Steinbeck’s book, “The Log from the Sea of Cortez,” which describes his scientific collection expedition in the Gulf of California. Our favorite hideout is along his journey route. At any rate, Steinbeck was speaking to me, as he does every year when I re-read his book. 
          He offers a semi-scientific, mystical view of the relationship of all things.
          He reminded me that I’ve had some of the same feelings and thoughts on my own beach on Puget Sound. 
          I get some strange ideas while doing normal things. Like one day when I was walking on our tidelands. I’ve walked that same beach for decades. I walk very carefully when the tide is low because of exposed barnacles and oysters.
          I’m confessing to you that I have been known to talk to the barnacles and oysters. Preachers don’t seem to care who they talk to. I’m pretty sure the barnacles and oysters don’t hear me, but who knows? I’ve wondered the same thing about my congregations.
          I don’t underestimate barnacles and oysters. If they were discovered on Mars it would be the biggest news in history. They are a miracle and a wonder. They have certainly lived successfully on our planet longer than our species.
          They are different from you and me in at least one respect. While they live, eat, reproduce and fulfill whatever destiny is theirs, they don’t appear to have any conscious awareness of anything beyond their shells. For instance, they can’t look into the skies and view planets and stars and galaxies, or even the moon—I don’t think. 
          So I talk to them and tell them what a wonderful and amazing thing it is to have life in this unbelievable universe. We may feel small and insignificant, but we are part of something grand and special. I tell them that I will try to look and imagine and wonder for them.
          And then I remind them that I am related to them. We’re all relatives. We all have the same mother. We owe our existence to the sea.
          Bingo! A sermon title: “My Mother is an Oyster.”
          Convoluted, what? But it gets me where I think I want to go on Mother’s Day. Who is my mother? Who is the life-bringer and life-bearer? Who is the mother we all share, the one we can’t have life without?
          There is yet another step. What do we owe our mother? Gratitude and respect and care. What about our global abuse of our mother? And what about the health of all water and its lack? Some think that the next wars will not be about oil, but about water. 
           I speak for all who are part of my family. And as I promised those guys on the beach, I speak also for them. After all, we all have the same mother.
— Art Morgan, May 1, 2004