MORGAN'S MOMENT
“She knows by seeing…”
           said my Thai friend
           while we stood talking
           she translating to her friends
           in my driveway.
Her friend
           smiling and trying to understand
           our conversation
           suddenly pointed at my face
           pulling on her ear
           speaking in excited Thai.
“You will have a long life…”
           she translated due to my confusion
           which made everyone happy
           including me
           since question has been raised
           by survival rate statistics, etcetera.
How can she know I wonder
           knowing nobody knows
           at least I don’t think so
           whether it’s 3 score and 10
           or by reason of strength 4 score.
For those of us who have been
           diagnosed and probed
           and blood sampled
           and opinioned sometimes twice
           and compared to statistics
           and longevity tables…
           I like her approach.
“She knows by seeing…”
           I don’t know how it works
           or if
           but I like her bright-eyed report
           of what she sees.
           I can live with that.
  — Art Morgan 
MOMENT MINISTRIES
Oct.. 20, 2000
home address:  25921 SW Airport Ave.
Corvallis, OR 97333   541-753-3942
email at  a-morgan@peak.org
REPORT
We left Corvallis (again) after only two weeks home from our summer life, following a great
Thursday Night Moment full of summer reports and even an engagement announcement for Sean (Nancy’s son) and Shari. 
After Starbucks with Jean’s teacher colleagues we went over the mountains for a couple of nights with Terry and Marlene Lorenzen at Sun River.
Onward to Yakima for the Turner Lectures, where Dr. Cain Hope Felder was the able speaker. An enlightening outlook on Luke-Acts and Luke’s intentional elevation of Paul as a sort of Jesus successor and church founder.
We had brief chances to actually see and touch quite a few blue sheet people (more than 30) over the three days.
Onward to Wenatchee to visit brother David and wife, Jamie. Thence to Winthrop for a night before traveling the beautiful North Cascades highway westward.
Stops in Redmond (to see brother, Kirby) then to Bellevue to seeing housebound beach friends, (Hal and Marjorie Mitchell) before going to our cabin.
We used the time to R and R, with walks and reading by the fire. Jean finished off a couple of mysteries and I am finishing off “The Poisonwood Bible,” a book that re-embarrasses me with reminders of Christian missionary arrogance. Sometimes Christianity is not Christian.  Excuse the editorializing. 
The next Thursday Night Moment is November 9.  I’m sticking with my I Corinthians 13 program. Looking forward.
WHO WILL WIN?
Here in Puget Sound country, where the Mariners play, I don’t hear anyone wondering who will win the elections. If you look at candidates, parties and issues they tend to boil down to whose special interests will be served and whether the common people will lose more ground to those that gain through exploitation.
In the broader perspective of a planet-sized view, (and through the eyes of the biblical prophets of human justice), any vote that tramples on the poor, the elderly, the sick (mentally or physically), the young, the marginalized (racially, sexually, ethnically, religiously), the health of the earth — is wrong!  Who will win?
the back page
OF FIRST PRIORITY
(Sermon from Sept. 5, 2000 beginning the 23rd Season of Thursday Night Church)
       So I’m thinking — “If this should be my last season to be doing ‘moments,’ what is my highest priority message?” I know it sounds sort of mortality-driven, but face it; I’ve got to wind down this business sometime. (Remember, we started as a 1 year only experiment).
       I played over some of the big drums I’ve beaten over the years. The themes boil down (nicely, I might add) to three:
              Honest to God (expanding the concept of God)
           Honest to the Bible (retrieving the Bible from literalism)
           Honest to Jesus (friendship without idolatry) 
 
      I doubt that anyone who has read me or heard me over the last 45 years or so needs to hear anything more about those subjects.
       My brain wondered and wandered on to the question of what I would most like people to remember about me. Again, three choices emerge. (When you’ve preached for too long you tend to fall into “3-point-itis”—everything in 3’s). People could remember
           What I say (and I’ve said a lot of words both written and spoken)
           What I do (I like to overestimate my deeds, the best unknown to me)
           What I am (which is a mystery to me but possibly visible to others)
       I decided that what I “am” may be the most important. I think the thing that has made Jesus both loved and revered is not so much his reported words and doings, but a sense of what he “was.” People sensed the divine in him. “God was in Christ,” they said. That’s memorable.
       Moving on (if you are able to follow my connections), the basic question about Jesus is what he was. There were the famous “I am” statements about Jesus. But I find myself drawn to the idea of Jesus as a person/example/metaphor/embodiment of unconditional love.
       I’m on a roll now. If love is his nature, what teachings have memorable priority? My choice is the second part of the Great Commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 
       So, here I am, sort of landed on a priority by way of sequential (if not convoluted) thinking. The priority is love.
       If you were to find the primary writing on love in the Bible, where would you turn? I would turn to I Corinthians 13. Jesus never wrote his ideas, as far as we know. The Apostle Paul did, often times poetically. We have his words.
       My decision is pretty much made. I am going to spend this year soaking up the essence of the spirit and ideas of this “love chapter.” I’ll try to overlook the fact that his objective seems to be to get a wayward church to straighten up its act. I’m going to take it as a profound statement of what matters most—of what is the highest priority.
       If people in my group have no other memory of my religious instruction, I’m hoping that they will forever be called to their own priority as a result of my downloading of I Corinthians 13 into their core being—into their “hard drive.” So, we begin the new moment season: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love…”
Art Morgan – Thursday Night Church 
October, 2000