Worship Service at Church of the Dawntreader Thursday November 28, 2013 10:00 a.m. SLT
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
    Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ 
    Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
    www.zondervan.com
Invocation:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen
Confession and Absolution
We come before you, our Loving Father, Mother God, confessing most of all our need of you.
We confess that we have not always acknowledged just how much we depend on you.
We confess that we have not always loved you with all our heart, soul and mind.
We have not always loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We ask that you will forgive us and grant us your strength to conform more fully to your loving will for us.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Amen.
In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is my privilege to declare to you and to myself, the entire
forgiveness of all our sins.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen

Prayer of the Day
Let us pray.
Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come.
By your merciful protection save us from the threatening dangers of our sins,
and enlighten our walk in the way of your salvation,
for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen

First Lesson: Isaiah 2:1-5 (NIV)
1 This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:
 2 In the last days
   the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established
   as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
   and all nations will stream to it.
 3 Many peoples will come and say,
   “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
   to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
   so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
   the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 He will judge between the nations
   and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
   and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
   nor will they train for war anymore.
 5 Come, descendants of Jacob,
   let us walk in the light of the LORD.
Here ends the First Lesson

a brief comment:
These are some of my favorite verses from all of Scripture.
Here we learn of God's ultimate plan for our world,
a plan that we human beings are terribly adept at thwarting.
God will make an end to war all over the world.
"They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore."
These words are engraved upon the floor at the entrance to the United Nations building.
They enshrine the hopes of people all over the world,
that the incredible waste and stupidity of war
will one day come to a final end,
and all people can at last learn to live in peace.
This will bring the Messianic age
for which we prepare our hearts
in all our times of worship and prayer
in all our practice of faith
and in this holy season of Advent.
In light of these verses, I want us to think together about the final verse of the great Christmas hymn,
"It Came upon the Midnight Clear"
For lo! The days are hastening on, by prophets seen of old,
when with the ever-circling years shall come the time foretold,
when peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling,
and all the world give back the song which now the angels sing.
Amen!

Psalm: 122 (NIV)  
 1 I rejoiced with those who said to me,
   “Let us go to the house of the LORD.”
2 Our feet are standing
   in your gates, Jerusalem.
 3 Jerusalem is built like a city
   that is closely compacted together.
4 That is where the tribes go up—
   the tribes of the LORD—
to praise the name of the LORD
   according to the statute given to Israel.
5 There stand the thrones for judgment,
   the thrones of the house of David.
 6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
   “May those who love you be secure.
7 May there be peace within your walls
   and security within your citadels.”
8 For the sake of my family and friends,
   I will say, “Peace be within you.”
9 For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,
   I will seek your prosperity.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Second Lesson: Romans 13:11-14 (NIV)
 11 And do this, understanding the present time:
The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber,
because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.
12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.
So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime,
not in carousing and drunkenness,
not in sexual immorality and debauchery,
not in dissension and jealousy.
14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ,
and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.
Here ends the Second Lesson.

Gospel Lesson: Matthew 24:36-44 (NIV)
    36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,
up to the day Noah entered the ark;
39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.
That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.
41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
   42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming,
he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.
44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
Here end the Readings from Holy Scripture.

 - Sermon -

For those of us in the U.S. I want to wish a Happy Thanksgiving.
Today is Thanksgiving Day for the U.S.
It's a day set aside to remember all the things we are thankful for.
For everyone, I want to wish a Happy New Year!
No, I'm not early with that wish.
This week marks the beginning of a new Church Year.
The liturgical churches in the West mark the calendar with seasons that celebrate events in the life of our Lord.
The season that begins this Saturday at sundown is Advent, a time of preparation for Christmas.
Advent means coming, and in this season we prepare for the coming of Christ.
We prepare to celebrate His coming in His birth at Bethlehem.
We remember with joy His having come to dwell among us as He lives in our hearts,
and we prepare to receive Him more deeply, more fully, and better.
And also we prepare for His coming again.
All three of those forms of preparation are important during Advent.
Our lessons all through this season will touch on those three themes.
It's all about preparations - being ready.
As we prepare to celebrate Christmas, our inner, personal and spiritual preparations are much more important
than the preparations of decorations and presents, meals and parties.
Invariably, the outward celebrations will disappoint us.
The celebrations of the heart will satisfy us much more.
The more we think about the birth of Christ, the more we will get from the seasons of Advent and Christmas.
The more we try to please others and have the best parties or give the best gifts,
the more we set ourselves up for disappointment.
Even more importantly, no matter the season, we can remember the coming of Christ to live in our hearts.
Christ is God in us, Emmanuel, and as the great Advent hymn says, we call upon Him to come and dwell with us:
"Rejoice, Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, Oh Israel!"
Our lessons for today are all about the second coming of Christ.
The Gospel lesson has one of the most important Biblical teachings about the second coming:
"The Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him."
No one will know the time.
It could be really difficult to find a time that no one has predicted, `
so how can Christ return, if at any moment someone thinks he is about to come?
I suppose if there were any given time that no one thought would be the time for Christ's return,
then that would be the time!
But as soon as someone realized that no one had predicted it,
then he or she would begin to think that was the time, and they would know it,
so that could not be the time, either!
This does not mean, of course, that Christ cannot come back.
It only means that it is impossible for us to know when His return will happen.
There is a lot of emphasis on the expectation of His return,
and some whole church movements have been based on the concept of his imminent return,
even to the point of predicting an exact date,
but that is always a mistake.
No one will know it.
No one will be expecting Him when He actually returns,
so it is useless to speculate.
And any of our concepts of what it all means are pure fantasy.
Fantasy can be lots of fun.
After all, here we are gathered in Second Life, and what is this Second Life but an elaborate fantasy for us to share?
But our faith is not fantasy.
We believe in a living Lord Who is very real.
We know His presence in our hearts, minds, and lives every day.
His coming again is as much a fact of history as any event that has already taken place.
By knowing that He is going to return,
we have a profound assurance that history will reach a full and meaningful resolution someday.
We don't have to look at the events of the day with fear.
We can have hope, no matter what.
We don't know what the second coming of Christ will look like.
When the time comes, we will say, "Oh! That's what it all meant!"
The fulfillment of prophecy is best known and understood in hindsight.
But we know that it will be fulfilled.
Every word we have read or believed about the second coming of Christ
will be filled full of new meaning
 - and that is fulfillment -
when we see Him coming back into history.
He has invaded human history once with His birth at Bethlehem.
He will invade history once again
when He returns to rule as the glorious and gentle King of all the world.
This is the King Who is also known as the Prince of Peace,
Who will bring to fruition all our hopes and prayers for real and lasting peace on earth. 
In the Christmas Season, on this very day,
we are beginning our celebration of the Holy Days with the festival of light of our Jewish sisters and brothers.
They are celebrating Hanukkah, the eight days commemorating the miracle of Providence,
when God gave enough oil for the purification of the Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Hasmonean Restoration.
The temple had been desecrated by the Greek king,
and the rites of purification required that a lamp filled with holy oil burn for eight days.
There was not nearly enough oil,
but God provided:
The oil they had on hand did burn for the eight days, and the purity of the Temple was restored.
To this day, the miracle is celebrated in this holy time of Hanukkah,
and the light of the candles in the sacred candelabra called the Menorah
corresponds to Christians having lights on their homes and their Christmas trees.
I've had Jewish friends who had Christmas trees in their homes,
and they were often careful to point out to me that those lighted trees were "Hanukkah Bushes."
There is so much more that we share in common with the Jews than there is that separates us.
As we think of the second coming of Christ, even then, this is true:
I have a favorite story about the second coming that illustrates the truth,
just how much Christians and Jews share in common.
A Jew and a Christian were walking together on the day of Christ's return.
Both of them met Him face to face,
and both were filled with great joy.
The Jew said, "The Messiah! You've come!"
The Christian said, "Lord Jesus! You've come back!"
And Jesus said to them both,
"No comment!"
Amen.

Prayer of the People
Please type your spontaneous petitions in chat.
Each prepared petition is intended to remind us of the things we need to pray about,
so a brief pause will be provided for us to pray our own petitions,
either sharing them in the chat window
or praying them in our own hearts.

Loving God, we pray for each other, for those who depend upon us for prayer, and for all people according to their needs.
We ask that your healing power may prevail in our lives.
We pray that those in positions of public trust may be worthy of that trust as they act as stewards of power and wealth
for the benefit of all.
We pray that conflicts may be resolved in the context of relationships,
so that violence of thought word and deed may be diminished all through our world.
We ask your blessing for all who bear witness to the Gospel, so that relationships with you may be deepened for all people.
All these things, and whatever else you see that we need, we ask that you will grant for the sake of your Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose name we pray.
Amen.

Our Lord's Prayer
Our Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever and ever,
Amen.

Benediction
May the Lord bless us and keep us.
May the Lord make His face to shine upon us and be gracious to us.
May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, and give us peace.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen +

Worship Service at Church of the Dawntreader Thursday November 14, 2013 10:00 a.m. SLT
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
    Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ 
    Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
    www.zondervan.com
Invocation:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen
Confession and Absolution
We come before you, our Loving Father, Mother God, confessing most of all our need of you.
We confess that we have not always acknowledged just how much we depend on you.
We confess that we have not always loved you with all our heart, soul and mind.
We have not always loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We ask that you will forgive us and grant us your strength to conform more fully to your loving will for us.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Amen.
In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is my privilege to declare to you and to myself, the entire
forgiveness of all our sins.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
Prayer of the Day
Let us pray.
O God, the protector of all who trust in you,
without you nothing is strong, nothing is holy. 
Embrace us with your mercy, that with you as our ruler and guide,
we may live through what is temporary without losing what is eternal, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Amen
First Lesson: Malachi 4:1-2 (NIV)
 1 “Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace.
All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,”
says the LORD Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them.
2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays.
And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.
Here ends the First Lesson
Psalm 98 (NIV) 
1 Sing to the LORD a new song,
   for he has done marvelous things;
his right hand and his holy arm
   have worked salvation for him.
2 The LORD has made his salvation known
   and revealed his righteousness to the nations.
3 He has remembered his love
   and his faithfulness to Israel;
all the ends of the earth have seen
   the salvation of our God.
 4 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth,
   burst into jubilant song with music;
5 make music to the LORD with the harp,
   with the harp and the sound of singing,
6 with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—
   shout for joy before the LORD, the King.
 7 Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
   the world, and all who live in it.
8 Let the rivers clap their hands,
   let the mountains sing together for joy;
9 let them sing before the LORD,
   for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
   and the peoples with equity.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Second Lesson: 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 (NIV)
 6 But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love.
He has told us that you always have pleasant memories of us and that you long to see us, just as we also long to see you.
7 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith.
8 For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord.
9 How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you?
10 Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.
 11 Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you.
12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.
13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy
in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.
Here ends the Second Lesson.

Gospel Lesson: Luke 21:5-19 (NIV)
 5 Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones
and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said,
6 “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another;
every one of them will be thrown down.”
 7 “Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?”
 8 He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming,
‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them.
9 When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened.
These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”
 10 Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
11 There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places,
and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
   12 “But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you.
They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors,
and all on account of my name. 13 And so you will bear testimony to me.
14 But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves.
15 For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.
16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends,
and they will put some of you to death. 17 Everyone will hate you because of me.
18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 Stand firm, and you will win life.
Here end the Readings from Holy Scripture.

 - Sermon -
In our lessons for this week, once again we are dealing with questions about the end of time
and how we cope - or do not cope - when we think we are living in the end times.
There are people who become obsessed with the idea of the end of the world.
It can seem like a perfect escape from hard times.
There are others who want to believe that things as they are can go on forever.
But it seems to me that living with the world as it is forever
would be a good definition of hell,
since we are in such need of redemption.
In our Gospel lesson Jesus gives warning of the signs of the end, and a careful reading - or listening -
will teach us that the signs of the end are followed by the words, "... the end will not come right away."
In other places in the Bible, Jesus clearly tells us that no one knows when the end will be.
A healthy sense of our own mortality is what we need
to give us a sense of our limitations.
Our own time sees plenty of wars and uprisings,
and many of those are based on religious differences.
In our time, as in no other time in the long history of human beings treating each other badly,
we are in a position where it would actually be possible for us to destroy ourselves.
We walk on a tightrope between being too agressive on one hand
and too undefended on the other.
But because so many conflicts are religiously based,
it is important for all believers to understand clearly that everything they believe is wrong.
Yes, my dear friends in Christ, I'm talking about you and me as well as all other religious people.
You see, our beliefs are based on false conceptions about exactly what we can and cannot know of spiritual truth.
Revealed truth especially is beyond our comprehension.
We do experience mysteries, and that is common to all people.
Even in human relationships, friendship, love, caring there is more than we can describe in a few words.
We are faced with the inadequacies of our own minds
to grasp and explain many of the things that happen to us in life.
Birth and death are among the greatest mysteries,
and they are the events that mark the beginning and end, the limits of our sojourn on earth.
We develop religious doctrines that attempt to describe those experiences
and our experiences of many other mysteries.
But those attempts to describe are feeble at best,
and they always fall far short of the reality we are trying to talk about.
Sometimes the experience itself is limited by the terms of the doctrines, and that is truly tragic.
Doctrines are at their worst
when we insist that they are uniquely correct,
that our own formulation is the only true one.
We try to define the mysteries in terms of our religious beliefs
when the mysteries of life - especially the life of the spirit 
are so much greater and larger than the terms we use to try to describe them.
According to the New Testament, there are three enduring realities of spiritual life:
faith, hope, and love.
These are all important as we think of the great mysteries of life, and they intermingle and deeply relate to each other.
Each has its opposite, too, and we need to be careful of those as the opposites of faith, hope and love
are deadly to our spiritual well being.
Faith is the struggle to understand the mysteries of life:
What do birth and death really mean?
Where do we come from, and where are we going?
Doubt is strong evidence that we are in the midst of the struggle to understand;
doubt is not the opposite of faith.
The opposite of faith is belief.
Please don't misunderstand:
Believing (as a verb) is not the opposite of faith.
Believing is as much a part of faith as doubting, and the two are closely related
as we are in the process of faith.
But when our believing is crystallized into belief, and worse, into enforceable doctrine,
the struggle to understand can cease,
and the end of the struggle is deadly to faith.
You see, as long as we are in this world,
we do not have any final answers.
At best we are in the midst of experiences we cannot fully understand.
We hope that in the end it all comes to mean something,
but we have to live without certainty.
When we think that we have certainty, we are suffering from an illusion,
for no certainties that we can hold onto now are permanent.
Hope depends on our looking for something better tomorrow,
if not in this life, then in the life to come hereafter.
Hope looks forward with a feeling that there is more to life than we can see at the moment,
and that something more, which we cannot yet see, is good.
We would love to have certainty,
and so we are often taken in by empty promises of certainty.
We want to know for sure that good things are coming,
but we cannot know that.
If we cling to a single idea of good things to come,
we can be disappointed when those good things fail to materialize.
The disappointment of failed certainty can be deadly to hope,
and the loss of hope is among the most devastating experiences we can have in this life.
The illusion of certainty about the end of time diminishes our experience of hope
and it diminishes concern for our own well being and the well being of others here and now.
Finally, the concern for our own well being and the well being of others
is a way of describing love.
If we care, we love.
The opposite of love is not hate,
for both love and hate are forms of caring, the positive and negative forms, if you will.
The true opposite of love is fear,
since fear is overwhelming in its power to disable everything else.
Fear is an ancient instinct that releases massive doses of adrenaline
to enable fight or flight in the face of danger.
In those moments of necessity, fear is a great blessing.
The rest of the time, it is disabling because it takes over the entire mind and body.
We want to protect those we love, and in the moments of actual danger, fear may enable us to do so.
If we continue to cling to fear in times that danger is not upon us,
even the feelings that accompany love in our hearts
are disabled by the power of fear to take over everything.
Fear numbs us.
Fear causes us to act irrationally.
Fear can be a powerful tool of irresponsible religion and politics,
since fear can cause people to follow the guidance of a religious or political demagogue.
As we think about the end - the end of our own lives in death or the end of the world as we know it -
we can focus on fear or we can focus on love.
We cannot do both.
If we focus on fear, we will act irresponsibly and irrationally.
If we focus on love, we will act in a manner that shows our caring concern for ourselves and for others.
To call our hearts and minds to focus on love, we hear beautiful promises in our lessons for this week.
The prophet Malachi tells us that "the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays.
And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves."
If we think about it, that really is a lovely image.
And the Lord Jesus promises us that
"Not a hair of your head will perish."
If we give our attention to the love of God for us,
the love that is the source of those great promises,
then even thoughts about our own death and the end of the world
hold no fear for us.
We can believe that life is good even when some of our beliefs are challenged or proven wrong.
We can hope for a better day in the midst of the uncertainties of our lives.
We can love one another instead of being afraid of or for each other
because we ourselves have known love, and we have been loved.
Amen.

Prayer of the People
Please type your spontaneous petitions in chat.
Each prepared petition is intended to remind us of the things we need to pray about,
so a brief pause will be provided for us to pray our own petitions,
either sharing them in the chat window
or praying them in our own hearts.

Loving God, we pray for each other, for those who depend upon us for prayer, and for all people according to their needs.
We ask that your healing power may prevail in our lives.
We pray that those in positions of public trust may be worthy of that trust as they act as stewards of power and wealth
for the benefit of all.
We pray that conflicts may be resolved in the context of relationships,
so that violence of thought word and deed may be diminished all through our world.
We ask your blessing for all who bear witness to the Gospel, so that relationships with you may be deepened for all people.
All these things, and whatever else you see that we need, we ask that you will grant for the sake of your Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose name we pray.
Amen.
Our Lord's Prayer
Our Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever and ever,
Amen.
Benediction
May the Lord bless us and keep us.
May the Lord make His face to shine upon us and be gracious to us.
May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, and give us peace.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen +

Sermon for the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of North Idaho

November 10, 2013


At this time of year we are moving into the so-called "holiday season."

There are numerous holidays celebrated in our country and in our part of the world,
   some of which have their roots in religious traditions
         and some have their roots in our shared culture and civil society.

One of the things I have often said about this time of year is,
   "Beware of the holidays, and enjoy the holy days."

The very word holiday is a contraction of the words holy day
 in much the same way the names of some of the holidays
   are contractions of the original holy days.

The word, Christmas, is a contraction of the words, Christ Mass,
   the worship service celebrating the birth of Christ.

My personal favorite contraction is Halloween.

The word Halloween is a contraction of an archaic name for the Eve of All Saints' Day.

Most Jewish and Christian holy days
  begin on the evening before.

Hence, Christmas Eve is part of Christmas.

Secular holidays take their cue from the same custom,
  and New Year's Eve is the start of most of our New Year's celebrations.

This goes back to the Song of Creation in Genesis,
  where each verse was marked with the refrain,
    "And there was evening and there was morning,
      a First Day," Second Day, Third Day, etc.

The eve of or evening before a holy day, is often called the "even" of a holy day
  or, contracting it further, then e'en.

The old name of All Saints' Day was All Hallows Day.

The evening before was then, All Hallows' Evening.

Can you tell where I'm going with this?

All Hallows' Evening became Hallows' Evening
  then Hallows' Even
    and Hallow E'en
      and finally, Halloween.

When my son was very young, still learning to talk,
   he could not quite say the word, Halloween,
       but he could get into the spirit of the season,
          calling it How-weeeeen.

Halloween, the most recent holy day now past is based on the Christian holy day of All Saints' Day
   and also on the much older holy day of Samhain, the start of the new year for the Old Religion.

The two are actually closely related.

As the northern climate moves toward the cold and dark,
  we enter a thin time.

That refers to the thinning of the veil that separates the physical world
  from the world of spirit.

In the Old Religion, all things are charged with spiritual reality
  as well as the physical reality we can see most easily
   with the eyes of our bodies.

During a thin time,
  we can see the spiritual reality with our hearts and minds
    much more easily than we can see it at any other time.

There are also thin places,
  where the world of spirit breaks through to visibility
    almost without warning,
       to surprise us with joy or fear,
         depending on how are thinking at the time.

One of the most famous thin places is Sedona, Arizona,
  but I find that anyplace where the natural world is visible
    is a thin place in that it helps me see more clearly that there are realities
      that I don't think about all the time,
         and that I myself am part of those realities.

People in Coeur D'Alene often experience a strong sense
  of the greater reality of the natural world
    at Tubbs Hill.

So Tubbs Hill is a kind of thin place for people in this part of the world.

In the Old Religion and in Christianity,
  the spiritual world also includes the spirits and souls
    of those who have crossed the veil ahead of us.

Traditionally, around the thin time of Samhain,
   it was not unusual to sense the presence of loved ones
       who have died.

Remembering them,
  setting a place for them at the table,
    visiting their graves,
       and even offering special foods and drinks
          or special prayers
              just to show that we still care
                can still be seen as a custom at the thin time,
                   especially in the Mexican traditions of
                      the Day of the Dead.

Originally, there was nothing spooky or scary about all this,
  but the commercialization of the holy day
    has included a lot of sensational creepy stuff,
      maybe just because it sells more costumes and the like.

In addition, candy makers and purveyors of alcoholic beverages
    use the holiday of Halloween as an opportunity to make more money.

Holy Days are not always a commercial success.

Holidays often are just that,
   especially if expectations can be built up around the holdays
     to convince people to spend more and more money
       to provide the "perfect" holiday
         for themselves and their families.

Right there is the biggest problem with the holidays:
   our expectations of them
     and the inevitable disappointment we may feel when they do not live up to
       whatever we have idealized as the way they are supposed to be.

Even if we have a holiday that is as close to our expectations as possible,
    there is an inevitable let-down after it is over.

This is why I always say, "Beware of the holidays, and celebrate and enjoy
                the Holy Days."

In the present context, the holy day nearest us is Veterans' Day, tomorrow.

Today is, then, the Eve of Veterans' Day.

So today is a good time for us to start thinking
     about the rest of the Holy Days - and the holidays -
          that are ahead of us.

I don't know about you,
    but I'm feeling a deep weariness
       regarding our nation's civic life -
          - if we can still call it that.

I'm ready to spend some serious time
   contemplating our spiritual life.

No one can take that away from us,
  even if we are told that we are on the wrong side
    of some contrived "War on Christmas."

(You can expect to hear more on that from me next month. Hehehe.)

Our spiritual life is inside us,
  deeply private,
    shared only if we want to share it.

We can celebrate the Holy Days in our hearts.

The public celebrations of the holidays can enhance our inner celebrations if we wish,
  or we can ignore the public celebrations if they seem to get in the way.

Veterans' Day is a holy day
  which provides a perfect time for us
    to start thinking about gratitude.

We are grateful for our veterans.

That gratitude is best expressed in an attitude toward our Armed Forces,
  far more so than some embarrassing statement of,
     "Thank you for your service."

Public statements of gratitude have their place.

Particularly those in positions of public trust
  who have made the choices that led to placing our Armed Forces in harms way
    are obliged to express the thankfulness that is in all our hearts.

We may disagree with the wars they have fought,
  but those who fought those wars
    had no more to say about the decisions that led to those wars
      than you and I have had,
          and often much less.

As a side comment,
  I just have to say that my experience of the Vietnam War era
      was that by far the majority of Americans
         including those who, like me, strongly opposed the war,
            treated the returning veterans with respect.

Of course there were exceptions,
    but there is no excuse for using those rare exceptions
       as a cause for increasing the divisions
         in our current cold civil war in the U.S.

Our thankfulness for our nation's armed forces
   has nothing to do with our political persuasions.

Today and tomorrow are perfect opportunities
    to reflect on those feelings of gratitude,
      allowing those feelings to renew our sense of hope
         in the face of the destructive division
           being exploited by so many people who prefer self interest
             to the well being of this country and its people.

An attitude of thankfulness
  can turn our attention away from any feelings of disgust or discouragement
     or even sadness
       in the face of our current troubles,
         whether personally or socially.

Those two can go hand in hand, after all.

The very personal difficulty of unemployment
   or finding it hard to get enough to eat
     can be the direct result of problems in the society as a whole.

It is the power of thankfulness that I want to focus on right now.

The great national holy day of Thanksgiving is only about two and a half weeks away.

We can use it as a reminder of the importance of thankfulness
  every day of our lives.

The old folk saying, "Count your blessings,"
  has a lot of deep, traditional wisdom to impart
     and it is a healthy form of spiritual practice for many of us.

As the holy day approaches,
  I hope we can all focus on the things we have to be thankful about.

It will take our attention away from our worries and fears
  and help us improve out attitude about almost everything.

I'm carefully referring to the Holy Day of Thanksgiving
   rather than calling it a holiday, although it is surely both.

As a holiday, Thanksgiving is one of the most dangerous
  in almost every way.

People build up all kinds of expectations of the holiday.

We are supposed to have a big family meal.

People we care about are supposed to share in a feast
    and have a wonderful time in each other's company.

In fact, it rarely works out that way.

Sometimes we just cannot be with the people we want most to see on the holiday.

Sometimes we are with them, and for one reason and another, they disappoint us.

Holidays are notorious for not living up to our expectations.

On the other hand,
  if our thoughts and energies are devoted to the holy day,
    to our own reasons to be thankful,
      then the holy day can be uplifting,
        regardless of the circumstances
          in which we may find ourselves
            around the holiday.

An attitude of gratitude can increase our sense of thankfulness for our blessings.

In turn, that can increase our optimism.

When we expect good things to come our way,
  good things have more of a tendency to happen to us.

Of course, there is no guarantee in life,
  but it can't hurt to turn our attention to the good things we have
    rather than thinking too much
      about the good things we wish we had.

Balance is necessary,
   but to begin the balance on the positive side
      seems to be a good idea
          in my own experience.

Letting the holy days be reminders
  of good spiritual practice
    is far more important for our well being
      than getting caught up in the commercial hype of the holidays.

I'm not necessarily advocating anyone's participation
   in a new social movement:

A lot of people are simply refusing to go shopping at all
     on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

I remember one occasion where Beth and I had a delightful time
    going to the mall in Moscow
        at about 5 or 6 in the morning on "Black Friday," as it's called,
             because that is the day on which a lot of retailers
                  first show a profit, or are "in the black," as the expression goes.

That was one of those fun experiences of a holiday
   that might not ever be repeated.

I can enjoy remembering it
   without expecting to do it ever again,
      and without thinking that it would ever be the same experience
        if we tried to do it again.

After all, I'm now a few years older,
   and getting out of bed and on the road that early
      is not nearly as much fun as it used to be!

Just the idea of remembering to be thankful,
   even for our memories of holy days in the past,
     can encourage us to think more positively
       as the holidays loom ahead of us.

If we think in terms of the holy days,
  the anxieties we may feel about the holidays
    just might not be as hard to deal with.

Rather than building up expectations about what is supposed to happen,
  we can engage in spiritual exercises
    like counting our blessings,
      even making lists of them.

I would caution all of us not to try to make a list of blessings
   while feeling especially anxious or sad. 

Under those conditions, we might not be able to think of any blessings,
  and the feelings of discouragement could be made even worse.

On the other hand, when we are feeling hopeful,
  it probably would not be so hard to make a list of the things for which we are thankful.

It might even turn out to be a longer list than we expect!

Then the list of good things
   can be something to pick up and read
      when we need some uplifting thoughts.

Even in the face of the political troubles in our country today,
   it is not be too hard to think of things for which we are thankful
        about our nation's life and prospects.

We have a measure of freedom of speech and religion.

We can express our discontent with the way things are,
  and we can suggest ways that things could be made better.

We are able to vote and to advocate for candidates and programs of our choice,
    even if it is best not to do so in the name of our church or religion.

Our economy is improving despite the efforts of people who want to sabotage it
  for the sake of their own ideological goals.

Best of all,
   to quote loosely something Dr. Martin Luther King said,
     "The arc of history is long, and it bends toward justice."

For all these things, we are deeply grateful,
   and our thoughts of gratitude are certain to help us through times of discouragement.

Remember to enjoy and celebrate the holy days with gratitude,
   and don't worry about the holidays and all the expectations with which they are freighted.

So, I say to you my friends,
   "Happy Holy Days!"

Amen.

So mote it be.

Blessed be!