MORGAN'S MOMENT...
“Man…it looks like you have
       a lot left to clean up.”
We were standing in his yard
       scattered uprooted stumps around
       tree limbs in piles
       fallen logs to be removed.
Roofers were finishing repairs
       and masons replaced the chimney
       while the garage and shop
       were still mostly crushed.
He had lost over 30 large firs
       in a recent windstorm.
“Did you notice I got the star up?"
Yes I had noticed it…
       “Jason's star” a memorial
       to his son at the top of a tall tree.
After a long silence he spoke…
      “This can all be fixed up…”
       he said as we looked around.
Then we looked back up at that star…
       “…but some things
       are not so easy to get past."
I nodded and kept my silence
       as his heart spoke wisdom
       that said it all.
— Art Morgan 

BOOK CORNER
Comments about “Mayflower,” by Nathaniel Philbrick are on the back page.
Another book to challenge your mind, is “The End of Faith – Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason,” by Sam Harris. A confessing atheist, he raises questions people with or without faith need to face, especially the assumption that faith always trumps reason. It’s one of those books that raise doubt. If one is to be religious in any sense it needs to be sharpened by doubt. Some people of faith will be offended. Some will think he speaks a lot of truth. Try it.
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MOMENT MINISTRIES
Jan. 24, 2007
home address:  25921 SW Airport Ave.
Corvallis, OR 97333   541-753-3942
email at a-morgan@peak.org
A TURNING POINT
      On the morning of January 24, 1978 I was Senior Minister of First Christian Church in Corvallis. I had a breakfast meeting that morning to go over the agenda for the Board Meeting that night. I had a funeral at 11:00 a.m., my third in a week.
      Almost casually, the President of the congregation reported that I would be on the agenda that night and that a group of people had met the night before to discuss me. What the President did not know was that I had made a pact with myself when I first started in the ministry. There were three things that would cause me to resign from a church. One of them was that if I learned any secret meetings were held with me as the agenda. Having seen how congregations can divide themselves over a minister I vowed never to be in the middle of such a situation.
      Finding that what he said was true, I wrote out a resignation and posted it before I went to the funeral. By noon I was no longer the minister of that Church. I never did hear what was on the agenda regarding me. It didn't matter. I had 8 and ½ good, fairly happy, successful years. I left the church in good shape financially, with three Sunday morning services and some mighty fine people.
      When one ends something so unexpectedly and abruptly it’s a bit like a death. I didn't know what was happening and neither did anyone else. There was no referee. No denominational leader ever talked to me. Nothing. There were decisions to be made.
      One great decision I’ll never regret is that we decided to stay in Corvallis and let Jean have a teaching career. She had 25 great years. It meant, of course, that I couldn't be minister of a church in the community I had served.
      What I decided to do, along with a few friends who didn't want me to sink alone, was form Moment Ministries. It would be a front for me to continue my writing and to perform such pastoral services that might be wanted by people outside the church. My constituency became outsiders to the church and traditional faith. This blue sheet became my pulpit and through the years I have developed a pastoral relationship with many by mail and e-mail and some personal contact. We do a few local semi-oddball things that have proven meaningful to some.
      More than anything, I have continued to read and think and stir ideas in various places. I have maintained contact with quite a few colleagues I would have lost without Moment Ministries mailings.
      I don't talk much about this long past history, but when I see January 24, I remember. It’s also a memory moment for me because one of my greatest fans and supporters, my dad, died on that same date a few years later.

 
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A SUNNY DAY IN WINTER

I'm past due for a blue sheet. Lots of stuff going on around here. Like what? Like going to Seattle to meet some of my cousin Hollis’ friends for something like a memorial coffee. Had I already told you that my cousin died? Anyway we thought we should go there, since I was one of only four known relatives. It takes time to drive to Seattle from Corvallis, especially when there are snow showers around.
Then there was our Thursday night “moment” for January, our 29th Annual Meeting. We used it to talk about Martin Luther King and the history of civil rights in our life time.
But that's just an excuse. I usually write when an idea attacks me. Several did, but nothing to write blue about. So I woke up this morning determined to get a blue sheet out. That means I write about whatever I happen to be thinking about.
The President is to deliver the State of the Union Address again. I'm eager to hear that the state of the Union is better than I fear. I'm eager to hear that there's a plan to give Iraq back to the people in better shape than we found it, taking Americans out of the much despised occupier role. I’d like to hear how we can do that without creating a vacuum for a bloodbath. Of course, we've left the blood of 10’s of thousands on the ground already. Anyway, I'm eager to hear how we're going to make it better than continuing to make it worse. Our troops deserve some good news.
The book at my left elbow (one of several), waiting for me to write up my usual one page comments, is “Mayflower,” by Nathaniel Philbrick. I thought it might be a sea story, then hoped it might be a historical novel. I like getting history that way. It turned out to be a history that reads almost like a novel.
Besides telling the story of those early Puritans who seemed more cult-like than one might hope, he tells stories of warfare between the English and the Indians. The tragedy of it all reminded me of Iraq.
The First Thanksgiving marked the conclusion of a remarkable year. Eleven months earlier the Pilgrims had arrived at the tip of Cape Cod, fearful and uninformed. They spent the next month alienating and angering every Native American they happened to come across. (p. 119)
Without the help of native people they would never have survived. The story is full of treaties and alliances and mutual assistance. But the dark shadow of distrust and arrogance was always there. It led to forming militias and building walls and fortresses. Suspicion and rumor created more fear and threat. There was talk of a “pre-emptive strike” to stop suspected conspiracy among the tribes.
The fact remained, however, that thus far no Indians had even threatened them. If they were to initiate an attack, it would be based on hearsay ─ and they all knew from experience how misleading and convoluting the rumors could be. (p. 149)
The English were not in agreement about shedding of blood, but the most militant dominated. Miles Standish was a hawk and pre-emptive strikes caused Indians to hide in the swamps. Some Indians tried to send gifts to establish peace, but they feared the English. They now called Pilgrims “cutthroats.”
Standish’s raid had irreparably damaged the human ecology of the region. (p. 155)
Pilgrims were divided amongst themselves. Even the tribes fought one another. Pre-emptive strikes? Bad intelligence?  Arrogance? Was I reading history of the 1600’s or of the first decade of the 21st century?
Religious righteousness was as misguided and evil then as now. After a massacre of over 400 Indian men, women and children, William Bradford wrote:
It was a fearful fright to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the praise thereof to God. (p. 178)
Philbrick sums it up on the last page with these words:
There are two possible responses to a world suddenly gripped by terror and contention. There is [one] way: get mad and get even. But as the course of King Phillips War [the great English-Indian war of New England] proved, unbridled arrogance and fear only feed the flames of violence. Then there is [the other] way. Instead of loathing the enemy, try to learn as much as possible from him; instead of killing him try to bring him around to your way of thinking. First and foremost, treat him like a human being.
(p. 358)
Tonight there will be applause and much standing and sitting and pointing out heroes in the galleries. There will be praise for those who fought and died and those who fight. There will be appeals for unity and resolve and promise of victory. Bridling of arrogance is unlikely, nor calls to treat enemies like human beings. And we will hear the call for God to bless America.  Alas.  
─ Art Morgan, January 24, 2007