MORGAN'S MOMENT...
I don't like doing wills
      keep putting off dealing with it...
      not ready to admit why.
Time to re-do it...
      to put down decisions
      to find witnesses and a notary.
Why do I do a will...
      when it's such a bother
      and so uncomfortable?
I confess my first response...
      I do it because I would feel stupid
      if I didn't.
That's stupid too...
      because I would never know...
      but planned stupidity embarrasses me.
Strange language in wills...
      Like the chilling truth...
      “aware of the certainty of death.”
Do they have to remind me?
      Or are they complimenting me
      for facing the truth
So l plot transfer of control
      with suspicion that my heirs
       dwon'to it right.
My witnesses sign agreement
      that I have signed with a sound mind
      and not under any undue influence.
It's legal now and I seal and lock It away...
      admitting that my fife is not, was not,
      and never will be in-my own hands.
— Art Morgan 

BOOK CORNER
One way I like to get history is by way of adventures. An example—although unusual—is "Blue Latitudes, Boldly going where Captain Cook has gone before.” by Tony Hlorwitz.
I expected a sailing adventure in which the writer sailed the journeys of Captain Cook. Actually, very little about journeying, although there are vivid pictures of shipboard life. But lots of history. Cook is a major figure in the exploration of the world. The story goes back and forth between Cook's travels and the author's research trips, along with ‘his friend, Roger. Some of their activities must be fiction, but they add interest. About 450 compelling pages about an important figure.
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MOMENT MINISTRIES
Feb. 14, 2005
home address:  25921 SW Airport Ave.
Corvallis, OR 97333   541-753-3942
email at a-morgan@peak.org
CHOOSING THE RIGHT MOMENT
Like most who hope for people to attend planned events, as clergy do every Sunday, I confess to some wonder every time I announce a gathering date.
Gone are the days in the ‘50s when we could announce a church-gathering and hope we had room. Those were days when we usually had to add chairs and eventually build larger buildings.
The usual device is to establish expectations for attendance buttressed by not-so-subtle guilt messages. I've probably been guilty.
When we started Moment Ministries I swore off that sort of thing. I would treat whatever people were in our group like adults. I would announce, but not beg or work on guilt. People tend to feel guilty already.
Now, Paul end I usually put on an event which would be intellectually and spiritually worthy of a great cathedral. (Every struggling preacher thinks like that!) We sometimes wonder how anyone can possible stay away.
Here's the good news, Most of my group has a real life. They are involved in important activities, some of which are worthy of being called “ministries.’ The wheels of the community depend on some of these people. That is good news.
We said from the beginning that we would never be a substitute for our people doing their own ministries. The ministries would be in the world, not in our organization. No committees, no fund-raising projects. Each one chooses causes of interest and concern and gives individually. Some do more in the world than others, and who knows about where money goes. It  doesn'tcome to us.
It is hard to find a time when people  don'thave to choose. Maybe Sunday is a better day after all. But we decided to leave Sundays to those who favor "real” church, or who believe ‘Weekends are for Michelob."
So we bless those who have better to be than with us at our occasional events: And those who come, whenever, we bless them as well.
NOTE:
When we are away from Corvallis, as we will be for the next three weeks, we may send out an “Email Blue Sheet.” l have a little more than half of you entered on an Email list. Some received issues of the Summer Blue Sheet that Way. If you think I may not have your Email, and want on, Email me.
 
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WHERE IS NATHAN WHEN WE NEED HIM?
          A friend was puzzled while doing a crossword puzzle. “You're a Bible expert. I need the name of a Bible prophet with six letters. The third letter is a ‘t’.” Well, I'm not one of those who can quote and find every Bible verse in the Bible. But I did think of Nathan. “It works,” she said.
          You may not know, remember or care, but Nathan was a prophet who loved his country and served his king, but at one point showed up King David's hypocrisy regarding the infamous event with Bathsheba, with the famous words “Thou art the man.” (!! Samuel 12:7)
          Why am I thinking about this?
          Well, this past Thursday night we had our Moment group doing the “Jizos” I mentioned in the last blue sheet. We're preparing them to be part of a peace memorial gift to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the ~ anniversary of our dropping of the only atomic bombs ever dropped on humans. About 270,000 people, virtually all civilians, died instantly. Scores later died from radiation.
          What do we think about that today? Should we?
          I remember the news of that horrific day. At the time my dad was on a destroyer in the South Pacific. His ship had been torpedoed and hit by a suicide bomber. Fortunately, neither weapon exploded. He was in the worst naval battles in history. The first thing I did after school each day was to ask whether there had been a letter from dad. I listened to every evening news broadcast. I read everything in the paper.
          By then we had been thoroughly trained to look upon our enemies as tyrants and heathens. As in all wars, the enemy is reduced from human status. Fear was replaced by hate. There was no treatment too bad for our enemies. I remember watching a news film in between features at the theater. We didn't have TV in those days, so didn't have war pictures. Soldiers were shown using flame-throwers on Japanese in a cave. The audience cheered. My mother thought it was horrible.
          So when news came of the bombing of those cities our first thought was, “The war is over. Dad will be coming home.” And that is pretty much how America told the story, that it was a necessary act that saved lives of American troops.
          There were others like my mother, of course, who saw the horror of that bombing and the fact that it was not done against a military target.
          That is but one example of what a war tribunal would have called an atrocity had Americans been brought to trial after the war. Similar saturation bombings against whole civilian cities in Germany fit the same category.
          I realize how a nation can be swept up in a time of war. It can justify use of torture that violates the Geneva Convention. We trusted the military and our leaders to do what is necessary. Because we were doing it, it seemed right.
          This is where Nathan is needed. How many of the clergy who minister to Kings and Presidents do more than glow in the spotlight of being favored? Try 100% Where is a Nathan who is a true prophet—a spokesperson for God—one who has clarity about what is an atrocity against God? Where is anyone among the religiously righteous who dares speak against King or President?
          So, what about those of us who have watched it all happen? It wasn't our fault. We didn't have a say in what was done. It seemed necessary at the time, but we never had reason to think about what it is to simply evaporate two whole cities full of people at least as innocent as those in the Trade Towers.
          It seems so late and so empty to be sending Jizo dolls to Japan. For me  it'sa belated expression of sadness and sorrow about what was done. It is a form of repentance for warring attitudes that did not recognize the humanity of all people. It is a kind of pledge to the survivors that we are more aware of the evil in ourselves and in our own empire. Acts like Hiroshima and. Nagasaki and atrocities in Afghanistan and Iraq and Guantanamo show us, that as individuals and as a people we also have a dark shadow side.
          America cheered when those bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I cheered, It is the same feeling people have for their own country in times of war. We have a blind certainty that God favors us, and that it's OK to do what would be seen an atrocity if done to us by others. That's what we do and we know not what we do. The great King David could take another man's wife and slay her husband with no sense of doing wrong. Except for Nathan. Nathan could describe evil behavior that even David hated. “Whoever has done such a thing deserves to die,” said David. “You are the man,” said Nathan. You are the man.
 — Art Morgan, Feb. 10, 2005