MORGAN'S MOMENT...
The salesman was touting photo paper…
      one would last 150 years…
      the other only 35.
In silence I did a quick calculation
      concluding that in either case
      I wouldn't be around to prove it.
My mind drifted from photo paper
      to tombstones I know of
      in an old cemetery down the road.
I've walked among them…
      moss-filled names and dates
      chiseled in the stone.
It’s not been 100 years
      since markers were set
      so that no one would forget.
But life seems to move on
      leaving past memories
      to fade into forgotten history.
We are like fading photos…
      gathered into shelves of albums
     no one will want to keep.
The imprint I’d rather leave
      is on those who follow after
      that don't care how I looked.
The kind of image I care about
      doesn't need my name or dates
      to emerge here or there.
Photo paper lets the ego
      fade into it’s rightful place
      while glimmers of immortality live on.
— Art Morgan 

BOOK CORNER
This is part II of last week's comments about “Thunderstruck,” by Eric Larson. Unlike the first part of the book that seemed slow to me and without the promised mystery, the second part became compelling and historically interesting, particularly if you haven't heard the story of Marconi’s invention of wireless communication. Again, history that reads like a novel. I like it that way.
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MOMENT MINISTRIES
April 3, 2007
home address:  25921 SW Airport Ave.
Corvallis, OR 97333   541-753-3942
email at a-morgan@peak.org

Easter 2007
We do Easter down the road a couple of miles at Inavale Farm. It specializes in horses, Morgan’s being a favorite (a total coincidence). Norm and Alice Glass, with big help from Caroline and Luigi, get us set up for a great experience every year. It’s a meaningful tradition to go through those gates and down the lane to their welcoming house.
They're looking for us bearing food for the Easter Brunch that follows the formalities. We'll find a way to park and Paul and his musical friends will get music started about 10 a.m.
It’s not your traditional Easter service, but it’s the only one we've had for almost 30 years. It’s a warm and welcoming event that sends us off on an upbeat, which is what Easter ought to do.
Everyone pretty well knows the way by now, but if you are in doubt, give us a call.

Coping with Easter
Easter poses a problem for any who are not fundamentalist or evangelical Christians. The day brings together many people who have not been exposed to critical thinking about the Bible and its stories since 5th grade, with others who have at least read Time and Newsweek religion articles enough to know that all in the Bible is not as it seems.
Our gatherings always embrace everyone from traditionalists to agnostics or atheists. It’s not a big deal to me. I can speak to both because I'm trying to locate some meaning within or behind our stories and traditions that matters to us today. I try to let God, by whatever definition you give that name, be responsible for defending any important truths that seem worth defending. I'm not into that. Too much of religion is scattered by those who try to define truth in narrow terms. Though some of the scattered groups seem to flourish, they leave many others outside their circles. Christianity is not the only show playing. 
Easter, with its roots in traditions and history and stories that far precede its development, raises universal hopes and inspires belief in renewal. For 2000 years the hopes have fallen short, yet the idea that love triumphs in the end cries out for true believers.

 
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HALLELUJAH ANYHOW!
         Easter is a day that teaches us how to say “Hallelujah anyhow!”
         I first heard those words from my mentor, colleague and friend, John Paul Pack. They were some words he spoke shortly after his wife died and before he was to suddenly die shortly after. He had been lamenting some things that hadn't gone well in his life and in lives he cared about. In the midst of that rather sad conversation he slapped his knee, laughed, and said, “Hallelujah anyhow!”
         I've tried to pass on that response to others when things seemed dark.
         This poem came in the mail following our first winter trip, the one that took us to Idaho to visit a friend we try to visit every year.. It was the same trip from which we were called back to Longview to be with Jean's brother and family at the time of his death. This free verse poem is called, “A Blessing.”
They came all the way
from Oregon to visit me
here in prison. We
shared news, theirs and mine.
I spoke of how I live, what
it’s like. Surrounding us was
a blanket of love, joy and hope
And the last thing my friend said was:
Hallelujah anyhow!
Hallelujah anyhow!
(Rae Ann)
         She is not the only one to hold on to these words. I heard them again at the birthday party in Brookings only a week later. Life can deal situations that leave you with despair and depression and sadness and even bitterness. But there is a spirit in us that can choose to say Hallelujah anyhow!
         On Easter we sing the hymn “Christ the Lord is Risen Today,” mostly because we like to sing the “Alleluia” that is repeated throughout. The story of the resurrection of Christ has been the centerpiece of Christianity. One must ask whether the Hallelujah anyhow possibility depends on belief in this powerful story. In fact, would you dismiss Jesus as meaningless if it were proven that those were his bones found in that clay box by archeologists in Jerusalem? In fact, the story lacks proof. The “testimonies” in the Gospels are at best second hand reports, or more likely, stories developed around the faith of devout writers who wished to exalt Jesus. The great rising up spirit that pulls people out of despair was in Jesus because it was in the world. It has appeared in people throughout history long before the time of Jesus.
         So, at least to me, all the arguments about the resurrection being historical or not historical are not significant. Why do we need to wait for a sensible idea of God or a special connection with Jesus to claim what is already in our own depths? In those times when we feel trapped by walls or by life's circumstances,  transcendence is available to us. Nelson Mandela was in prison 27 years, writing poems of vision that eventually freed both himself and South Africa. The Apostle Paul wrote many of the Epistles, the first written books of the New Testament, while in prison. Martin Luther King wrote the freedom moving “Letter From the Birmingham Jail,” while a prisoner there. And, of course, Rae Ann. There is no end to the stories of people who transcended their situations, escaped their tombs, whose dying was a testimony to living. They are people of all faiths and no faith. Jesus was one of them whose story we celebrate on Easter.
         For some of my best years as Senior Minister of First Christian Church I had a secretary who should probably have been Associate Minister. She had insight, creativity, energy and talent that was under valued except by those who knew her. For several years now, in her retirement, she has self-published a calendar with wisdom insights for each month. Her page for April is titled, “Let every morning be Easter Morning.” You don't have to understand or believe the strange Easter story reports to realize that Viv has caught the meaning of the day.
“Let the hallelujahs ring as we
watch the sunrise
view the evergreen beauty
observe the rivers rolling by.
 Let the hallelujahs ring as we
feel the love around us…
experience new birth…
know that we are loved!”
         There's enough in Easter for everyone to call forth that spirit that defies even death. Hallelujah anyhow!
─ Art Morgan, Easter Week, 2007