MORGAN'S MOMENT...
Will our trilliums blossom at the cabin
    if we aren't there to see them?
Maybe they've already appeared
    come and gone unseen.
I visualize them as I speak
    whiter than white blossoms
    emerging from broad green leaves
    fragile while strongly beautiful.
Sometimes neighbors take photos
    fearing I won't believe
    that my trilliums kept the faith
    without my coming for proof.
But I know they've been there
    when in May I explore
    what winter has left behind.
There is always amazing evidence
    of a glorious display…
    a virtual lawn of leafy plants.
I close my eyes now and see trilliums
    then I open my eyes to see
    lilacs blooming right out my window.
When I can’t be everywhere
    there is joy wherever I am
    if I just open my eyes.
— Art Morgan 

BOOK CORNER
One of the history changing names in our time is that of Desmond Tutu, known as the spiritual father of a democratic South Africa. His authorized biography is titled: “Rabble-Rouser for Peace,” by John Allen.
He rose as a black man in a white society to a place of prominence as Anglican Archbishop of South Africa.
He is a personal, dynamic unforgettable man. I heard him speak here in Corvallis a couple of years ago.
Numerous Episcopalians on my list have no doubt read this book. I hope others will join them. 400 pages.
•
MOMENT MINISTRIES
April 16, 2007
home address:  25921 SW Airport Ave.
Corvallis, OR 97333   541-753-3942
email at a-morgan@peak.org
AGE AND YOUTH
I've previously confessed to being torn on Easter between simply going with the season of budding trees and flowering bulbs and renewal of life on earth, and trying to open up some of the stories and texts that have proven difficult for people to believe and understand.
Many have established ways of understanding Easter based on what they learned in elementary years with little thought or study since.
Others have simply shrugged off belief in the strange stories the Bible tells along with Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. What's a nice guy to do?
After our Easter service, after I had shared all my heresies, I was standing outside by the fish pond with our senior-most lady in attendance. She is a proud 94-years old. She commented on my words and said she didn't understand why people might be surprised at my remarks. She said that she had learned about how the stories developed and became part of the tradition when she was at University more than 70 years ago. She hadn't taken those stories literally for more than 70 years. I needn't worry about her.
It was called to my attention that a fifth grader who was in our Easter group had written a letter to the newspaper about the most important thing he had learned in life so far. He chose “Religion” as most important. He wrote:
It helps me understand my studies, such as Spanish, for its culture and history, because it deals with the mythology of most past cultures. It is also important because many current events deal with religion, such as the Iraq war or the conflict in Palestine.
It’s good for me to remember that older people have often arrived at heresies long before me, and that children's minds are often ahead of what we think. Both old and young have the ability to think and question, and do so. If anything, clergy should make more effort to speak to controversial questions. People are probably there ahead of us.
POSSIBLE SEASON ENDING MOMENT?
We are proposing one more Thursday night moment potluck for this academic season. The date is May 10. We will test this with our local constituents via email and make a firm announcement the first week of May.
CONGRATULATIONS TO UNIVERSITY GRADS
Sara (Pritchard) Coleman graduates with a Masters in Education from Concordia on May 5.
Andrew Conner graduates from Lewis and Clark on May 6.

 
                                                                                     (back page)

FRIDAY
     It’s Friday again, the time when I sit down for a few minutes and try to print out some thoughts to take to our printer before he closes. Then I can pick up the printed mailing on Monday, put on labels, and get it in the mail.
     I’ll see what free-wheels to the surface. Well, I just thought of Bill at Franklin Press. He didn't give me a bill for the paper and printing time before last. That was a gift of $43.20! I e-mailed our local people to do business with him if they can. Unexpected kindness is something to be appreciated.
     We did a quick run to Medford this past Wednesday night and Thursday; 500 more miles on our car. The long and short of it is that we are expecting to hear at any time that a long time friend has completed her journey out of this life as she wants to do. It’s hard to say good-bye.
     Which leads to another thought; we came home on Thursday evening in time to drop in on two art openings. We usually see people we know and this night was no exception. We get in a lot of listening time. Among our conversations was one that mentioned excitement about reading one of our book corner titles, “The End of Faith,” by Sam Harris.
     There have been more responses to this book than any I can think of. Harris writes as an avowed atheist. His target seems to be Christians in general, but fundamentalists in particular. He targets moderates as well for being silent against fundamentalist claims. This silence tolerates dangerous ideas that turn violent in the lives of true believers. He cites Muslims as a prime example of how fundamentalism is dangerous.
     Anyway, he doesn't do a good job of recognizing that there are many Christians who agree with him more than they do fundamentalists. The question ought to be “What kind of God don't you believe in?” He would find himself in a crowd rather than all alone. There are Christians who are not as naïve as he makes out.
     I find myself thinking maybe I should see what kind of response might be made to Harris. It would have to center on what “God” stands for in everyone's mind.
     Speaking of Harris and God, there is an article in a recent Newsweek that carries a discussion between Harris and famous evangelical preacher, Rick Warren, called “Is God Real?” The discussion was a disappointment because they failed to describe what kind of God they believed in or didn't believe in. And Warren was allowed to frame his defense in a literal understanding of the Bible.
     This led me to thinking about the latest book I completed and wrote up, “View From the Center of the Universe ─ Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos,” by Joel Primack and Nancy Abrams.
     It seems to me that the forefront of discussion about the nature and possibility of God (or not), is carried to a higher level outside the well-worn biblical and theological sources. I find mind-stretching and spirit raising thoughts in books like the above mentioned book. My mystical nature responds whenever I imagine myself alive and aware of living in a universe (or maybe universes) of billions of galaxies like our own. These sentences struck me as fitting for Genesis:
The history of the universe is in every one of us.
Every particle in our bodies has a multi-billion-year past,
every cell in our bodies has a multi-million year-past,
and many of our ways of thinking have multi-thousand-year pasts. (p. 151)
      Another thought to expand my mind and spirit while sitting on my deck on a starry night is this;
There is no deeper meaning for human beings than to experience our own lives as reflecting the nature and origin of our universe.” (p. 203)
     Other thoughts that I would like to hear Sam Harris discuss, with Warren or anybody, are these assertions;
We are made of the rarest material in the universe: stardust…
We live in a universe that may be a rare bubble of space time in the infinite, seething cauldron of the eternal meta-universe…
We live at a turning point for our species. (p. 271, 272)
     Like some other books from this side of thought there is discussion of “God” that is at a different level. The very last section in the book dares write about a sacred opportunity. I have previously reported on books by Stephen Hawking, Stephen Jay Gould, Joseph Campbell and Carl Sagan that inform the human search.
     As the bottom of the page appears my thoughts turn back to Medford and a song we sang to our friend before we left: “Now I lay me down to sleep, angels watching over me my Lord. Pray the Lord my soul to keep, angels watching over me. If I should die before I wake, angels watching over me my lord. Pray the Lord my soul to take, angels watching over me.”  There was a hint of a smile. There is mystery in death, just as there is in life. Time for the printer.
─ Art Morgan, April 13, 2007