MORGAN'S MOMENT...
“Do you fix bad haircuts?"
    I asked the lady barber.
I was a bit embarrassed…
    never having rejected a cut.
What can they do…
    take it back?
It was a walk-in shop
    the kind my barber warns about.
It’s just a summer haircut…
     Get over it I thought.
She took one look at me
     “I’ll fix it right now!”
It was not her cut
      and not her problem.
She gave me a whole new haircut
      and wouldn’t accept payment.
She smiled when I thanked her
      and headed out the door.
“Amazing grace,” I thought,
      “that saved my wretched haircut.”
It’s not a bad world after all…
      Some times.
— Art Morgan 

BOOK CORNER
“The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman is one each of us might try to imagine. Weisman does more digging and concludes that the earth will repair itself from the ravages of humans just fine. It’s easy to read and very interesting as well as sobering.
“Bay of Spirits – A love story” by Farley Mowatt offers good writing, more than a glimpse into the people, geography and history of Newfoundland, and rousing tales of adventures in a small boat. The love story is a bit haunting. Wonderful for the one finding a mid-life romance. But one wonders about the wife and two small children he leaves behind.
•
MOMENT MINISTRIES
SUMMER BLUE SHEET from Puget Sound
– August 21, 2008 –
Attachment via Email
    A MOMENT MINISTRIES production – Art Morgan a-morgan@peak.org

WORSHIPING OTHER’S GODS
Just a random thought here, touched off by a report from McNeil Island Penitentiary – one we sail past when we sail to Gig Harbor – about inmates registering themselves with more than one religion. Some Chaplains have a trouble with that. They are locked into the notion of one “true” religion. These men seem to have found values in more than one religion and wanted to embrace more than one. I admit to an unrestrained, “Hallelujah!”
I was reminded of Taita, the hero of the Wilbur Smith book, “The Quest,” that I read earlier in the summer. As Taita and his fellow Egyptians journeyed up the Nile they passed through lands possessed by people of different cultures and religions. As was the case, and still is, different people have different religions. It was Taita’s practice to pay homage to the local god’s (or goddess’s) as he went along, always continuing to worship his own three gods.
Wilbur Smith writes as an anthropologist and historian who knows that there have been different gods throughout human history. They come and go. People accept for a time, then move on. One must wonder where our present world is in its religious evolution. How long will the current major religions prevail? How can we live in a world without acknowledging that people have different gods? 
IT’S BEEN A MONTH since we sent one of these emailings out. Not too many have complained. I have pretty much concluded that the email blue sheets have not been opened and read as much, have not been shared within families and among friends as with the printed version. There are a number of exceptions to show that some are reading. I totally understand not opening an attachment when other more pressing (more interesting?) things are waiting for opening.
Life on Puget Sound has rolled along with a string of visitors. We feel enriched by each one. We plan to be here through September unless the weather drives us out. Fall in the NW is often very nice. We have some people scheduled in September and some others threatening.
I appreciate updates from people on our list. Lots of big events like birthdays and anniversaries as well as trips.

TURNER MEMORIAL LECTURESHIP
Paul and Mary will be joining Jean and Art this year for the annual lectureship Art attends in Yakima every year. Dates are October 6, 7 and 8.  We will be back in Corvallis soon after and will schedule a gathering of our local Moment Ministries friends soon after.
THANKS to our Webmaster, Bill Gilbert, for getting this set up for Emailing.
•
 
                                                                                     (back page)

AUGUST
        It’s the month I come to grips with the fact that the summer I waited for since December is facing its end time. We cheat a bit by extending it into September as far as weather allows. Sometimes it even laps over into October a bit.
        Others must notice the same thing. The number of boats cruising to nearby destinations increases. We get word from people wondering whether there are “open dates” left for a visit.
        I get a bit frantic, I’m afraid. So much left to do just to get the place open for the summer. Now I’m trying to figure out where to start the closing up process. I bought some “Sta-Bil” today, for instance. It’s a product to put in the sailboat gas to keep it fresh over the winter. Do I have to?
        My book pile is growing beyond hope. You may have noticed very few summer blue sheets. No, you weren’t cut off the list. August just got here before I got around writing my rambling ideas and reports.
        Has anyone read “The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman? It was good for me to read it in August when I actually asked myself in a moment of discouragement, “Who’s going to do all this stuff when we’re gone?”
        Weisman takes up a thought we’ve all probably had one time or another when pondering the brevity of our lives and the multi-billion year old universe. I have thoughts of that sort when I think about the millions of sea shells being crushed fine by the waves on our beach. They are here for a while then they die. Their hard shells are soon gone. The world and life goes on without them.
        What Weisman does is take the world as humans have altered it, with numerous monuments to the glory of creativity. He actually figures out how long it will likely take for nature to obliterate all signs of humans having been on earth. It won’t take as long as most of us think. Great cities, like New York City, New Orleans, and Venice as well as many others located along coastal waters and rivers have a very short life once humans leave. Only the cockroaches will perish because they need us.
He speculates on which animals and plants will flourish without us and how forests and grasslands and wetlands will come back and spring into life. The natural world just doesn’t need us.
        The thought of humans becoming extinct is not one we worry about. On the other hand, common sense and reflection on the coming and going of the species over the life time of this planet should make us realize that what nature gives, nature can take away. Just as our brief individual lives soon disappear and that we are pretty much forgotten within 100 years, even by our descendants, so our species will meet its end.
        I think Christians may think that the God of this system has created a world that operates by different laws than the rest of the universe and that humans live by different laws than the rest of nature. Preachers have taken stories from Daniel and Revelation to create a world without end, amen, amen. A thoughtful person seeks a spirituality that finds a place of peace within nature as it is.
        I guess the big question that challenges common faith is whether our species is within nature or is outside of nature. Those who think that all nature is under the dominion of humans and exists for the sake of humans constitute a major threat to the health of the planet. Bad news for such people is that humans are part of nature. Good news is that the planet can get along very well without us.
        We lost an old friend last week. She lived a long time before becoming wrinkled and cracked and burdened down by wind and sun and storm. Sometime in the night last week, she crumbled and fell, never to rise again. Some wished that someone had given extra-ordinary care to extend her long life. In her case, since she was one of the 1,000 or more arches in Arches National Park, the recommended life-extending treatment was re-bar and special plastic patching. Nature took its course, however, and the Wall Arch ended its life as an arch and crumbled into the earth.
        For my part I’m happy that the world does OK without us. I’m content with the reality that those who come after me will do OK without me, as impossible as that thought is. And I have to be at peace with the idea that any future beyond this life is not helped by fanciful religious imagination. In fact I want to be at peace with the idea that I have been part of this amazing moment in existence, even as a mere blip in eternity. What a wonder!
─ Art Morgan, August 21, 2008