MORGAN'S MOMENT...
I miss the sheep outside my window
      across the road
      that have been displaced
      by Christmas trees.
No longer can I gaze hopefully
      seeking inspiration
     and ideas in green pastures
      where sheep graze.
No more shepherds and sheep dogs
      showing up unexpectedly
      to lead the flock
      to new pastures.
Maybe it’s time for new metaphors
      that add life
      to thoughts and speculations
      about the Christmas story.
So I meditate as preachers claim to do
      considering the trees
      slowly growing their way
      into someone's Christmas story.
I see 1000 trees out there in the cold
      one day cut and bundled
      trucked and sold on some lot
      being happily decorated.
It’s probably better to have a tree
      in the house for Christmas
      rather than a sheep
     don't you think?
I still want to remember at Christmas  
      that at the manger
      shepherds were the only ones
      who knew what was going on.
— Art Morgan 

BOOK CORNER
You will note that at the end of the piece on the back page I quoted from a book called, “BONO in conversation with Michka Assayas.” Every since reading the article about BONO and Bill and Melinda Gates in Time a few months ago I have wanted to read more about this interesting man. I don't know that I've ever heard any songs he's written or that U2 has performed. But I'm impressed by what he's done with his life. It’s worth reading.
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MOMENT MINISTRIES
Dec. 15, 2006
home address:  25921 SW Airport Ave.
Corvallis, OR 97333   541-753-3942
email at a-morgan@peak.org

Christmas eve at the deli ~ again!
6:30

(Wise men and others arrive early for seats!)
(Arrive Extra early and you can help set up)

A 30-MINUTE FAMILY EVENT OF CAROLS, CANDLES
AND A SPONTANEOUS NATIVITY WITH THE CHILDREN
A not-so-small gift of Moment Ministries
and the Old World Deli and Pub
on 2nd street next to the Post Office in Corvallis

FASTER AND FASTER THE OLD YEARS PASS
This should be our final blue sheet mailing of 2006. We've mailed 13 issues plus my booklet of Thursday Night Prayers. I've written almost 30 back page articles, so less than half have been published, although some may have gone out in the summer e-mail editions. (this is a productivity record since we've started posting to the internet, 1999 - bill)
It’s fun getting responses, sometimes with a different slant. Writers like a clue now and then about whether they are being read. I started writing like this about 28 years ago when I cast off the anchor to a live congregation. I wanted (and needed) a way of staying in touch with colleagues and friends. You don't know how much I need the prodding of this to stimulate my ideas, reading, thinking and writing. When readers get occasional ideas or help from this activity it’s a bonus. I could publish a book of the wonderful and inspiring and gracious letters that have come over the years.
Probably the main thing I like about Christmas is that we all tend to try to reach out and touch each other with news about where we are and what's going on. Doing these newsletters every so often means there's not much for me to report that you don't already know. In fact, it’s 12 days before Christmas as I write and I haven't begun to think about Christmas cards. Maybe it won't happen this year. I'm in touch with many of you by e-mail, and sometimes we visit others.
 I think we see at least 25% of our readers during the year. We wish we could see more. We've shared some hard moments with a few, tried to be present in situations where it seemed like presence might matter, and tried to speak an encouraging word to some whose grace and courage in the face of life situations is both amazing and inspiring.
It’s a hard world out there and sometimes dark. It needs all the Christmas light we can give it.

 
                                                                                     (back page)

ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

       Probably the most prayed words among Christians.
       Bunched together with the rest of the “Lord's Prayer.”
       The line appears in conjunction with the petition, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
       The idea is beyond our ability to imagine. Heaven, as they say, is beyond us.
       It’s an idea I've never figured out.
       I always liked the spiritual, “Everybody talks about heaven ain't goin’ there…” I want to add a verse that says, “Everybody talks about heaven don't know nothin’”
       Yet the idea or ideal is embedded.
       Every Christmas I get out my old sermons and writings. I'm like too many preachers who try to tell people “what Christmas really means.” I want to ask people walking out of our Christmas Eve service why they keep coming back. I ran into a lady on Saturday who had read our ad for the service downtown. She seemed to bubble with joy. “We're glad you're still doing that service. It’s true Christmas for us.”
       I try not to look my surprise. I want to say, “Really? What does it mean for you?” The problem is that I might think she didn't get it right. I might try to explain what it really means.”
       There are signs popping up in people's front yards around our town. “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” Catchy. I think they're big on the birth. The latest big screen movie just released has to do with the Nativity story. Lots of emphasis on the miraculous pregnancy.
       The Unitarian kids put on a program about the birth stories of Jesus and Buddha and Confucius. 150 children were involved. Each story was of a miraculous birth to an unexpectedly expecting young woman. Miraculous births are described in many ancient stories of heroic figures. I'm waiting to see some response from the Christian community which has claimed spiritual superiority of Jesus based on the nature of Mary's pregnancy. They're either stunned or doing their defense in private. The children's program centered on the belief that “every night a child is born is a holy night.”
       They developed a contemporary version of the Nativity with José and Marie called to report to the Immigration Office for documentation. Marie is pregnant of course, giving birth behind a gas station with a Texaco star. You get the drift. The story has many versions. The gospels don't tell the same story either.
       It is normal and trite to point out that all the heavenly visions and dreams of heaven on earth just have not happened. I don't have to point out the terrible disconnect between the idea of heaven on earth and the hell on earth often caused by “Christian” nations.
       There's always hope. At least that's what we say. It’s always part of Christmas in spite of the fact that our hopes have been dashed time and time again. The hope is that heaven and earth will get together someday. My own take is that those story tellers of ages ago believed that Jesus was the real thing. He had it right. He reflected a bit of heaven on earth. Their birth story was about that.
       I've been reading a book called “Bono,” conversations between Bono and Michka Assayas. Bono is unbelievably successful and rich as lead singer and song writer for the famous U2 group. He's an unusual individual doing some extraordinary things. For one thing he talks to his enemies, something we might wish our government would do. He was instrumental in orchestrating the world wide effort to get developed nations to cancel the debts of poor nations. One-third of all such debts got canceled. One hundred billion dollars worth. He has raised millions and millions of dollars for AIDS work in Africa. He has walked into the presence of Presidents Clinton and Bush, Tony Blair, Pope John Paul, Nelson Mandella, Jesse Helms, and many, many others. He is not afraid to call forth action based on a moral imperative. What drives him?
       One Christmas Eve he went to St. Patrick's Cathedral in Ireland after a tiring trip. He went for the music but began reading the Christmas story. Bono says,
The idea that God, if there is a force of Love and Logic in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough. That it would seek to explain itself and describe itself by becoming a child born in straw poverty…I just thought, ‘Wow!”…Unknowable love, unknowable power describes itself as most vulnerable…tears came down my face…Love needs to find a form, intimacy needs to be whispered. To me it makes sense…Essence has to manifest itself…Love has to become action or something concrete. There must be an incarnation. Love must be made flesh. (p. 125)  On earth as it is in heaven.
─ Art Morgan, Christmas 2006