"How long, O Lord?"

The Psalms of our Hebrew Scriptures always have constituted the Prayer Book of the
people of God. In the Christian tradition, psalms have been read and prayed during
services of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer for centuries. Monks and nuns read and
pray the psalms several times each day, working through all 150 Psalms every two weeks.
Billy Graham once suggested that everyone read through the Psalms every month,
reading five each day.

As I have read and prayed the psalms for years, sometimes I find that it almost seems to
be a non-thinking routine. Other times, each psalm seems to be alive and filled with power
and wonder and meaning. Other times, a psalm seems to be just utterly detestable... take,
for example, the last verse of Psalm 137!

Author, pastor, and theologian, Eugene Peterson, reminds us that the psalms are there to
help us pray in ways we otherwise might not, to give voice to negative emotions we might
be tempted to deny, to give us words to pray when we have no words of our own.
Ever since the events in Orlando of last Sunday morning, when so many innocent people
were systematically gunned down, I have tried to find words to pray. When the horror of
such a blatant attack on members and allies of the LGBTQ community - especially during
Pride Month - began to force its way past my initial disbelief that something like this could
happen, I have tried to find words to pray. As I have reached out to friends far and wide
who are a part of the LGBTQ community, and as I have heard their pain, their grief, their
fear, I have tried to find words to pray.

At times, my prayers seemed to just tumble out of my mouth and heart in a torrent of
compassion and love and pain and heartache and anger. At times, I simply sat in silence,
trying to hold those in pain within the embrace of God's love and light. At times, words
completely failed me.

Consistently, though, these words from Psalm 13, have echoed within me:

"How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?"

Usually, these words have been abbreviated to this two-word, piercing question and
prayer: "How long?"

I want God to DO something! I want God to take away pain and fear from those who are
suffering! I want God to beat some sense into our lawmakers! I want God to stop people
from perpetrating this mind-boggling violence! I just want God to STOP IT ALL!

"How long, O Lord," I cry! How long until justice is realized? How long until love reigns
supreme? How long until "the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord, who
shall reign forever and ever?" "How long, O Lord?"

And then I realize that God has not abandoned us. God has not left us solely to our own
devices. God has not ceased to love and care and stand with us. God carries our pain,
and shares in it. God holds our tears, and sheds divine tears right with us. God wraps us
in grace and compassion, even when/if we're not aware of that.

And then I realize something else. "How long" is not just a question that I am asking of God.
"How long" also is a question that I must ask of myself...that we all must ask of ourselves.
"How long" will WE put up with conditions that lead to this kind of horror and tragedy?

I don't know the answers to much of this. But I do know that I have to continue to ask this
question to the Lord: "How long?" And I know that we have to ask ourselves that very same
question.

Praying for you to experience anew love, grace, comfort... and even hope.

Veterans' Day thoughts

When I was growing up in the 1950's all the boys in the neighborhood would spend our time "playing Army;" that was a big thing for us as we played together.  I remember talking with my Dad about World War II.  He told me that he hadn't gone to the war because of his work. Dad was born in 1916, married in 1937, and he and Mom had had two children (my older sisters) by the time he received an induction notice in 1942 shortly after the war had begun.  As I got older and reflected on all of this, I assumed that part of the reason that Dad had not been drafted was because he was married, was the sole source of income for his family, and had two children under the age of four.  When I finally asked Dad about this directly, he told me that the Army didn't really care about those issues.  Rather, he said, his boss went to the Draft Board and asked them to give him a deferment since he worked in a "necessary defense-related industry."  You see, Dad worked for Caterpillar Tractor Co., and they were busy churning out earth-moving equipment for the Army and the Seabees.  The Draft Board granted Dad the deferment.

Fast forward to 2002.  Dad was 86 years old, and we had just helped him move from South Carolina to a retirement community near our home in Omaha, Nebraska.  I was visiting Dad one afternoon in his apartment, and he told me about a conversation he'd had that day at lunch with some of his "buddies."  Those men were all approximately the same age, and so the topic eventually turned to what they had done during World War II.  Each apparently had shared where they served during the war, and Dad told me what he had shared with them.  "You know," he said to them, "I worked for Caterpillar Tractor Company, and I was deferred because my work was necessary at home to support the war effort.  But I've felt guilty all my life because I didn't go to the war." He could have knocked me over with a feather!  Like many men of his generation, Dad rarely spoke about things that went on during the war, even for him when he was working for Cat.  But Dad went on to relate his lunch conversation... One of the other men, who had fought during the war, looked at Dad and said, "Next time there's a war, Jerry, you go and fight... and I'll stay home... and I won't feel guilty at all!"  Another feather could have knocked me over the other way. Two old men, talking over lunch about events that had happened 60 years earlier.  One talking about the guilt he felt about not fighting in the war.  The other talking about the pain he felt about participating in the war.

I did not go to Vietnam, the war du jour of my generation... because of a complex interrelationship of academics, field of study, and physical issues.  Perhaps not surprisingly, therefore, I have mixed feelings about war and the military history of our nation.  I don't believe I'm naive about the reality of the fallen condition of our world, and about all of the wars that have been fought through the centuries. Yet I also can't see Jesus blessing military interventions, no matter the "justness" of their cause.  Having just engaged in extended discussions on Dietrich Bonhoeffer with colleagues at the Association of Stated Clerks meeting in Louisville, I was reminded of the tension he felt, being a Christian yet participating in a plot to assassinate Hitler.  So I'm not clear about how to come to some unambiguous clarity about all of this in my theology and in my thinking.  However, I am very clear that those who have served and are serving in the military, and their families, need and deserve our care, our support, our gratitude for their service.

So on Veterans Day this year I simply offer two prayers, both from our Book of Common Worship...

Righteous God, you rule the nations.

Guard brave men and women who risk themselves in battle for their country.

Give them compassion for enemies

who also fight for patriotic causes.

Keep our sons and daughters from hate that hardens,

or from scorekeeping with human lives.

Though they must be at war, let them live for peace,

as eager for agreement as for victory.

Encourage them as they encourage one another,

and never let hard duty separate them

from loyalty to your Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

And this prayer, attributed to Presbyterian ruling elder, President of Princeton, and U.S. President, Woodrow Wilson...

Almighty God, ruler of all the peoples of the earth,

forgive, we pray, our shortcomings as a nation;

purify our hearts to see and love truth;

give wisdom to our counselors and steadfastness to our people;

and bring us at last to the fair city of peace,

whose foundations are mercy, justice, and goodwill,

and whose builder and maker you are;

through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.