A Prayer before Voting...

by Father Austin Fleming

The election is tomorrow, Lord,
and I was wondering: if you were a candidate
- would you be elected?

I know if you were running for office, Lord,
you’d campaign with open and transparent honesty:
no need for fact-checking your statements and press releases!

Your campaign promises would be many:
life for those who respect and reverence it;
peace for those who work for it;
justice for the oppressed;
pardon for those who freely forgive;
opportunity and work for all who seek it;
casting the mighty from their thrones
and filling the hungry with good things…

Your platform would be flawless:
laws rooted in truth;
freedom bound by responsibility;
and justice tempered with mercy…

Your policies would be grounded
in an unapologetic preference and care
for the defenseless innocent:
for those waiting to be born and their mothers;
for the sick and the elderly;
for the poor, the marginalized, the refugee and the stranger;
and for victims of power, arrogance and greed…

But I know your name won’t be on the ballot, Lord,
so I ask you to be with me as I study the candidates
and their policies, platforms and promises
- and decide for whom I’ll cast my vote…

Open my mind to all sides of the issues
lest I vote uninformed on matters of poverty and prosperity,
peace and war, life and death, rights and responsibilities…

Help me see through the ads and the hype
lest I vote on the basis of looks and appearances,
polls and campaign promises…

Give me counsel to choose wisely
when the choices fail to offer what I seek and expect
of those who might govern your people…

Make me a discerning disciple, Lord:
empower me to cast my ballot
as my faith, intelligence, conscience
and the truth of your Word lead me to vote…

On the eve of the election I offer you my heart:
inscribe on it your word of truth
in letters gospel-wide and bold enough for me to clearly see…

I offer you my mind, Lord:
bathe my thoughts in wisdom ever ancient, ever new
and show me the path of your truth…

I offer you my will, Lord:
bend, shape, mold and nurture it
with the power of your grace and conform it
to your heart’s desire…

I offer you my vote, Lord:
may it be a good decision, may it speak a just word,
may it hasten your reign of peace
and bring life and liberty for all…

All this I pray, Lord,
and I ask in return the gift of your Spirit
to counsel, guide and enlighten me…

Amen.

Use your voice...Vote!

The 5th

Remember, Remember the 5th of November...

rain

To those in Sandy's path...

I saw the following letter on the "Busted Halo" website...it's from Elizabeth Desimone...just in case we have readers in the Northeast...I thought you should see this:
 

Hello, Northeast. 

How are you?

It’s okay, you don’t have to answer that question. Can we buy you a drink? Let us buy you a drink.

We know. This sucks. And we wish we could tell you the nightmare will be over soon, but the fact is this is going to suck for a long time yet. Even after the waters recede, there’s still the matter of piecing your lives back together. There’s paperwork, lots and lots of paperwork. You’ll have to dig through all of your waterlogged belongings and make wrenching decisions about what’s salvageable, and you’ll have to make those decisions faster than you’d like. Some of you will lose what’s irreplaceable: your children’s baby pictures, your grandmother’s wedding dress. A few of you will lose everything — all that you own. We are so sorry for that.

True: the possessions you’ve lost are “just stuff.” Here insert Ignatian sentiment about detachment mingled with Buddhist meditation on ephermality topped off with quote from Shakespeare’s cloud-capp’d towers speech. If those ideas about the transitory nature of “stuff” help you get some much-needed perspective right now, good. We know all too well that nothing clarifies what’s important in life like a natural disaster ripping through your region. Nevertheless, even though what you lost was “just stuff,” we understand that that stuff was meaningful to you, and we want you to know that it’s okay to mourn your loss.

Here’s the good news — and yes, in spite of everything, there is good news. The good news is: we have your back. Because we remember. We remember how you gave us warm beds and hot dinners. We remember how you came, with your families and your church groups and your college chapters of Habitat for Humanity, and helped us gut our houses and our grief, helped us hammer and nail our lives into something like normalcy. We will never, ever forget how you came.

More good news: you won’t have to depend solely on the kindness of strangers. Your neighbors will come out of the woodwork to help you. They will lug your ruined carpet to the curb for you. They will show up on your saturated doorstep with cakes and casseroles. You will, in the midst of your relentless difficulties, feel blessed and lucky and amazed to know such people.

Not everyone will make you feel so lucky. Some people are going to say you deserved what you got. They will say that God flooded you in retribution for your sinful lifestyles. People will interpret your distress as a character flaw. They will wonder why you waited around for the government to save you, ignoring the fact that you did no such thing. Tune those people out. They are silly.

We on the Gulf Coast watch your suffering with horror and recognition, and we assure you, with all of our hearts, that you are not alone. We will look out for you, as you once looked out for us. We’ll even lend you our patron saint. As this tragedy continues to unfold, we don’t want to belittle your heartache and anxiety by telling you to buck up and look at the bright side. However, we do want you to know that better days are ahead. The skies will clear, your lives will inch their ways back to coherency, and you will discover that dark days have a way of breeding a million acts of kindness.

With thoughts, prayers, and good wishes,

Your sister in sorrow, and in recovery,

The Gulf Coast

Dia de los Muertos

UMC 101

 I do post, from time to time, theology from the Catholic Church. Mainly in areas where we see things the same (or nearly so). When it comes to "All Saints Day", we see things differently. It occurred to me recently that a United Methodist Church 101 posting about certain issues might be a good idea.


Celebrating All Saints Day

Do United Methodists believe in saints?

United Methodists believe in saints, but not in the same manner as the Roman Catholic Church.

We recognize Matthew, Paul, John, Luke and other early followers of Jesus as saints, and countless numbers of United Methodist churches are named after these saints. We also recognize and celebrate All Saints Day (Nov. 1) and "all the saints who from their labors rest." 

All Saints' Day is a time to remember Christians of every time and place, honoring those who lived faithfully and shared their faith with us.  On All Saints' Day, many churches read the names of their members who died in the past year.

However, our denomination does not have any system whereby people are elected to sainthood. We do not pray to saints, nor do we believe they serve as mediators to God.  United Methodist believe "... there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human who gave himself a ransom for all" (1 Timothy 2:5-6a). 
United Methodists call people "saints" because they exemplified the Christian life. In this sense, every Christian can be considered a saint.

John Wesley believed we have much to learn from the saints, but he did not encourage anyone to worship them. He expressed concern about the Church of England's focus on saints' days and said that "most of the holy days were at present answering no valuable end."
Wesley's focus was entirely on the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

An interesting article about "The Saints among us"...

John Wesley was fascinated by examples of living saints. As a missionary pastor in Georgia, he met one such saint and later wrote about him in his Journal. When Wesley met Henry Lascelles in 1736, he was dying. Wesley was astounded to note Mr. Lascelles' complete serenity and peace.