Before Obamacare - How Wonderful It Was!

I recall, fondly, the days before "Obamacare," when everyone loved their health insurance plan and providers. Oh, it was heaven, wasn't it! All health-care bills paid in a timely manner by the insurer. And it was affordable, wasn't it! Heck, employers chipped in their share without complaint, and no questions asked about vital procedures recommended by the doctor. And, of course, no fraud on the part of hospitals and doctors. And the troubling business of pre-existing conditions? And cancellations when changing jobs? And treatments denied? Well, let's not trouble our heads about those little issues. Oh, before "Obamacare," it was just wonderful, wasn't it! How we all loved our medical insurance programs, giving thanks to god every day that we lived in a nation that took seriously the health of its citizens, especially the children, and, oh yes, the poor, too. Yup, those were the days my friends.

Sectarian Prayers

Been a pastor for 44 years (PCUSA kind) - have given many an invocation in all sorts of settings from city councils to state legislatures. Early on, I made the decision to honor all faiths and keep my prayers free from specific religious references. 

It's easy to compose a non-sectarian prayer that honors whatever deity one's invoking and respects all who are present. 

Obviously, even the most neutral of all prayers is likely to reference some divine element, even if prayers are addressed to the earth, the universe, or to one's pet turtle. 

Christian pastors who refuse to honor those present and choose to make prayers pointedly "christian," are choosing to be offensive in the worst kinds of ways. 

While congratulating themselves for their courage, they're really thoughtless - rather than honoring Jesus, they're using him as a sledge hammer to further their own sense of power. 

Halloween - Trick or Treat - or What?

Wrote this in 2007

Halloween … Trick or Treat … or what?

In recent years, some Christians have expressed concerns about Halloween and possible connections to Satanism, etc..

Halloween has been around a long time in European culture and then to America. 

The actual term comes from All Hallows’ Day or All Saints Day. The word “hallow” is used in the LORD's prayer, “hallowed be thy name” – or holy is your name.  

Actual origins are not entirely clear … but it likely predates the Christianizing of Europe. Perhaps a Celtic festival of some sort, but having nothing to do with Satanic practices. In both pre-Christian and Christian Europe, dressing up was an attempt to scare away evil spirits, mostly in good fun – sort of catching them in their own game!

In America, Halloween was largely a night of pranks – tipping over outhouses, etc.. But in mid-20^th century, costuming and begging for treats became the predominant practice.

Dressing up and going through the neighborhood begging for sweets is now a childhood ritual that’s perfectly harmless. Christians needn’t be afraid of such things.

Parents might monitor the costumes for the blood and gore effect, age-appropriate and just plain appropriate – there are plenty of costumes available for all ages that are fun and entertaining, even scary. 

I think it’s a good idea for parents to accompany their children – make this a fun family night. Go out with the children, meet your neighbors, and invite grandparents or friends over for pumpkin pie or ice cream treats. Children quickly outgrow Halloween, but until they do, we can all have fun with them.

There are no monsters under the bed and no ghouls hiding in the closet.

The real monsters are poverty, war and environmental degradation.

By loving our children, and giving them a sense of confidence, we prepare them for adulthood where they will have to face difficult choices and serious challenges. 

Until then, a part of successful growing-up is having fun, participating in holidays and other such national pastimes and learning to enjoy life. 

As in all things, moderation … lots of parental involvement … and a home filled with love.

A child who goes to bed at night knowing they are loved will acquire the skills needed for life and the courage to face life’s challenges.

Until then, Boo! 

~ Pastor Tom Eggebeen, October, 2007

The Paula Deen Speech Never Heard

Dearest friends, my thanks for all of your love and all of your support. During these difficult times for my family and for me, your kindness has meant the world to me, and given me the courage to keep on going and pick up the pieces, and the courage to think deeply about my life, my values, and my nation - the land that I love.

Your willingness to stand by me in my time of sorrow has heartened me, yet I ask you this much: Don’t overlook what I did and what I said. Don’t excuse me on any of this. Don’t minimize what happened. 

What I did and what I said was wrong - flat out wrong.

It’s the way I was raised, the values of my culture - the words we used, the attitudes we held - so much of it, good and beautiful, and a lot of it deeply stained by the evil of racism. Period.

All of of us grow up in a certain time and place, and we receive from family and the culture around us, words and values, some of which are wonderful, and some of which are hideous. In the thoughtless moments of my life, I allowed the worst to overcome my best. 

It happens to all of us, and that’s why all of us have to think deeply, and if we’re religious, pray mightily that God will keep on removing what is broken and hurtful from our lives, and the ways we think and live.

As you stand with me in these trying times, help me think through my life, and help me stand tall, setting aside self-sorrow and self-pity, in order to reach for a better day - for myself and my family, and for my nation.

Racism is a terrible blight on our land, and its terrible threads of hatred and hurt touch all of us.

We must be mindful of such things in order to move ahead.

So, dear friends, I thank you; I thank you from the bottom of my little ol’ Southern Heart for your kindness - so much better than butter.

But join me, please, in the effort to be a better person, to rise above the corrupt values of racism and bigotry … help me to write a new recipe for goodness and the right, and believe me, it’ll taste good, for all of us!

Thank you.

Paula Deen.

Written by fellow cook, The Rev. Tom Eggebeen, Los Angeles

September 24, 2013

What Hateful People Ignore

What hateful people always ignore is the children. 

Boehner and Company, the Koch Bros, and all the rest have so hardened their hearts against the children. Watch children. Listen to children, and all the t-bag nonsense is revealed for what it is - a great evil in the land. 

For the sake of the children, let the whole damn country go bankrupt, if that what it takes to give to our children every opportunity they deserve, and the children will grow up and rescue us and restore us. And we won't go bankrupt when we spend ourselves silly on the children. We will go bankrupt when we behave miserly. 

For the first time in my life, I'm beginning to understand Matthew 13.12 ... "For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. "

The miserly, the skimpy, the cheap, those who cry poverty - yes, they already have nothing, and what they have will be taken away. But those who have compassion, open hands and open hearts, whatever they have, more will be given to them.

This is a spiritual principle, AND an economic reality.

Poverty of spirit breeds terrible policy.

But kindness builds a great nation.

A Young Man in the Phillippines

From a young man of the church who's doing a semester in the Philippines ...

With limited access to the Internet, this is his first note home - with Mom's permission, I'm publishing his note here:

Hey guys, so I have limited access to wifi here in the philippines. But i can email you about once a week. Hopefully we can set up a skype session soon as well. In my first week alone so much has happened. We are usually up at six and I work out with the guys. Then we come back and take showers (only cold water here), and get started with the day. This first week has been orientation, so every day is jam packed. We have visited everyone's praxis sites. Mine was first, sitio payong is a small slum village with no running water or electricity. It is literally across the street from huge mansions owned by the filthy rich of the philippines. Guards patrol every day in the morning and evening, since the people in sitio payong dont own the land they live on, the guards make it as hard as possible forn them to live there. They want the people to move leave, so they dont lert the people improve there houses in any way, and if the people MUST, the have to sneak it. They are locked in at ten at night, and the gates open at six, so if anyone is sick or injured between these hours, they usually arent allowed out to go to the hoispital. There are 250 families crammed super tightly together in ramschackle huts made of tarp and sheet metal. I will be there two days a week. On our visit they gave us lumpia and prepared a presentation for us. I met the village leaders and met some of the kids, who call me big brother (in tagolog) chaz. Ill be there casey and mariah, we are thinking about teaching them american games, as well as helping them learn to read, and casey and I want to help them with some construction. I met two little boys who were brothers while we there, four and five, who had toy guns and I played with them a little bit. They chased after our jipnee as we drove away yelling by big brother chaz!! I could trell you an amazing inspirational story about every day ive been here, but it would take too long via email, hopefully when we skype.

Today during mass I spoke with one of the women who lives there and cooks for us every day, and she told me the two little boys had died on friday. Myself, mariah, and casey, went to the village with the casa leaders. It has rained extremely hard the last three days and the village (which has no paved roads) is completely muddy and very hard to walk through. We were invited to the mothers house, where her family was gethered outside in mourning. We went inside and wealked into a room with twso tiny white caskets with windows where the boys faces could be seen clearly, the mother of the boys brought us chairs and sat in between her sons and told us in philippino (someone translated) that the boys had been playing in the nearby river while she sold vegetables in the nearby village. The younger brother fell in and began to drown, so his older brother tried to carry him out of the water, but wasnt strong enough and drowned with his little brother. While she told us the story, little boys kep running up to me and saying hello big brother and giving me high fives, little ducklings walked around and played in the mud, and little girls played in the rain outside. 

This country is a dichotomy of poor and rich, polluted and beautiful, delightful and grief stricken. And today was one of the hardest moments of my life emotionally.Despite that, I am so glad that I am here and have learned so much already. I love you guys and miss you. I feel like I am here for a reason, and the real learning will be in sitio payong, not the classroom. Ill keep in touch as best as possible, next time ill send pictures. I love you!!

Chaz

When American Christianity Had Substance

The Post World War 2 years were a time when American Christianity had a positive image.

When folks said "Christian," they were likely to think of names like:

Reinhold Niebuhr of Union Seminary and his trenchant analysis of America's global power.

Paul Tillich and his "ground of our being" and "ultimate concern," with a powerful linkage between psychology and faith.

Georgia Harkness at the Pacific School of Religion, her ecumenical stance and her critique of "original sin" - "the sooner it disappears, the better it is for theology."

William Sloan Coffin, Jr. and Freedom Riders, and his subsequent stance against the Vietnam War.

Martin Luther King, Jr., and his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, and his profound linkage between civil rights, peaceful protest and the Vietnam War.

Pastors regularly referred to Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was hanged by the Nazis ... and Bonhoeffer's Swiss counterpart, Karl Barth, and their construal of the faith in light of the nationalist madness that drove Europe into war and the world into suffering.

For the Roman Catholics, there was Dorothy Day and her decision to live a life on behalf of the poor and her subsequent work to challenge the Church and America to a redistribution of wealth.

And the world was taken with Pope John the 23 - a fresh wind for a tired church, building bridges to Protestant Christianity and moving the church away from it's Medieval entrapment.

At the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjold and his mysticism undergirding his economics and his economics informing his mysticism.

In England, it was C. S. Lewis and his intriguing restatements of the faith for a world emerging out of the dust of war, and Dorothy Sayer, author and theologian.

In India, the tireless work of a little Albanian Nun, Mother Teresa.

It was a time when pastors in the South lost their pulpits because they stood up for Civil Rights and invited their white congregations to envision a new America free of segregation and Jim Crow Laws, inspired by Rosa Parks and her refusal to sit in the back of the bus.

When the madness of the McCarthy Era was exposed for what it was - a pack of lies, and clergy spoke up and spoke out about it.

It was a time when women were emerging from the shadows of servitude to find their rightful place in church and government.

A time, as well, when American preachers were likely to quote from John Steinbeck, Cesar Chavez and Eleanor Roosevelt.

For Presbyterians, it was a time of creative rethinking of the faith, giving birth to The Confession of 1967 and its missional understanding of the church.

It was the best of times and the worst of times, in so many ways, but in the mix of it all, American Christianity had a positive image, and when folks said, "Christian," they were likely to think of women and men who stood up for something good and great, something global in scope and driven by peace, even as much of the world was caught up in the arms race and the Western World silly with its "Red Scare."

There was a time when the word, "Christian," rang true and strong for the sake of a better world.