Seek

If you wish to fly, seek wings.
If you wish to arrive, seek the path.
If you wish to rest, seek a chair.
If you wish to grow, seek God.
Because to seek is to live.

..

Imagine

Imagine a world where
every flower
every boy and girl
every word
has its place.

EH Sept. 2016

Wrecking the church

A few months ago, while visiting churches in Indiana, I visited a congregation outside Indianapolis and heard their story.

This is the story of a church that has decided to hire a wrecking company.  What for? To tear down their beautiful, historic building.

This congregation has a church building that is an icon in a town on the corner of Church Street and an important alternate route into the city.  The building, completed before the 1850s,  has priceless stain glass windows, an imposing bell tower, and organ that was completely refurbished just a few years ago.  The church has a large parsonage on the same property.  Like so many other churches around the country, the congregation was getting older and smaller in size, so they began to talk about what they should do.  After many long and painful discussions, they decided that they did not want to continue spending all of their money on maintaining and fixing the building, which had asbestos in it, and began studying areas of town where there were new families and opportunities for growth.  They purchased 5 acres of land near several new subdivisions, built a general purpose hall with all the latest energy efficient conveniences, and set up a community garden program.  

Eventually they decided to no longer heat or cool the old building and began holding all services and activities at the new site.  Families that had not been related to the church signed up to share space in the garden and the community began to identify the building as a place where different social and service organizations could meet.  The old building was boarded up and the congregation decided to sell the property along with the parsonage and use the money to continue developing the new site.  The congregation agreed that they would keep the windows, the bell and the organ to be placed in their new church when it was built.

A major pharmacy chain made on offer of 5 million dollars for the property.  The night before the deal was to be signed, the city council had an emergency meeting.  They proclaimed the church as a historical site and stopped the sale.  The pharmacy would not be able to tear down the church and the deal fell apart.   A member of the church who was a retired lawyer worked very hard and managed to have the historical site designation revoked, and the congregation once again began to work on a deal to sell the boarded up church that they were no longer using.

Now they were able to work out the sale to another company but only for 1 million dollars.  Again the city moved to stop the sale.  The company backed out, and as time has gone by, no other business wants to get involved in a deal where they will be marked at the "bad guys" who tore down the town´s iconic church.

The congregation has decided to sell the windows, the bell, the organ and whatever else they can to hire a wrecking company.  They want to be responsible to the people of the town, those who are church goers and those who are not,  for tearing down their own building.  They want to be able to say, as Avery and Marsh wrote in their song, We are the church,  "The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a resting place, the church is the people."

Elena Huegel

September 2016

Draw a line

Draw a line

in the sand.

Mark your side, your land

separate from mine.

Boundaries are curious things:

protection from hurt,

the power to say "no",

or "yes" when hope

is hidden from home.

Sept. 2016

Maya Exhibit

Maya Exhibit

Buried civilization

hills hiding homes

and temples and squares and

overtaxed resources.

Drought: no food, no water, no crafts.

They walked away slowly

into the jungle and

disappeared

forever.

Modern we call civilization

with no concern for nature.

Just resources to be exploited,

will our fate follow

the same route?

With no jungle to walk away into

how will we

disappear?

Forever.

1 of July, 2016

Thoughts from a dual citizen

I recently read on Jonathan Huegel's Facebook:

The Ryan Lockte incident just highlights a sense of American entitlement felt by many in the world. It isn't everyone but unfortunately this has been the case too often. And, also unfortunately, this attitude started with the US government. Here is just a quick summary of the US involvement in Latin America: Mexico (1845 Mexican American war, 1911 coup plotted in the American Embassy, 1914 marines invade Veracruz), Nicaragua (1980s supporting the contra rebels), Guatemala (1954 coup d'état), Chile (1973 coup to overthrow the rightfully elected government), Brazil (1964 coup), Panama (1901 Panama rebellion against Colombia and the canal), Haiti, Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic, Honduras, Columbia (1898-1934 the Banana Wars), El Salvador (1979 supporting the rebels through Argentina), Argentina (1976 coup), Paraguay (1954 coup and support of the dictatorship), Uruguay, (1971 coup), and Cuba (1898-present) have all had the US involved heavily in their countries. As Porfirio Díaz aptly put it when talking about his country: "Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States." I'm thankful for the US but I'm also realistic that we have not always acted well towards other countries and people. ‪#‎monroedoctrine‬‪#‎musingsofadualcitizen‬

Edith Nesbit

“From Lazarus to Dives” 

(“Dives” is the name traditionally given to the rich man in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in the Gospel of Luke)

We do not clamour for vengeance,
We do not whine for fear;
We have cried in the outer darkness
Where was no man to hear.
We cried to man and he heard not;
Yet we thought God heard us pray;
But our God, who loved and was sorry -
Our God is taken away.

Ours were the stream and the pasture,
Forest and fen were ours;
Ours were the wild wood-creatures,
The wild sweet berries and flowers.
You have taken our heirlooms from us,
And hardly you let us save
Enough of our woods for a cradle,
Enough of our earth for a grave.

You took the wood and the cornland,
Where still we tilled and felled;
You took the mine and quarry,
And all you took you held.
The limbs of our weanling children
You crushed in your mills of power;
And you made our bearing women toil
To the very bearing hour.

You have taken our clean quick longings,
Our joy in lover and wife,
Our hope of the sunset quiet
At the evening end of life;
You have taken the land that bore us,
Its soil and stone and sod;
You have taken our faith in each other -
And now you have taken our God.

When our God came down from Heaven
He came among men, a Man,
Eating and drinking and working
As common people can;
And the common people received Him
While the rich men turned away.
But what have we to do with a God
To whom the rich men pray?

He hangs, a dead God, on your altars,
Who lived a Man among men,
You have taken away our Lord
And we cannot find Him again.
You have not left us a handful
Of even the earth He trod . . .
You have made Him a rich man's idol
Who came as a poor man's God.

He promised the poor His heaven,
He loved and lived with the poor;
He said that the rich man's shadow
Should never darken His door:
But bishops and priests lie softly,
Drink full and are fully fed
In the Name of the Lord, who had not
Where to lay His head.

This is the God you have stolen,
As you steal all else--in His name.
You have taken the ease and the honour,
Left us the toil and the shame.
You have chosen the seat of Dives,
We lie where Lazarus lay;
But, by God, we will not yield you our God,
You shall not take Him away.

All else we had you have taken;
All else, but not this, not this.
The God of Heaven is ours, is ours,
And the poor are His, are His.
Is He ours? Is He yours? Give answer!
For both He cannot be.
And if He is ours--O you rich men,
Then whose, in God's name, are ye? 

Edith Nesbit