Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race, you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Addendum, 3/20: In his Palm Sunday homily, Pope Leo said God does not listen to the prayers of those who claim to wage war in the name of the Prince of Peace, quoting from the first chapter of Isaiah:
I have no words to say about the tragedy we are living through today, in this country and around the world; others have said it just as well, if not better. All I can do is point to the gospel reading for today.
On the holy mountain, a glimpse of God's glory, the splendid Reality behind and beyond all the anxious concerns of this transient life. A profound thought for the faithful. See also today's Forward meditation here.
The Transfiguration of Christ by Carl Bloch, 1872. Click to enlarge.
I probably shouldn't do this, but today's reading from Forward Day by Day (a ministry of the Episcopal Church) is so very pertinent to this moment in time that I feel compelled to share it with my truckbuddies. I hope you will draw comfort and strength from it in the parlous state of the world today.
Click to enlarge.
The text was written by Roger Hutchison, author, illustrator, and Episcopal lay minister. If the good folks at FDD object, I'll remove the text image, but you can still read it at the FDD website here.
There are some very timely thoughts in Father David's homily on yesterday's Gospel lesson, Luke 13:1-9:
At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."
What I Say: Father David is a brilliant man, a fine speaker; but his thoughts today leave us up in the air. Christianity, in my view, is not so incomprehensible as he seems to suggest. There are mysteries and imponderables; but the essential message of Christ seems clear and plain to me: trust in God and do good, loving your neighbor as yourself. This message was also given by the Hebrew prophets: What doth God require of thee, O man, but to do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with thy God?
Here is a favorite psalm of your Head Trucker's which also bears a timely message for us today. The painting beautifully illustrates the storm recorded in Luke 8:22-25.
After his baptism, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread."
Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'"
Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours."
Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"
Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"
Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
--Luke 4:1-13
"Through compassion and self-giving, through self-emptying and generosity, we are invited to glimpse this ultimate reality . . . . 'In Christ, God becomes human so that humans may become God, sharing in the diving nature.'"
A playlist from the National Gallery of Art, London, with a trailer and 8 short episodes discussing styles and techniques of various Renaissance painters.
After his funeral in Houston today, George Floyd was carried
to his final resting place in a horse-drawn hearse.
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As I said in Sunday's post, I can't keep up with all the news that's going on right now, but I will continue to post from time to time, under the above heading, my thoughts about where we are as a nation and where I think we ought to go, and how.
And let me say, for the benefit of any new readers, something that I suppose has been apparent to my longtime truckbuddies: I represent a party of one, and this blog is my personal forum in which I express my own independent thoughts, not all of them necessarily in tune with the zeitgeist of the modern world. My party's platform includes the Golden Rule, the Golden Mean, and the Baptismal Covenant, as well as a plank in favor of the Oxford comma, and another one denouncing the use of gift as a verb.
Being fairly well versed in the English language, I say what I mean and I mean what I say: it's my privilege as a free, though flawed, man in a free, though flawed, country. I don't want to argue with anyone. If you don't agree with me, just move on and find someone else you do agree with: that's your privilege. There are millions of other voices in the world, and mine, small and obscure, has no influence over the course of events, one way or the other. Which may be all for the best; at least it passes the time for me here in retirement.
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"Defund the Police" Needs a Rebrand: It certainly does, for all sorts of obvious reasons. As Kevin Drum says:
We can write thousands of pieces telling people that “defund” doesn’t really mean defund, but honestly, you can hardly blame people for nevertheless thinking that defund means defund. That is, cut police budgets to zero and get rid of them entirely.
There’s not a Democratic politician alive who thinks we should do this, and keeping the phrase in use is just an invitation for unnecessary conflict between politicos and their base. Maybe it’s too late, but can’t we come up with something better? Rebuild the Police? Reform the Police? Demilitarize the Police? There’s got to be something.
Notice how Senator Kamala Harris, a former state prosecutor, struggles to explain what the phrase really means - "not that we get rid of the police, of course not" - which is baffling to any intelligent listener who believes that words have meaning:
Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis was booed out of a protest march on Saturday after he refused to accede to the demand to "defund the police." He was quite right to decline, in my opinion. Here he explains his stand:
Now I certainly agree with Sen. Harris that increased funding for public schools, healthcare, job creation and training is necessary to make better communities: you get what you pay for. Although I do have to wonder why, more than fifty years after LBJ called for the building of a "Great Society" in America - and the countless billions of dollars that have been spent on those very issues - why is our society not great? Why are black communities still impoverished, with all the unhappy outcomes that go with poverty? Why have fifty years of massive federal aid to cities and minorities had no better effect on its intended beneficiaries than what we see today in this country - the richest and most powerful in the world?
Please understand that I do not know the answers - I am simply asking the questions. Questions that are long overdue a proper answer free of bias, one way or the other.
Some uninformed people in this great country think that it was established as an exclusively Christian nation and intended to be such forever. The facts are otherwise, but even if that were true, they should not boast about it, but weep. Jesus did say, "The poor are always with you." But this hardly justifies complacency about the fact; I think it likely that He was quoting, in part, Deuteronomy 15:11, where God commands the Israelites:
For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.
And of course, Jesus himself told the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25, enjoining those who love God to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, care for the sick, and comfort the prisoners; in other words, to do whatever was needed to alleviate poverty and misery. In the Sermon on the Mount, He blessed the poor, saying the Kingdom of Heaven belonged to them.
Now, you need not believe in God or Christ or the Bible to grasp the exalted moral imperative here, which is expressed in different words in all other religions worthy of the name: love your neighbor as yourself. Believer or non-believer, conservative or liberal, rich or just getting by - if we are not barbarians, we must as individuals and as as a nation do what needs to be done to help and heal and lift up the poor among us - poor in body, mind, or spirit - and that is what will truly Make America Great Again.
And while we're here in church today, do have a look at the fascinating, long-lost painting of Da Vinci's that was auctioned off at Christie's in New York last week for $450 million dollars. Surely the purchaser will have the charity and good sense to lend or give it to one of the great museums of the world. I mean, you could hardly stick something as exquisite as this - with that price tag - over your living room couch, could you?
I was sure yesterday's report was just a rightwing fantasy, but the New York Times has confirmed it with a Vatican official in Rome. Here's a report from ABC:
Ya know, fellas, I can never forget that dark moment ten years ago when my late husband was hardly cold in his grave, and I read that Pope John Paul II, now Saint John Paul, so-called, declared that same-sex marriage was part of the "ideology of evil" - this at the very moment when I was suddenly left all alone in a tiny Texas town full of homophobes and bigots, with no rights whatsoever under the law, and had to leave what was only a few days earlier our home with a few clothes and my little dog in the middle of a bitterly cold night to seek a place of sanctuary. Under the laws of the great state of Texas, out of all our joint possessions I was not entitled to so much as a teacup, a pencil, or a shirt button. Because our relationship did not exist in the eyes of the law, and had no more significance than the coupling of two dogs or two cows.
The present pope seems like a kindly gentleman with a strong humanitarian impulse - but he just does not see or understand the enormity of the injustice and degradation that gay people have been put through by the teachings of his church, lo these many centuries.
Ms. Davis is a simple small-town woman who is hardly the devil incarnate, but as a deeply misguided zealot anxious for martyrdom she also has no idea of the real issue at stake here, nor of the harm she is perpetuating.
Your Head Trucker does not wish to require anyone to violate their own good conscience - but I would remind both His Holiness and Ms. Davis of Jesus's words:
Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's,
and to God the things that are God's.
Same-sex marriage is the law of the land here. Ms. Davis is being paid $80,000 per annum to conduct the taxpayers' business. If she has a problem with that, she is perfectly free to resign and go take some other job that will not burden her Christian conscience.
Otherwise, she had best get on with her duties. That's what she's being paid that big salary of Caesar's money for, right?
And if I had a chance to talk with His Holiness, I would just ask: where were you and your Church when I was homeless and alone, with not a friend in sight?
And it was the third hour, and they crucified him.
And the superscription of his accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
And with him they crucify two thieves; the one on his right hand, and the other on his left.
And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors.
And they that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days,
Save thyself, and come down from the cross.
Likewise also the chief priests mocking said among themselves with the scribes, He saved others; himself he cannot save.
Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with him reviled him.
And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
From the Great Thanksgiving:
Holy and gracious Father:
In your infinite love
you made us for yourself,
and, when we had fallen into sin
and become subject to evil and death,
you, in your mercy, sent Jesus Christ,
your only and eternal Son,
to share our human nature,
to live and die as one of us,
to reconcile us to you, the
God and Father of all.
He stretched out his arms upon the cross,
and offered himself, in obedience to your will,
a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.
While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
The Collect of the Day:
Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The General Thanksgiving:
Almighty God, Father of all mercies,
we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks
for all your goodness and loving-kindness
to us and to all whom you have made.
We bless you for our creation, preservation,
and all the blessings of this life;
but above all for your immeasurable love
in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ;
for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies,
that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise,
not only with our lips, but in our lives,
by giving up our selves to your service,
and by walking before you
in holiness and righteousness all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honor and glory throughout all ages. Amen.
Let us bless the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
May the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Matthew 25:14-30. Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
. . . But what about the servant who invested his master’s money and lost it? This parable is usually preached as urging us to take risks for Christ. That’s fine—but what if the risk turns sour? What would Jesus say to a servant who tried and failed?
. . . Maybe the person made a stupid, ill-advised investment, but Jesus never asked about that. The mere fact that someone was down and out seemed sufficient to attract his compassion. If this is how Jesus would have responded to the servant who invested his talent and lost it, I’d still like to hear it from Jesus’ own mouth. And I wonder why that servant is missing from this parable.
My thoughts: But then, upon further reflection, was not Christ himself the greatest failure? A small-town guy from nowhere, a hick from the sticks, coming to tell people the good news of God's unbounded love, healing the sick, embracing the lost, speaking truth to power, confronting the self-righteous and exposing the hypocrites . . . and yet, in the end all was lost, all was for naught. Betrayed, mocked, beaten, condemned, tortured, executed in the most degrading way. And the last heartbreak: even God seemed to forget him.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.
But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.
All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.
And so it was finished, there in dust and dirt and blood, amid the gleeful laughter of fools and suck-ups and hypocrites, every hope crushed, all zeal extinguished. And only his mother and his dearest friend were left to witness the final moments of agony and despair, there on the dark and windswept hill. Only Love stayed to the very end - but love is such a small thing in the brutal machinations of the world.
And yet - and yet - despite all appearances, beyond all dreaming: the story did not end there. Rather, the ever-new and ever-living Story really began in that black hole of sorrow, that horrid mangling of all that was good. This is our faith, we who believe: that no matter how great our failure, nor how tiny and hollow our success, all that is good in us is known and honored and cherished in that great reality at the heart of all things - the Love that moves the stars. Which, when all that we see and know has been swept away, remains the eternal Constant: in which we shall abide forevermore.
All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
Which is why for me, Christianity is so deeply moving and beautiful: the concept, which I'm not aware of in any other religion, of not merely a loving God, but of a God who loves the world so much that he empties Himself
to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us
who understands our weaknesses and failures because He Himself has felt them, lived them too. He does not merely look on benignly from some high, unapproachable perch above the blood and toil and tears and sweat - He knows.
Yes, child, I understand: been there, done that, sucked at it.
Even God Himself, the great architect of Creation, is helpless in the face of the world's ignorant cruelty; even God was a great failure, by every human measure. And yet that is not the whole story, but merely the prologue to unending triumph over all that is dark and withered and empty. And unto Himself he will gather all those lost sheep who know his voice and follow him in their hearts, though the road lead only to the slaughterhouse, as we see it here.
A helpless failure of a man, a suffering God, bloody, defeated, finished - and yet victorious: take it as theology or as poetry, the implications are breathtaking. So that in the end, that anguished cry from the Cross is not the trumpet of doom, but the opening peal of inextinguishable Joy - to them who believe. This is the Christian faith: that we glory in our human weakness and, no matter how mixed up or messed up our lives turn out to be, even in our deepest failure triumph, through Him who in dying vanquished every evil, even the last enemy, which is Death. For even at the grave we make our song . . .
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, harmony; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that I may seek not so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
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We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.
and welcome to the Blue Truck, a blog for mature gay men with news and views on gay rights, history, art, humor, and whatever comes to mind. Plus a few hot men. The truck's all washed and gassed up, so hop in buddy, let's go.
CAUTION: For mature gay men only beyond this point. Some posts and links may not be suitable for children or the unco guid. You have been warned.
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My Story
click photograph to read
Churches say that the expression of love in a heterosexual monogamous relationship includes the physical, the touching, embracing, kissing, the genital act - the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?
It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual. You must be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to a kind of hatred. It's like saying you choose to be black in a race-infected society.
If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God.
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