Kinzman's latest literary work

Boots and the Mouse

I am a mouse who lives in an old barn. My particular room in this old barn is the largest room in the barn. It is the hayloft. There is only one window looking out of the hayloft, and from there I can see hills and pastures. It is very beautiful. In fact, my whole life is beautiful except for one thing. That one thing is a cat.

That cat makes me nervous. Her name, according to her owners who call her to dinner twice each day, is Boots. Boots is gray in color, but her feet are white. She is a fast runner and a very good hunter. I don’t know why she hunts. Her owners feed her. She seems well fed. I am sure that she is hunting me.

How do I know this? Every day I see her entering the barn through the big doors below my window. She stealthily moves, looking into each of the horse stalls, occasionally catching one of my cousins. She eats them. She usually eats the head first. Like I said before, she makes me feel nervous.

Sometimes I dream about catching Boots and eating her. When I wake up, though, I realize that it was just a dream. Maybe one of the horses will kick her! That would teach her not to come into the barn anymore. I just wish she would hunt somewhere other than my barn.

This morning the sun is shining and the temperature is just perfect. I’m looking out the window of the hayloft and I see Boots coming this way. Once again I feel nervous. This time she’s doing something different. She’s not looking into the stalls! She’s climbing up into my hayloft! I’d better get out of h . . .

Evolution

Evolution

We live in a wonder-world full of fascination and mystery. We often think, “Why?” and “How?” Although we search far and wide to know all the answers, we understand that we never will. But in all curiosity, it becomes clear that things do change – and the longer we live, the more apparent it becomes. Some changes are quicker than others, but slowly, things evolve. They are occurring now as in the past, and they will do so in the future. This is the real meaning of evolution. It is much more widespread than in the classic description by Charles Darwin.

One of the amazing facts that strikes me as I read the book of Genesis is how much the Creation story resembles the scientific explanations that followed, thousands of years later. Whoever wrote Genesis was totally unaware of atoms, electromagnetic energy, and all the complex mathematical formulas with which we describe our origins today. Yet that ancient description of the earth as “formless and empty” and then the beginning of light, followed by water, sounds much like the story of the scientific sequence. Genesis continues with “water…gathered in one place and dry land appear(ing)”. The Creation account goes on with the appearance of vegetation, fruit and seed, followed by “water teeming with living creatures and birds flying in the sky.” The next description is that of the land producing living creatures that move along the ground and reproduce according to their kind. Finally, “God says, ‘Let us make man in our image…and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and birds of the air, over livestock, and over all the earth.” This occurs in a matter of unknown time, but the sequence is remarkable. Remember that the word “day” in Hebrew can mean any period of time, as it can in most of our modern languages. It is ridiculous to imagine this ancient writer receiving this knowledge in modern scientific terminology. If he had, and wrote it down, no one could have understood or believe what he was saying or writing. The story would never had been told, much less understood, by anyone.

The stories in the Bible have to be understood as inspired, but written by human beings of a specific time period. This writer would not understand most of our modern words of communication. Language, communication, and terminology have all evolved and will continue to do so. The reason Jesus spoke so often in parables was to simplify a truth, not to make it more complex. We often look back on historical and ancient people as having been simple minded, but many were brilliant. They solved complex problems one by one, or we would not be here today. Future generations will no doubt look back on our society as backward and primitive because of the evolution of inevitable progress and problem-solving.

It helps to look at the immense size of the universe in order to grasp our dilemma. With the naked eye, we can see the nearest galaxy to our Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy, about 2 million light years away. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second, so we are looking at a time so far in the distant past, the numbers have no real comprehension. It makes the life of a 100 year old person equal to the blink of an eye. Can you imagine how much evolution has changed things in the past and will continue to change things in the future?

If man requires a “long time” to create a masterpiece, and if man was made in God’s image, then it may have taken God a considerable period of time for his various creations. Remember that his timetable is a whole lot bigger than ours. Accept evolution as a part of the beginning and the changes on the road to infinity.

By John B. Selby, Sr.

September 2011

Here's Pigasus again!

For Selbyjr: Let's have a serious talk . . .

Trivia. Probably easy for you: from where is the excerpt below? I'd like to have a long conversation about it . . .


Next month, when the city had returned to its sun-baked quiet, he did a thing no Englishman would have dreamed of doing; for, so far as the world's affairs went, he died. The jewelled order of his knighthood went back to the Indian Government, and a new Prime Minister was appointed to the charge of affairs, and a great game of General Post began in all the subordinate appointments.

The priests knew what had happened, and the people guessed; but India is the one place in the world where a man can do as he pleases and nobody asks why; and the fact that Dewan Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., had resigned position, palace, and power, and taken up the begging-bowl and ochre-coloured dress of a Sunnyasi, or holy man, was considered nothing extraordinary. He had been, as the Old Law recommends, twenty years a youth, twenty years a fighter,--though he had never carried a weapon in his life,--and twenty years head of a household. He had used his wealth and his power for what he knew both to be worth; he had taken honour when it came his way; he had seen men and cities far and near, and men and cities had stood up and honoured him. Now he would let those things go, as a man drops the cloak he no longer needs.

Wrestling with God

Sermon “Wrestling with God”

Henry G. Selby

All Saints’ Episcopal Church

Morristown, Tennessee

The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

July 31, 2011

“May the words of my mouth and the mediation of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.” AMEN.

The topic for today is blessings! Here’s a made-up story: Tom was a 34 year old computer programmer who had unresolved issues with his father, a diagnosed workaholic who was cold, distant, and who never really seemed to love anyone or anything. Tom was married, had a reasonably high paying job, and two sons of his own. He looked successful. And he was resolved not to have a dysfunctional relationship with his wife and children in the pattern of his own family of origin. But when the patterns established by his first family began to emerge in his own behaviors, he became, in a word, neurotic. For a long time he resisted the idea of seeking any kind of professional – or even neighborly – advice on how to break a pattern of living that he knew would ruin his marriage and his relationship with his children. Eventually, though, he entered therapy.

Like most of us, and I think men are probably more like this than women, he just wanted to have someone give him the solution; he would then put that plan into practice and all would be well, quickly. The therapist’s words, however, were not comforting. It would take months, perhaps even years, to work through his unresolved issues. This is not good news for a programmer schooled in “outcome-based management” theory! The therapist told him that it was “like peeling the layers from an onion” and that his problems were like a barbed arrow that couldn’t be simply pulled out the way it entered the flesh, but had to go all the way through in order for healing to occur.” And so Tom began the long, sometimes tediously painful process of healing.

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Does any of that sound sort of familiar? We’ve all read similar stories in self-help books or even the Reader’s Digest with this kind of case history. If you were alive during the 1990’s you might have even bought some of these books yourself! “Making Peace with your Parents” was a biggie. So was “The Courage To Heal” and “The Power of Self Coaching” and so on. The books are all filled with case histories that end one of two ways: the troubled persons don’t follow through with therapy (for any number of reasons) and all is lost; OR, they follow through and live happily ever after.

Well, that’s not entirely true. There is a third scenario that appears once in a while: the “victim” (the oppressed person seeking help) is encouraged to be a wounded person, struggling till death, and seeking (and often receiving) sympathy all around. A living martyr. This “remain-a-victim” scenario is sinful and, let me assure you, anti-gospel!

But anyway, if the therapeutic healing process is successful, we in the religious world would call that a blessing. “Blessing” is a word we toss around pretty freely, and it is a word that is often being tossed around incorrectly (in my deeply held opinion) by modern Christians. “If God does what I want, God is blessing me” seems to be a prevalent way of expressing this idea. If God does what I want, God is blessing me.” I had a parent come to me one time while I was a headmaster in South Carolina who clearly was doing very well financially. Fancy cars, several homes, and money to burn. “We’re very blessed,” she told me.

So what is a blessing? The dictionary tells us that a blessing is a bestowing of holiness or divine will; or a way of showing or infusing approval. A glib person might think of a blessing as something like “God’s seal of good housekeeping”. Our English word from which we translate the Hebrew, by the way, originally meant to make things holy by a sacrifice, usually a blood sacrifice. The original Hebraic

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understanding was involved more with the favor of God or the hope of finding favor with God. In other words, when we say “God Bless You”, we’re really saying, “I pray that you find favor with God” or “may you find favor with God.” There’s a distinct hopefulness here.

Now you may have heard me say this before, but here’s the definition that I use for “blessing”: A blessing is anything that moves you closer to Union with your Creator. Hear that again: A blessing is anything that moves you closer to Union with your Creator.

I’ve had some mountaintop experiences in my life. You know what I mean: ecstatic moments, usually fleeting, where I know in the most profound and intimate way that God loves me and everything is working out to a perfection. As an aside, as a backpacker a lot of these mountaintop experiences actually occurred on a mountaintop! . . . but let that pass. These are valuable moments for me, although they are nearly impossible to “re-feel”, and any account I try to give of them falls miserably short of the mystical event.

On the other hand, I have a number a really bad “valley” experiences in my life too: Times when I was, like David, walking through the valley of the shadow of death. A feeling of being unloved, despairing, broken, hurt, hopeless. I can summon up feelings when I recollect those times. I can also give a pretty good account of them. And for me, the mountaintop experiences are times of assurance and hope. The valley experiences are times when I have something to learn. Isn’t that just awful? Isn’t that terrible news? But that’s the way it seems to be.

Here’s the interesting thing, though. When I do recollect those bad times, and I’m looking back from the other side, I realize that I was transformed from being a victim into a victor! We’ll come back to this.

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Today we heard the interesting story of Jacob wrestling with the angel . . . or depending upon which translation you read or where you read this account, wrestling with God or a man or a stranger. (we read from Genesis, but the account also occurs in Hosea). It’s an interesting story, but what can we make of it? Actually it’s a little odd, right? How did this dislocated hip story make it into Holy Scripture anyway?

Anyway, the quick recap is that the lyin’ cheatin’ untrustworthy, philandering, Jacob, who is so afraid that his loving brother might kill him on sight when they meet, that scoundrel who even sends his wives and children and servants ahead of him as he approaches his brother (were these human shields? Hmmmm), spends the night alone. He wrestles with God until daybreak. And then we have this strange dialog: "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

Jacob was having what some call a “dark night of the soul.” He was not having a mountaintop experience. Jacob’s onion was being peeled away layer by layer. The barbed arrow was working all the way through.

My wife Cindy is a trained Stephen Minister. I don’t know if you’re familiar with this program, but essentially it pairs up care-givers with care-receivers who are able to connect with each other by deep mutual understanding of shared trauma. I’m not a Stephen Minister, but I am nosey, and I’ve read of lot of Cindy’s resources. I am deeply impressed by an overarching principle of this ministry that asks, in the midst of pain, “where is God in this?”

In the midst of the trauma, where is the blessing? “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

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Can you call to mind right now a really tough time from your past? Not one you might be in now, but from your past: A death? Health issue? Broken relationship? Financial disaster? Can you reflect for just a moment on your valley experience? What was the outcome? Did you work all the way through it or bail out early. Did you emerge victorious or are you still a victim? Where was God in your crisis?

“I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

“A blessing is anything that moves you closer to Union with your Creator”

And then this from today’s Gospel lesson: 5,000 men (plus women and children) are fed with five loaves and two fishes. And food is left over. 12 baskets full. That just seems impossible.

Remember that really tough time from your past? Did that also seem insurmountable? When I have been in deepest despair, it also seems impossible that God would help me. My retrospect, however, shows me otherwise. It seems I need the mountaintop experiences for hope and what the old hymn calls “blessed assurance”; it seems I need the valley to learn. The question is, can I praise God in both circumstances? Unlike the mother in South Carolina, could I have lost my job, my car, and my family, and still say I’m truly blessed?

I am compelled to point out that Jacob, whom we call Israel from here on out, limps on his bad hip for the rest of his days. The recollection of his dark night is always there to remind him . . . but he is not a victim. He is victorious and becomes the father of nations. Maybe that’s why it’s easier to recount a valley experience than the ineffable joy of the mountaintop.

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The miracle of the loaves and fishes, like all miracles, ought to tell us something very important, very simple, and yet something we resist at a rational level. With God, nothing is impossible.

So I’m going to give you an assignment: As you go through your day today, and during the week, and maybe the month of August, in your joys and sorrows, and happy times and tribulations, ask yourself the Stephen minister question: “Where is God in this?”

Glory in the mountaintop experiences of a miraculous moment that seems impossible, like the loaves and fishes. Wrestle through the tough times like Jacob at Peniel, not abandoning the fight until you are blessed. Who knows, maybe it will become a habit.

We were never told that we would go through this life without pain and anguish, but we were told that we would not have to go through it alone. I have you. You have me. We both have a savior whose light we must never hide and who is with us always. Jesus, Beautiful Savior, glorious Lord. Emmanuel, God is with us, Blessed Redeemer, Living Word.

Where is God in all this? God is right here. And that’s really good news!

And now unto God the father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be ascribed as is most justly due, all might, majesty, power, dominion, and Glory, both now and evermore. AMEN.

Another Tongue Lashing: The Weekly Scold

Sermon “Show Us The Father”

Henry G. Selby

All Saints’ Episcopal Church

Morristown, Tennessee

Easter V: May 22, 2011

“May the words of my mouth and the mediation of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.” AMEN.

I am called Henry. I am a child of God, a member of Christ, and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven. There are lots of Christians in the world who are troubled by today’s Gospel reading. At the heart of their troubles is this concept that Jesus the Christ, our Lord and our Savior says, “no one comes to the Father except through me”. I am reasonably certain that some of you sitting in the pews today find this concept troublesome.

And why? Well, because you personally know some good folks . . . from history, or maybe even members of your own family . . . or maybe even you yourself . . . whom you believe to be outside of that body that we know as followers of Jesus. But they’re good folks! They do good works! Anyone who has gone through confirmation class will have wrestled with the idea of a “good” Muslim or atheist or Jew or Hindu or Mormon or unbaptized baby winding up in the fires of hell or some odd theological cubbyhole called “limbo”, because he has never, quote, “accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior”. And the idea of a loving God relegating those (whom God purports to love) to hell is repulsive to our logic and natural sense of justice.

But brothers and sisters, right there in the red-letter edition of the Holy Bible we have Jesus saying “no one comes to the Father but through me.”

I am well aware of how some people deal with this issue. “Yes. Gandhi was a good man in the world’s eyes, but he didn’t know

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Jesus. He will not be in heaven.” This view is widely held here in east Tennessee.

Another group of people deal with the situation this way: “no matter what, everyone is going to heaven”. This concept is called “universalism” and would include the most heinous criminals in the annals of history. That doesn’t seem quite right either.

In both of these extremes, the adherents are reluctant to wrestle with the implications of Jesus’ words. My hope is that you here this morning will not be afraid to think deeply – very deeply – about this concept.

There are other ideas, of course: there’s reincarnation, there’s nothingness (following our earthly life), there’s becoming a part of the infinite at some atomic level and streaking about the cosmic ether at light speed.

Perhaps some of you are familiar with charismatic preacher by the name of Carlton Pearson who fell from grace at his megachurch in Tulsa, Oklahoma for suggesting that “Hell Sells” and that he would no longer sell salvation out of fear. “How can you love a God who is torturing your grandmother for eternity” he said. His congregation, numbering 6,000 people each week, booted him for suggesting that God is actually a loving God.

More recently we have the megachurch pastor Rob Bell, (10,000 member Mars Hill Church) an amazingly engaging preacher and mighty good theologian to boot, who has angered the fundamentalist powers with a similar message. If you haven’t heard of his book “Love Wins”, well . . . you haven’t lived. It’s a well-spent $11.98 plus shipping. And it’s available on Kindle. Anyway, he puts hell on trial. And guess what? Love Wins. Protestant American preachers are not organized well enough to have something like the Spanish Church

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did with its inquisitions, but when the book came out, Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, immediately called an emergency meeting of influential pastors to suppress Bell’s heresies. It’s not working. Bell’s book remains on best-seller lists. “Love Wins” by Rob Bell. It’s a good read for people who think.

You already know that Anglican theology, our theology, is founded upon the three-legged pillars of reason, tradition, and scripture. When we consider the totality of Jesus’ teachings, it is relatively easy for us to accept “no one comes to the father but through me” at a level that has nothing to do with altar-calls or emotional conversions at the end of junior high church camp. And while we can play with ideas about coming to God through Jesus during our earthly life AND/OR after our earthly death, or whatever, the real essence of our Lord’s teaching here is encouragement to continually seek God.

The Great Commandment and the Great Commission, so effectively touted by evangelists of our current age, are critically important for you and me. We must love God and our neighbors as ourselves above all else. And, we must “go and teach all nations”. We must NOT, however, fall into the very dangerous trap of claiming how many souls we’ve saved. We don’t save them. We never have and never will. And here’s a warning for you: if you keep of tally of those you’ve saved, you’d better be accountable for all those you didn’t. Guess which list will be longer. It’s futile, it’s inappropriate, and quite frankly, it is absolutely toxic to an understanding of the real Good News.

So I’m making the case that this Gospel lesson is really about encouragement. Listen again to the exasperation in our Lord’s voice when Philip asks him to “show us the father!” “Philip! Have I been with you all this time and you’re asking me to show you the father?” Don’t you get it?

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Now I need to pause to explain this very clearly: if you think I’m going to make a pronouncement that Hitler and Osama are in Hell, Gandhi is in Heaven, and who knows about the Mormons, I am NOT. If you want to know what I believe, it’s this: I do believe that God loves us so much that God gave us free will: and this will allows us to accept or reject salvation at some mysterious (for lack of a better word) “time”. And I believe that, through Jesus, we can recognize salvation either in this life or the life to come. Again, not everyone will. But my belief is not the point at all. In fact, that is central to this portion of today’s reflection. It’s not my job to determine who is saved and who isn’t. My job is to carry the message of salvation . . . that I have come to recognize and believe . . . and leave the results of my industry up to God! Let me say that one more time: our job is to do our job. God is in charge of the results.

But how, you may ask, does one come to recognize and believe and carry the Good News of Salvation? Aren’t we just like Philip? I mean, we’ve been hanging around the church for YEARS, saying the prayers, singing the hymns, and making the barbecue . . . and can we say that we REALLY recognize and believe?

Whitsunday is right around the corner. (Whitsunday? Whitsuntide? OK, you modernists call it Pentecost!) Three more weeks of Eastertide and then we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit and the bestowing of spiritual gifts on the community of believers. Spiritual Gifts are not talents or skills: they are God-Given gifts that are exclusively given to build up God’s church, and they are given to you and me. Remember when I mentioned our job? Well, our job is to use those gifts. It is in using the gifts that we may come to see God . . . and ultimately realize the hope of our calling. It’s all about call and response. Vocation.

Now next fall we will be offering a series of classes in Spiritual Gifts. I hope it will be well attended. But today, Rally Day, is the perfect

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time for you to reflect not only on the talents and skills that you can bring into service, but on the particular and amazing gifts that have been given to you by the Holy Spirit. I urge you in the strongest possible way to open your hearts and minds this morning . . . during this Divine Service . . . for direction. And when we go forth rejoicing in the power of the spirit and head into the parish hall, start putting

your name on one or more of the ministry opportunities before you. Did you read in Saints Alive that Pastor Scherry has tallied up more than 80 ministries offered by our parish? This is astounding!

If you’re still one of those people who need religion to frighten you a little bit, consider this: we all have gifts. And one day we’re going to have to account for them. But please don’t let guilt be your motive. It is my belief that fear of Hell is the precisely the wrong way to approach Union with our Creator. The motive is gratitude. Pure and simple gratitude. I fail at keeping the law. I ignore the warnings of the prophets. I have no trouble recognizing my own failures. There is no hope for me . . . until . . . at the foot of the cross or at the barbecue pit or singing a hymn, or straightening out prayerbooks in the pews or washing dishes I say: “My Lord and My God!”. And I say, thank you God. You have been made known to me through your Son.

Can we say that we REALLY recognize and believe? Well, I sure hope so. Let me share this with you, brothers and sisters. Just this week I was standing out here in the parking lot late in the evening having a conversation with an engaging and thoughtful man. He’s not a newcomer to our parish, but like me, has only been here for a few years. Our topic had drifted to the behaviors of various worshipping communities. In the course of our conversation he referenced our sign out front and he made this observation. “You know that sign that says “all are welcome”? This church really means it.” All are welcome. This church really means it.

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If we read the scriptures, there is no doubt of a need for a Savior. And when we realize that we are saved, there is no doubt that we will queue up for grateful service in our Savior’s name.

I am called Henry. I am a child of God, a member of Christ, and an inheritor of the Kingdom of heaven. And so are you. And that’s really good news.

And now unto God the father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be ascribed as is most justly due, all might, majesty, power, dominion, and Glory, both now and evermore. AMEN.

Ike Arumba!

There's no such thing as a school year winding down! And this year (and it is all my fault of course) we have multiple special events EVERY DAY in addition to classes leading up to commencement. Today, for example, I will cook lunch for the entire school and then have Reddi-Wip Pies heaved at me to raise money for tornado victims in a nearby county while the afternoon Field Day occurs. Then Kinzman and I are off for two nights at the scout Spring camporee. (for which I have packed precisely NOTHING so far). Oh well. Could be worse. Could be raining. Oh, wait. It is raining.