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Meditations for merchant mariners working in America and abroad from the maritime chaplains at the Seamen's Church Institute.
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One of the mariner’s worst enemies is distraction, and one of the chief sources of distraction is worry.
To wish for a life that’s “worry free” is in all likelihood to dream the impossible dream. Statistics show that between 20 and 30 percent of all Americans live today under significant stress: 13 million of us worry intensely for at least 90 minutes. It may be about our marriages, children, jobs, mortgages, health, grades, friends or a host of other issues. Whatever the source, worry’s an emotion with which we’re all familiar and which 27 percent of us experience virtually on a daily basis. (Statistics from American Demographics and MD Magazine.)
No - It’s not likely that our lives will ever become “worry free,” but it is entirely possible for us to become increasingly less worried, particularly about peripheral issues, or “the small stuff.” It’s possible to become less dominated by our fears and more motivated by our faith. “Less worried” is a reasonable and achievable goal.
Jesus had a lot to say about worry and how to deal with the sort of anxiety that literally saps the joy out of life. Perhaps better known than any others of his words on the subject is a famous passage from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:25-34), a passage that speaks directly to the 13 million of us who’ll waste 90 minutes today worrying (and usually worrying about things that will never happen).
Jesus opened his remarks by, in effect, asking those listening: “Why are you anxious …?” Several key questions emerge from that one. Take a look at them with me.
1st — What good does it do?
Jesus phrased it this way: “… [C]an any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” In other words, what good does most of our worrying do? What does it ultimately accomplish? Psychologists tell us that roughly 90 percent of our fears are unfounded — roughly 90 percent of the things that worry us never occur. We often and thus tend to fantasize ourselves into utter distress.
If we can fix something, then it might be worth worrying about, but if we can’t do anything to change a situation, then we might just feel sad or regret it but not worry about it. Why worry about that over which we have no control? To be sure, we’ll find many elements of life to be disappointing. But unless we can change the situation somehow, all our worry is merely wasted energy, and may even make already bad matters even worse.
2nd — What are our priorities? What are we anxious about?
Here’s how Jesus, in effect, asked the questions: “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”
After the Christmas 2004 tsunami devastated Indonesia and Bangladesh (when over 200,000 lives were lost), I heard a fellow on a street in my town remark about having a check bounce. He said, “I’m humiliated. This is the most upsetting thing that’s ever happened to me. I was awake almost all night worrying about it. It’s terrible. I can’t imagine anything worse!” His extreme concern over one bounced check would have been laughable had it not been framed within a greater picture — the picture of human tragedy of almost indescribable proportion. With countless thousands dying in Asia, he lost sleep only because of the humiliation of a bounced check.
What we worry over says volumes about our priorities. Jesus knew that some of his listeners were inordinately anxious about personal pride and material possessions. He understood that self-centered people are terrible worriers, for they’re always afraid of what they stand to lose. He also comprehended the shallowness of people who’re oblivious to the needs of the world and focused only on their own wishes and wants.
3rd — Who’s making us anxious? - Who do we allow to unravel our lives? To whom do we concede that much power and control? Whose influence keeps us on edge?
A professor of Psychology at Penn State University, is (like many of us) an expert in the field of worry. The key difference is that he makes his living diagnosing what other folks are worried about, and he’s determined that fully 15 percent of us are “chronic worriers” (i.e., to some extent worrying virtually all the time). He’s also determined that the single most common source of worry is not the fear of war, financial disaster, holes in the ozone, AIDS, cancer, loss of a job, divorce or any of those other topics that we might place atop a traditional worry list. No - He claims that the single most frequent source of worry is other people’s opinions of our lives. “If this happens, what will they think? What will people say? Will I be laughed at? Will I be excluded?”
Most of us, even clergy, have experienced moments when we knew what God wanted us to do but failed to do it because of what others might think. The sad truth, though, is that regardless of what we do or leave undone, we really can’t greatly alter other people’s opinions of our lives. What matters most, of course, is not what others think when looking at us but rather what God thinks when looking inside us. And yet that concern so frequently receives the least attention. We go on worrying about that which matters so little and ignoring that which matters most of all!
4th — What’s the hurry?
The Living Bible paraphrases the words of Jesus this way: “Don’t be anxious about tomorrow. Live one day at a time. God will take care of the future.” Wise words for those who have ears to hear.
Several years ago, the country gospel singer Christy Lane scored an international hit with an old Kris Kristofferson tune entitled “One Day At A Time.” Its popularity probably had little to do with the music, which was ordinary at best. Nor could you explain its appeal by deferring to Ms. Lane’s voice. She does have a nice voice, but if it were the reason for the success of her song, then each of her recordings would have gone gold, if not platinum. The bottom line is this: It was the words of the song that appealed to millions the world around, the words which deep down we all know are true and up to which we wish we had the faith to live. The best we can reasonably do in this world is live one day at a time and leave the rest up to God.
“Why are you anxious …?” Jesus asked, knowing that for too many it was because they either carried guilt from the past or borrowed trouble from the future. One writer has likened worry to paying interest on a debt before it’s due! All we’re called to do, and all we’re really capable of doing, is live the best we can today. “Don’t be anxious about tomorrow. Live one day at a time. God will take care of the future.”
5th — Where’s our faith?
“If God so clothes the grass of the fields and feeds the birds of the air,” counseled Jesus, “will God not much more take care of you, … ?” William Barclay was probably correct when he suggested that “worry is essentially distrust of God,” and that, my friends, is simple idolatry - thinking we know better how to lead our lives than does God!
A French prince in the Middle Ages was asked if he were faithful to his wife. He answered: “Yes … frequently.” The line is humorous, but the point of the story is anything but. Sometimes in life, it’s all too difficult to find someone to trust, someone in whom to believe. Even spouses, parents and dearest of friends can let us down at times, but our faith teaches that when all the others have come and gone, God remains constant — “the same yesterday, today and forever.” God is always in our corner, always as close as a prayer, always loving us whether or not we deserve it and always willing to carry the heavy end of each of our crosses if asked. When worries seem to have us hemmed in and overwhelmed, all the resources of eternity are at our disposal by simply whispering the name “God.”
“Why are you anxious …?” Jesus asked, and I suspect continues to ask, and he especially poses that question to the 13 million of us who’ll waste 90 minutes or more of our precious time worrying today — 90 minutes that we could spend living instead.
“Why are you anxious …?”
1. What good will it do?
2. What does it say about our priorities?
3. Whose opinion are we allowing to carry so much influence in our lives?
4. Why are we in such a hurry to deal with tomorrow when we haven’t yet even dealt with today? And
5. Where’s our faith?
These are good questions, tough questions. If we can find answers to them, we’ll have found significant antidotes to our worries and eliminated a significant source of dangerous distraction in our workplace. May the grace of God be always with you out there.
“Abide in Me”
“Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them beer much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15: 4-6)
This Sunday we hear a portion of John’s Gospel in which Jesus invites us to abide or dwell in him as he abides or dwells in us. He explains this indwelling or abiding using the image of grape vines, a vey familiar sight in the Mid East and Mediterranean. Grape vines need great care. If they are left to grow any which way, they may grow wild and there will not be a decent harvest. The vines must be pruned with intensity. Young vines are severely cut back for three years to channel their strength sufficiently so the vines will produce peak fruit. Off-shoots must be pruned lest they take nutrients away from the fruit-producing branches.
And so it is with us. Unless we abide in God’s love, unless we allow the Divine to “prune” us so that we may have a more abundant life, we may not find that joy and perfect peace. When we separate ourselves from the Divine vine, we cannot thrive, just as the grape vine branches cannot live without the life-giving vine.
So, what fruit are we to bear?
In his first letter, John explains, “Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their sisters or brothers are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” (1 John 4: 19-21)
God of peace, let your people know, at the heart of turbulence there is an inner calm that comes from faith in you. Keep us from being content wtih things as they are, that from this central peace there may come a creative compassion, a thirst for justice, and a willingness to give of ourselves in the Spirit of Christ. Amen.
Christ has broken down the dividing wall that made us strangers to one another; he has made us, one humanity that God might be all in all; God is our life, our hope, our peace. May God’s peace be always with you.
(From The Book of Occasional Services 2003, Church Publishing; p. 247)
America’s most unlikely ‘Founding Father’
John Dickinson (1732 – 1808)
by the Rev. Kempton D. Baldridge
John Dickinson might have gone down in history as a villain, a traitor or, at best, a defeatist to the cause the American Revolution. As a member of the Second Continental Congress, Dickinson took a principalled if risky stand against American independence. Defying the majority, he refused to vote for independence and likewise would not sign the Declaration of Independence.
Yet, remarkably, despite his often vehement opposition to and misgivings about the nation’s founding, John Dickinson is today rightly honored as a true American patriot and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. His decision to remain loyal to his fellow countrymen, even when he found himself in complete disagreement with them, changed the course of history and stands as an informing example of personal integrity in times of crisis. The wisdom of his choices were further validated by the essential role he was to play in devising the new republic’s constitutional framework in an historic innovation still in place two centuries later.
American-born but London-educated, lawyer John Dickinson was one of Pennsylvania’s delegates to the First Continental Congress in 1774 and the Second Continental Congress in 1775 and 1776. In support of the American cause, he co-authored with Thomas Jefferson a Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms, with Dickinson’s now-famous conclusion Americans were resolved to die free men rather than live slaves. By June 1776, Dickinson actively opposed the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, doubting the wisdom of the measure “without some precursory trials of our strength,” and before the terms of the confederation were settled and foreign assistance certain. In an appeal to logic and reason, he stated that declaring independence while they were still so unprepared was, “like destroying our house in winter…before we gain another shelter,” and reminded his colleagues the British Empire possessed more than adequate military and economic might to subdue any rebellion. He warned one predictable if unintended consequence, worse than the destruction of their cities and farms, was a Britain too weakened by war to oppose Spanish or French ambitions, either in Europe or the Americas. What he predictedshould have happened but, as one writer opined, “No man in his senses could have guessed the actual course of the years to come, but history is seldom sensible in the routes it follows.”[1]
Thus, when the vote on independence came, Dickinson intentionally left the floor,absenting himself so the vote for independence could be unanimous. He understood the implications of his refusal, stating, ‘My conduct this day, I expect will give the finishing blow to my once too great and, my integrity considered, now too diminished popularity.’
Predictably, his unpopular position led to his expulsion from Congress and he returned home to Delaware. There he learned his Philadelphia mansion had been seized and converted to a hospital. Yet despite setbacks, he insisted on espousing his true convictions, no matter the consequences.
In 1777, he enlisted as a private in the Delaware volunteer militia. When the British left, he returned home with his unit but remained a part-time, citizen-soldier. Later that year, he was commissioned a brigadier general in the militia.
Despite his expressed desire to retire from public life, Delaware selected Dickinson as its delegate to the Continental Congress, where he again served from 1779 to 1781. Upon returning to Delaware in 1781, he was elected to the State Senate, then President (Governor) of Delaware by the Assembly. He received 25 of 26 votes. The only negative vote cast was Dickinson’s own.
Inarguably, John Dickinson’s most lasting mark on American history occurred after his 1787 return to Congress, a visionary breakthrough toward establishment of the new republic. During the Constitutional Convention, he emerged as the major architect of what history now calls “The Great Compromise.” A supporter of a strong national government, Dickinson devised an ingenious measure to protect the rights of both small rural states and the large populous states, which was almost universally perceived to be fair, flexible and durable. Historians and constitutional scholars alike view the legislative innovation in Dickinson’s Great Compromise as the essential element to gain final approval of the Constitution.
There is irony in the fact that John Dickinson, the statesman too principled to sign the Declaration of Independence, also didn’t sign the U. S. Constitution in which he played so vital a part – but this was only due to his ill health. (A colleague signed for him).Perhaps the most fitting affirmation of Dickinson’s contributions to the establishment of the republic came from the citizens of his adoptive home state of Delaware. On December 7, 1787, Delaware’s legislature voted in favor, becoming the first state to ratify the United States Constitution.
In 1792, Dickinson retired from politics, and spent his time with family, overseeing his extensive land holdings in two states and working in the abolition movement. He gave of his wealth freely, mostly to “relief of the unhappy”. He paid for schooling of his neighbors’ children, and contributed to prison relief and other charities. When he died in 1808 at the age of 75 he was honored as a great patriot.
Sometimes referred to as the “Penman of the Revolution” by historians, numerouspublic schools are named in his honor, as well as two distinguished institutions of higher learning in Pennsylvania, Dickinson College and Dickinson School of Law.
Primary sources:Soldier-Statesmen of the Constitution, by Robert K. Wright, Jr. and Morris J. MacGregor, Jr. Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington, D.C., 1987; State of Delaware Biographies, authored by Russ Pickett, atwww.state.de.us/facts/history, and The American Heritage Book of the American Revolution, Ketchum, Richard M., ed., American Heritage Publishing, New York, 1958
“The patriotism of Mr. Dickinson was of that manly nature which does not permit the statesman to sanction a measure simply because it chances to be popular, but holds him to what seems to tend to the best interests of the country.”
Source: Marshall, James V. The United States Manual of Biography and History. Philadelphia: James B. Smith & Co., 1856. Pages 143 and 144.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
[1] Ketchum, Richard M., ed., The American Heritage Book of the American Revolution, American Heritage Publishing, New York, 1958, p. 149
Joined by God in our Fellowship
While the disciples were telling how they had seen Jesus risen from the dead, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you — that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” — Luke 24:36b-48
So much of what Jesus did with his disciples was done in the context of a meal. He taught them, he listened to them and he loved them. Even after his death and resurrection, he visited them when they were at table together to remind them of their call to preach the good news of God’s love for the world. They were overwhelmed with all that had happened and had gathered together for a meal to support one another. Jesus appeared in their midst and bid them peace.
We are privileged as chaplains for Seamen’s Church to eat meals with seafarers during their busy and stressful lives. As a chaplain, I am so very grateful for the opportunity to offer love and support to my brothers and sisters on board ship in the context of a meal most every day. The lives of those who work upon the waters are filled with danger and uncertainty, along with loneliness and anxiety. Chaplains enter the mess rooms offering hospitality to those on board and are greeted with hospitality from the seafarers. We break bread, talk about our families and friends and offer support to one another over a meal generously offered by the crew. Through our care for one another, we are spreading the good news of God’s love for each of us. Through our shared meal, we are joined by the living God in our fellowship. Thank you to those whose work is upon the seas. Your open table creates a space for God to dwell among us. Peace be with you.
Easter: The Promise of Life after Life
One of the stories of Easter is found in the 16th Chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel. It tells about Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome coming to Jesus’ tomb very early in the morning of the third day after his crucifixion. They are bringing spices to anoint Jesus’ dead body; this was the way people used to embalm the dead. If we’re quiet for a moment, we can almost hear the crunch of their sandaled feet walking along a pathway toward the grave site. They were here early because temperatures in that part of the world get really hot by mid-day. What they had to do, they had to do quickly. The little they could do would not overcome the smell of death and decay, but they were going to do the best they could. We know the rest of the story. The tomb was open; the body was gone; and a man dressed in white told them that their friend and teacher, Jesus, had risen from the dead. He was a live Person walking around, and He would meet them in Galilee. Scared out of their minds, they ran away, and they didn’t tell anybody what they had seen and heard. Why? Death and decay were final things in their experience, and they had seen Jesus die a horrible death. Who would believe them?
But, Christians believe what they saw and heard, because Easter paints a different understanding about death. Easter tells us that God isn’t satisfied to leave death at its worst. God the creator and giver of all life is bound and determined to give us life after death. Perhaps a better way of saying that is to use the words of Bishop Tom Wright. God is bound and determined to give us life after life. I believe that the Bishop’s words give welcome depth and contrast to the vision of an empty tomb, shocked and terrified women, and an angel sitting on a tomb stone. Life after life! That contrast definitely allows us to breathe the fragrant air of hope and joy. Of all the things Christians can say about the truthfulness of Easter is that the Resurrection shouts out that Christ was raised to life after life AND that God will raise us to life after life as was Jesus raised.
A just-arrived shipbound crew on standby at the SCI Center in Newark NJ while waiting for their ship to arrive.
A finished-contract homeward bound crew about to be transported to their plane for boarding.
Seafarer to Remember : Of Easter and the Seafarer
Happy Easter my dear seafarer!
Thank God our Maker for this greatest moment for all the faithful to remember.
To Christians at least, Easter is the best;
For it proves that the least can outsmart the beast.
Seafarers are vulnerable sites for the warfare of evil versus good to reside;
Easter provides though that when fear and and hope collides, the former subsides and the latter presides.
Seafarers’ loneliness and homesickness could lead to dire hopelessness;
Like Mary and many who almost succumbed upon reaching the empty tomb.
Seafarers’ depression and oppression may hardly find expression and liberation;
Like Mary and many who insisted on the past as if its the last of the last.
Seafarers’ long-time at sea can cause emotional and mental depravity;
Like Mary and many who allowed their agony to decide their spirituality.
Seafarers are also God’s messengers spreading the Word by the goodies they deliver around the world;
Like Mary and many who have seen the risen Lord and went on to tell the world.
Seafarers are also life-bringers, life-fulfillers, life-changers, and life-sustainers;
Like Mary and many who had been raised by God in Easter day, enabling them to seek the things that are above from then onward.
Happy Easter my dear seafarer!
Renew your faith in God our Maker, Redeemer and Sustainer.
Thoughts on Good Friday 2012
Driving home one Good Friday a few years back, I recall the announcer at our local radio station saying, “It’s sunny and 72 degrees and a beautiful spring day out there, folks…it’s a Good Friday indeed!” I think I know what he meant by calling it Good Friday but I’m not entirely sure he knew what Christians mean when we do.
“What is so good about Good Friday?” someone once asked me, adding, “If Good Friday commemorates the day when Jesus was tortured and put to death, I don’t see anything good in that. What’s the point?”
Granted, not all church traditions refer to the Friday before Easter as “Good Friday” and origins of the name are unclear. Some scholars claim it’s merely a corruption of the English phrase “God’s Friday” while others suggest Christians deliberately ‘reclaimed’ the day as “good” choosing to view the crucifixion through the lens of Easter and the Resurrection.
By any name, that Friday of Passover in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago was a heartbreaking and gruesome day. Consider the method of Jesus’ execution. The unabashed wickedness of the cross comes into focus as we remember it was primarily an instrument of torture intended to terrorize those living under Roman occupation. Death on the cross was agonizingly slow, a result of suffocation rather than blood-loss. The suffering sometimes lasted for days.
Those full-sized wooden cross seen in some churches on Good Friday aren’t holiday decorations but ‘visual aids’ underscoring the ghastly, dehumanizing death Jesus bore. Instead of a cross imagine an electric chair, a hangman’s noose or a guillotine in its place. It’s hardly “family-friendly” when you think of it.
Still, Good Friday is essential to our understanding of Jesus, God and Man – including Jesus as both God and Man. Jesus, the Man, didn’t simply appear to die – his was a human death and a horrible death at that. The cross of Christ is both a symbol of death and emblem of triumph; this is the cosmic and truly supernatural occasion we observe and commemorate each Eastertide.
As we think about the events of the first Good Friday, there is and ought to be a pain, a gnawing and even a sense of dread. Yet, never a loss of hope, an expectancy and willingness to trust in God’s Grace and Mercy when all seems lost. In a bit of divine-amnesia we are invited to forget what happens on Sunday to revisit the despair and the heartbreak of Friday. That is the point. This Good Friday why not try looking past the colorful spring flowers, pretty though they are, to see the iron nails piercing the flesh or the stone cold corpse in the dark tomb or maybe even the resurrected presence of Jesus on Easter morning?
The point is that Jesus died and rose again that we would live – with Him and the Father – Always. And because His dying had a point, our living does too.
And that is very much the point.
“I give you a new commandment.”
Tonight we mark the first days of the Tridium, the most sacred days of the church year between Maunday Thursday and Easter Sunday.
We are asked to walk with Jesus this night while he was at supper with his disciples for the last time. “Knowing that his time had come, that he was from God and was going to God, Jesus got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.” (John 13: 3-5)
For those who follow Jesus, after witnessing the example of their chief and rabbi, nothing will be “beneath them.” Servants are not greater than the master; nor are the disciples greater than the one who sent them. There is nothing that will be “too good” or “too holy” for them to do. They are voluntarily to take the form of a slave and serve in love as Jesus has shown them in the foot-washing and will more completely show them on the cross.
Our mariners also know about his self-emptying love. They work long, hard hours away from loved ones at home for long periods of time, to ensure their families will have sufficient housing, food, clothing and education. And this self-sacrificing love is not limited to family. How many times have I boarded a ship as a chaplain, sometimes weary in the worst weather conditions, only to meet some on board ship offering hospitality — in a warm hand shake, in a welcoming smile, in a hot cup of coffee, or in a meal. I meet and experience the face of Christ on board, and I am nourished.
Our hearts and prayers are with all who traverse our seas and inland waterways. We cannot thank you enough for all you do, for all your sacrifice and hard work. May God’s peace be with you always.
From the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, 1979:
The Lord Jesus, after he had supped with his disciples and had washed their feet, said to them, “Do you know what I, your Lord and Master have done to you? I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done.”
Peace is my last gift to you, my own peace I now leave with you; peace which the world cannot give, I give to you.
“I give you a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you.”
Peace is my last gift to you, my own peace I now leave with you; peace which the world cannot give, I give to you.
“By this shall the world know that you are my disciples: That you shall have love for one another.”
