A RITUAL TO READ TO EACH OTHER by WILLIAM STAFFORD

If you don't know the kind of person I am

and I don't know the kind of person you are

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world

and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break

sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood

storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,

but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should consider--

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

IN A DARK TIME by THEODORE ROETHKE

In a dark time, the eye begins to see, 

I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;   

I hear my echo in the echoing wood— 

A lord of nature weeping to a tree. 

I live between the heron and the wren,   

Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den. 

What’s madness but nobility of soul 

At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!   

I know the purity of pure despair, 

My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.   

That place among the rocks—is it a cave,   

Or winding path? The edge is what I have. 

A steady storm of correspondences! 

A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,   

And in broad day the midnight come again!   

A man goes far to find out what he is— 

Death of the self in a long, tearless night,   

All natural shapes blazing unnatural light. 

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.   

My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,   

Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?

A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.   

The mind enters itself, and God the mind,   

And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

LESS IS MORE, AND OTHER THINGS PEOPLE HAVE FORGOTTEN

Here are a few pictures from my favorite house in Paradise Cove on Vashon Island. What I loved about this place was its simplicity. It was originally built as a boat storage building, and the current owner's grandfather converted it into a vacation house by building in simple bunk beds, a basic kitchen, and a small toilet. That was over 60 years ago and not much has changed. Just the smell of the old wood inside made me feel relaxed. It smelled like history and tradition. The owners, to their testament, have left everything alone inside over the years while some of their neighbors have built bigger, more modern homes. They kindly let me snap a few photos of their lovely home. They noted that people get out of control when it comes to the size of their vacation homes and I tend to agree. Most houses on Vashon are seasonal and palatial, which works well for this sentence, but is really a huge waste of resources.

A FITTING NAME: PARADISE COVE, VASHON ISLAND

Some of the best discoveries are accidents. Julie and I took the ferry over to explore Vashon Island today. It's weird having an island the size of Manhattan a stones throw away from Tacoma that we've never visited. Due to its isolation (there are no bridges to the island) Vashon has maintained its rural character even as neighboring Seattle and Tacoma bust at the seams. For part of our adventure, Julie and I explored Camp Sealth, an amazing 400 acre property owned by Campfire USA. While we were there we spotted a small beachfront community to the north. It took some doing to discern which rural roads would take us down to the beach. What we eventually discovered was Paradise Cove, a community of about 30 mostly modest homes with only foot access to each from a communal parking lot. It feels like it's in the middle of nowhere, but it's only 10 miles from our house in Tacoma. I'm told that most of the houses here never go on the market. Instead they are handed down from generation to generation. 

A SAD SIGN OF THE TIMES

I had a few thoughts when I came across this advertisement in the local Tacoma paper the other day. Due to the bold printing on the opposite side of this ad, the first thing I noticed was that it appeared that the white corrections officer had a black eye. When I first saw his eye I thought, "Wow, that's honest advertising." The next thing I noticed was that the Asian guy in the foreground kind of reminded me of the villain Chong Li in the movie Bloodsport. Then I read the ad and was surprised to learn that a corrections deputy with a GED makes more annually than a teacher with a master's degree. I'm not demeaning this career; I'm sure it's tough, regimented and at times dangerous. But what does it say about our society when we pay people more to watch our prisoners than to educate our youth. At the same time, these prison jobs wouldn't exist if teachers and parents did their jobs. The thought I'm left with is, is it a good idea to put a person in a position where they have so much power over others when they couldn't even finish high school (and I say that as a person who hated high school)? Does earning a GED or even a high school diploma provide you with the advanced critical thinking skills that are essential in jobs like corrections or policing?

KEEPING OUR DESIRES AT BAY

I love living by the water. Our house is about a mile from the shores of Commencement Bay. Its deep water was what brought the railroads to Tacoma in the first place and put this city on the map. There are a steady stream of container ships that make their way in and out of the port, dropping off their mostly Chinese cargo. Sometimes, like in the case of this photo, we get so much stuff that ships have to wait in the bay before they unload. It made me think about all the resources that go into filling these ships full of goods and how much we actually need this stuff.

FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH (DISCIPLES OF CHRIST): TACOMA, WA

Part of the reason I started doing church reviews like the one that follows is because I find the fractured state of Christianity confusing. I think it speaks to something in us that disagreements inside the church tend to lead to new branches and factions. The church doesn't have a history of working disagreements out and remaining whole; they divide and become separated. On some level the church itself is responsible for that fracturing in all of us. The cross scoring system is a bit confusing, but just remember that five crosses in any category is the best possible score. This one goes out to my Uncle Bill. 

Building Aesthetics: t t t. There is something that draws me to the simplicity of A-frame architecture. It is an elegant solution for our human need for shelter. It was this design element that first made me take note of this particular church. Aesthetics and design matter. True people of God understand this. Another nice thing about this church is that it sits back away from the street. It seems appropriate that a church should have some room to breathe on its lot. The inside of First Christian is nicely designed. Pews are wood and have simple, clean lines. Some have removable cushions while others do not. Are those who are suffering drawn to the cusionless pews? Natural light is brought into the santuary through stained glass on either side of the sanctuary. I really liked the choice of pastel colors in the glass. It reminded me of the chakra colors from the hindu yoga traditions. As always, I dislike the choice to use carpet, in this case an autumnal orange/brown. It is dirty and superfluous. One other deisgn choice I didn't quite understand is that the backdrop of the alter has a false wall that separates the space from the stained glass wall shown in the bottom photo. It seems to me that a wall of light would be a nice backdrop for the alter.    

Truthful Eyes: t t t t. People here were nice and I enjoyed meeting congregants when made to do so during the service. After the service several people took the time to make more formal introductions and their motives in doing so seemed genuine. There wasn't a ton a diversity here, most congregants were older and white.   

Religious Time Management: t t t. The service today featured two baptisms and communion which played havoc on the religious time management. The baptisms were for two teens and were done in a fairly theatrical display. I'm not kidding when I say theatrical: curtains parted behind the alter to reveal the pastor and a spiritual dunk tank. Baptism is a tradition that I think has lost its way. This ceremony used to be practiced in natural bodies of water and symbolized the cleansing of sins and the reunion of man with nature. Now it's practiced as more of a precaution or obligation. Traditions that loose their spirit need to be rethought. What if everyone planted a tree to symbolize the beginning of their spiritual journey. One thing I did like about the baptism was that the curtain also revealed a portrait of Jesus. Being able to look at it for only a short time was powerful and a happy accident of the ceremony. There is power in that brief time that a curtain allows us to see something. A glimpse behind it like in The Wizard of Oz may be all some need to start making important connections.     

Poignancy of Sermon: t t t. The Pastor of this church hails from South Africa. I'm not aware of much of her story, but she seems to have an interesting one. The service today focused on a song and how the word "us" is sung in it. The message here was subtle: small things in life like whether we open up our mouths when we sing "us" matter. In the case of this song, not singing with an open mouth causes the word "us" to sound like hissing. 

Misinformation: t t t. I'm thinking a lot these days about what aspects of religious practice cause the majority of Americans to miss the point. A big one is the anthropomorphizing of God, closely related to a phenomenon some sociologists call Disneyfication. Seeing human attributes in non-human things can both help and hinder how we see the world. This creative storytelling technique started out harmless enough but has turned into a huge barrier to understanding. It leads us to believe that everything sees the world through the lens of human consciousness. In church today the pastor mentioned the idea that God sent his only son to earth. To me this rings much more false than true. Stories can lead us down strange roads if they don't evolve with the mass of men.       

Presence of God: t t t. For whatever reason, it is easier for me to see truth in suffering than in happiness. As Emily Dickinson said, "I like a look of agony because I know it's true." Several of the congregants wept during the service today and it reminded me how much people need faith to carry them through the dark times. Without faith in something, I'm not sure what pushes people through suffering. I also thought about the idea of worship today in church. There is something that isn't healthy about how many of us worship Jesus. It has alway felt unnatural to me to hold something up as beyond us. This thinking separates us. When I got home I looked up the word worship and  discovered that worship has its root in old English and used to mean acknowledgment of worth. I think acknowledging the worth of Christ is healthy. Worshiping Jesus in the traditional sense of the word is dangerous. In doing so we forget his humanity.    

Overall Inspiration (total score): t t t. I walked into this church today with no knowledge of this congregation or what distinguished them from other Protestant churches (ironically they branched off in order to encourage unity in the Christian church). The sermon was nuanced and I liked it's message. God danced in the pastor's words, but this subtlety perhaps fell short of some of the congregants. The most inspiration I got was in a conversation with one of the leaders of the church after the service. He is the Executive Director of an organization called Associated Ministries. Their mission is to bring different faiths together with a unified vision of building stronger communities. I'm always inspired by things that try to unite us.