Sermons by Cardinals and Dogwood Trees

Many years ago, (sounds like the beginning of a fairytale doesn't it?) Many years ago I sat in a small white frame country church during a spring revival and I listened, using only one ear as the preacher gave us hell fire and brimstone and tried to put the fear of God in us by trying to tell us that the commies were coming and our lives would be worth nothing unless we, “gave our hearts to Jesus.” We sang a few rounds of Just As I Am and we went to the basement for cookies. I was nearly twelve or maybe just over that mark.

The next night I went back, we sang some rousing gospel songs, prayed between them, scared up a few more bucks for the evangelist to take back to his Indian Reservation Mission in some part of the Oklahoma Territory and then we prayed some more and then he preached. This time I turned him and his anti communism laced sermon off, the cold war had been over for a few years, (I'd never been through a duck and cover drill,) I really wasn't concerned that the CCCP was most likely the Antichrist. Instead I sat in the blond oak pew and looked out the window as, “heaven and nature sang.” The view was serene, a beautiful red cardinal sat on a branch in a dogwood tree with pristine white blossoms, each shaped like a cross. Even then at such a young age, just starting in the church, I knew that the real sermon was being preached outside that window.

Outside the window I could see creation at its perfection, a gnarled tree covered in white crosses, a blood red cardinal seemingly enthroned in the tree, his song more beautiful than any hymn I had ever heard. I wanted to nudge someone and point it out, two things kept me from it, I knew better than to nudge in church and secondly, I was sure that they wouldn't see what I was seeing. I knew even then, not everyone sees or hears things like I do, they see and hear things like they do.

Instead of there being cookies and a meet and greet with the evangelist that night, we lined up at the door to shake his hand and hear an invitation to, “come back t'mar.” He stood at the door in a western cut suit in a shade of green usually reserved for shady used car salesmen, a bolo tie and rattlesnake boots. I stood behind my aunt who had taken me to church with her, the evangelist invited her back as he pumped her arm like she was a pitcher pump, she went out the door into the warm spring evening. The man in his cowboy clothes shook my hand and said, “you should pay attention to me instead of lookin' outta that winder.” I said nothing, I didn't go back either.

I can see that tree, amass of white blossoms and that bird in contrast perched on the branch as vividly today as I could on that warm spring evening.

A year or so later I was a baptized member of that small country church. I never told anyone what the wannabe cowboy preacher said to me and I never told anyone about what I saw outside of that window, until now.

While in junior-high school, no such thing as middle schools then, I made friends with a boy my age named Dan, we weren't exactly close at that time, I couldn't even say now how we even met, but I liked him, it was that simple. As we progressed through high school together our friendship grew. We don't hear from one another much any more, but I still think of him as my brother. His parents called me son #4. His father was a preacher in a Baptist church across the county and I transferred my membership from the little country white frame church to the little bigger ochre brick country church on the other side of the county.

Driving cross town on the way to church, midweek prayer meeting and then choir practice I had time to think. I thought often about the sermon outside of the window and how beautiful it was. I would sing to myself, “...he speaks and the sound of his voice, is so sweet the birds hush their singing...” If the clamoring cowboy had quit talking would he have heard the preaching of the cardinal? If he had hushed his, “singing” he could have heard the sermon that the bird was giving.

Dan and I grew up together in many ways, a lot of folks called me Dan by mistake, I never cared, after all we were/are brothers. Dan and I sat with our peers while his father preached gentle and loving messages about God's mercy and grace. Through his sermons I came to know that God loved me, no matter what and our relationship would never be different, God loved me, case closed. I'll never forget Rabbi, as I called Dan's father, preaching a sermon called, “Who Does God Love?” He started out with prisoners, the drunken, (remember we were Baptists,) thieves, murderers and Don and Thelma and Martha and Robert and Jerry and Hester and the list went on, he named every person in that sanctuary, not in the order they were seated, but randomly and he included the choir seated behind him and he ended by saying, “and God loves me, and I don't know why because I'm a sinner. Please remember, I don't stand before you as your judge, but next to you as the accused. Yet, God loves me just as I am.”

I know there were those who looked out the windows at the growing corn after their name had been called, maybe they were seeing a sermon unfold outside the window, others were keeping score trying to catch him, surely Rev. Stan would miss one and they could be mad at him for doing so. There were those who were simply not listening.

One evening that autumn I sat in the living room with Rabbi and Mom II, the fireplace was going, Rabbi reading the paper, Mom II knitting and I sat on the floor next to Mom II's chair. She was still teaching 3^rd grade and probably was in her 24^th year at the local township grade school. Dan was a freshman in college. I looked across the bookshelf, these books, next to Mom II's chair were her books. The Shepherd of the Hills, a few children's books, some helps for Sunday School teachers and two other books, the titles of which I've never forgotten, one titled, The Geranium on the Windowsill Died and You Kept on Talking, the other, You Think Just Because You're Big You're Right.

I asked Mom II about them, she told me that both books written by the same man, an elementary school teacher, learned these lessons from children in his classroom over the years. He wrote them so that other teachers wouldn't make the same mistakes that he did. She told me that I could read them. I declined, I knew what they said just by the titles.

“The geranium died,” this title reminded me of the Cowboy Evangelist, he talked right through the sermon outside the window, “and he just kept on talking.” Rabbi looked up from his news paper and said, “The other will mean more to you later.” Once again, this man who knew who God loved, knew that the other title would mean much more when I became a man.

It does mean much more, it reminds me of the Cowboy Preacher who tried to tell me in his own way that, “just because he was big he as right.” and that I should listen to him. I see now that each of us as we walk through our daily lives have moments, hours, days, weeks and or months when we think that we are big and we are right. I do, I won't lie about it. I miss the dead geranium on the windowsill too and what's more, I forget at times where I stand, judge or accused.

I'm grateful for a God of grace who doesn't forget where my place is. He's big and he's right and he never ignores the dead geranium or the preaching cardinal, after all, “His grace is sufficient for all.”

My Urbi et Orbi with apologies to the Holy See, My, "To the City and to the World"

Yesterday as I worshiped at All Saints it came time to turn in the order of service for The Offertory and The Great Thanksgiving. Anyone who knows me well knows that my hearing isn't what it should be, or even what I would like for it to be and hearing aids are not the answer to my problem., so it was good for me that the words to the Choral Anthem for the Offertory was printed in the order of service. I do hope that Healey Willan will understand that I was moved by the words of the anthem and I wish to share them with you.

“Lo, in the time appointed the Lord will come; the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands: for the Lord God shall come into his everlasting kingdom: and upon the throne of David shall he reign forever. Alleluia.”

This year especially, these words speak to me in a very special way. They remind me that the Lord will come at an appointed time, (a time that we are not privy to,) it speaks of the jubilation that will come with his arrival, nature will sing out in joy, the trees will clap their hands and the mountains will break out in song! How I look forward to that day. I look forward to the day that there shall be peace on earth and that the King, the Lord, will sit on the Throne of David and we shall behold him.

Throughout this year I have not felt like I have been on the spiritual path that I need to be.. Lent didn't feel like Lent, Easter didn't feel like Easter. There were reasons, not something that I feel like I can share here. Then Advent came and it didn't feel like Advent, and then my time in the wilderness took me deeper into the woods. I'm reminded that the best way to get out of the woods is to keep on walking. You can only walk half way into the woods. Now, it's Christmas Eve, and it doesn't feel like it, my church home doesn't feel like home any more, my apartment can be uncomfortable at times and yet it is where I can afford to live and I'm grateful that I have it, God continues to meet my physical needs. My family doesn't feel like family sometimes, at times they seem like familiar strangers, and now that I have turned 47 and have never been involved in a loving relationship I feel even more uncomfortable in the wilderness, older and I'm afraid, a little colder, wanting to be loved by one who will allow me to love him.

I look at the Gospel stories that tell in very rich ways the tale of the coming of the Christ child. The burden on his parents to go where they didn't want to go. I see that they were in an uncomfortable home and that both Mary and Joseph were surely still wondering exactly what was going on with all of this baby not conceived of man thing. There had to be question in their mind, though they were willing to be used by God, surely their spiritual path didn't feel like they thought it should either. Looking closely, I see that their Christmas didn't feel like Christmas either, their Easter didn't feel like Easter either. They were difficult times. With God's help they saw the jubilation that the world was experiencing in the good news of the arrival of, “God With Us.” but I know that there was emotional struggle too when such a young man, their son, was hung to die on a cross erected by the government. The fear of our lord in the garden, “let this cup pass from me,” would that not be the prayer of each of us? Only would it not be made in such a way that it would be made while wailing, screaming and begging?” The Gospel story of Christ's life from beginning to end is a story that I hold close in my heart and ponder, just as Mary held the gifts from the Magi and pondered them in her heart, all of them gifts that explained in symbols the life that her son was to have. Gold, material for a crown, a declaration of his kingdom and the other gifts materials sometimes used in preparing a body for burial. All of them rare, all of them special, all of them foreshadowing the life of the Christ, “child.”

I believe the good news and it is my desire to follow the examples that Christ showed as he matured, I want it to be said of me, “Don lived the Gospel.” I want it said of me because I want to make every effort to live the gospel, I never want anyone to say of me, “He lived, as if the Gospel were true.” I know that it is, and I know that if we do not proclaim the joy of the Lord's coming, if we do not announce the truths of the gospels, it will be left up to the trees and the mountains, and frankly, I don't want them singing alone.

And so, this is what I want for Christmas, to continue to walk through the wilderness until I am walking out of the wilderness, I want to emulate Christ by his examples, I want to live the Gospel, because it is true.

I Don't Believe in Gawd

There is one thing that I want to approach here that will cause many people to cringe when I mention it. I don't care if you call me Scrooge on this, but maybe, just maybe if you look around, you will see what I mean, we need to talk about Christmas decorating.

When I was a child, living in the country near Bargersville, Indiana, it was somewhat custom, though not always observed, that we go for a drive and see the lights that people had put on their trees and houses. Granted, this was during the 1960s and though that was in the last century it really isn't all that far in the past. On these drives it was nice to sit in the back seat of the car and drink in the simple beauty of these decorations. A homeowner that turned these lights on before the first of December was considered somewhat arrogant. After all, Christmas was a long way off. Christmas trees were not erected in homes the day after Thanksgiving or even before because they were real trees, something that wasn't found in my family's home until 1966.

Decorating was simple, our first Christmas tree was trimmed with new lights, the big ones, of course, and the rest were ornaments that my mother made. There was one ornament that I wish was still around. It was created with a few simple ingredients that would be considered the epitome of, “white trash”, design now. The base was a Banquet chicken pot pie pan, trimmed in red ric rac and inside was a picture cut from a previous year's Christmas card. There were probably several of these on the tree, but the one that I remember most had a picture of the Blessed Virgin and the newborn Jesus glued in the bottom of it. (My Grandma Bryant used to say, “poor people have poor ways,” the difference here is that we weren't poor, we were rich in ways other than money.)

To me the sign of a well decorated house was if you had the plastic candelabras in the window, the beige ones that held Christmas tree lights, this of course would mean the big lights that now sit in the Smithsonian because they are either not eco-friendly or for some other such reason. The homes that had these in their windows were real winners if the candles were the colors of real flame, i.e., orange. If you had blue ones or green ones you didn't meet the Don Bryant style standards, even in 1966. Let's face it flame may be blue now and again, but it's rarely green.

As time went by so did the level at which people began to decorate outdoors. I remember seeing in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine, at a fairly young age, the patterns needed to cut reindeer out of plywood, they stood alone, pretty cool stuff really for its time. It wasn't long before those began to show up in our area. The plastic nativity scene was coming into its own and I remember seeing them in the Montgomery Ward Catalog and the Wish Book. (If you don't know what a Wish Book is, Google it, I'm sure Wikipedia can help you there because your education is seriously wanting.) Once in a while a farmer with nothing to do after the crops were in would produce a Santa Claus cut from plywood and painted, often times these looked as though they were taken from children's coloring books, fence posts held them into place and there might be a spotlight rigged up to shine on it.

These weren't enough! “And there were with the Blessed Family a multitude of the heavenly choir and red plastic candles that read Noel down the side of them.” Then as time passed there were wire reindeer in white, covered with white wires and white lights and then there was more and more and more and more. And then, just when I thought that it couldn't get any worse I happened upon two places where I learned that I couldn't be any more wrong.

At the corner of 16^th Street and New Jersey in central city Indianapolis there is a house where every post, sawed off tree and albeit some rather ingenious uses of PVC pipe, have been covered with shiny mylar garland, meant to put on circa 1980 Christmas trees, but lo, this is not enough, each of these items are covered with lights, thousands of them, tiny little colorful lights that make the corner a nightmare for the Air Force and the Indianapolis International Airport. (The neighbors who, “who had lived in darkness have now seen a great light. Like it or not.) Traffic slows to a crawl here as if the plastic, well hidden, infant Jesus might turn and smile on the driver of each passing car. I have to confess that this is so hideous and so disgusting to me that I will go blocks out of my way to miss it. (Just for the record, this is on my usual path home.) Each year more items are added to their disarray, I mean display, probably purchased at 70% off after Christmas.

As much as that bothers me there is one that bothers me as much or maybe even more. Between Franklin and Whiteland, Indiana there is a home in a quiet subdivision that decorates their home in cahoots with a local radio station. The lawn is littered with light covered trees, shrubs, cut out stacked gift boxes, bells, lights across the roof of the house and even around the doors and windows, and yes, you guessed it, every light is synchronized to the holiday tunes that are being played on the radio. Ask me not how it is done, for I DON'T CARE!

To quote Ellen Degeneres, “my point, and I do have one,” is this: There are many who think that I would just as soon steal the Who Pudding and the last can of Who Hash as to endure these things before Christmas. They are right. Seems that I want to join the many who worship God, I don't want to be a part of those who worship Gawd.