Author: Pat Liberty

Please welcome guest blogger The Rev. Dr. Ken Ferguson

Proverbs 4:7 “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get [a]  wisdom.
    Though it cost all you have, [ b ]  get understanding.” (NIV)
Where do you get your wisdom? I could be flippant and say…certainly not
from Fox News. Seriously, where do you get your wisdom?
Some might say…”Out of the mouths of babes” and truthfully, we probably
don’t listen to the youth and the young enough.
As a youth I had many sources for wisdom: parents, grandparents, a
friend’s father; I treasured them all. Recently, I was remembering how I
would drop by and visit the church office after school. My beloved aunt was
the church administrator but the three people I sought were Bob Wood, Joe
Plumber and Jack Waters. Bob was the church pastor and his friends Joe
and Jack were the staff clinicians in the church sponsored counseling
center. They were all trained through years of Clinical Pastoral Education.
Joe was a former Green Bay Packer and Jack was a war hero in WWII. I
didn’t know that then. As a teen, they were very different guys who told
great stories that had meaning. Now, over 50 years later, I know I was
sitting at the feet of greatness. They had such wisdom.
I don’t remember any quotes or didactic teaching. Joe with his huge belly
hanging between his legs and spitting tobacco juice into a cup. Jack was
the chaplain at the local State (mental?) Hospital, and Bob with his wide
grin, huge hands and bald head. All different, all unique and all caring and
welcoming to all. No precept. No “shoulds.” All example.
So it was more attitude and spirit that I recall and can see ways I have
unintentionally more than not, replicated that in my life and life’s work.
One of my greatest regrets is that I never mined the memories of the men
and women I knew in the 80’s in Maine who served the wealthy “summer
people” on Mount Desert Island as cooks, housekeepers, chauffeurs and
gardeners. I know from the stories I did hear that it could have been the
Maine version of The Help. How they survived the disrespect, the
marginalization and the insults. They were often treated as lesser than.
They had such wisdom.
The Church, all flavors, tribes and ideations has lost the tradition of
attending to the wisdom of the aged. I refer specifically but not exclusively
to the older clergy. Being ordained now almost 42 years, I have foundmany younger clergy dismissive of our experience. In some ways, they
take for granted how we helped the church become some of the good
things it is today. I voted to ordain the first open gay man to be ordained in
the United Church of Christ, Bill Johnson. We pioneered boundary training,
church growth efforts and racial justice ministries. We may not know a ton
about technology but we have such wisdom that is largely left untapped.
In your family, I implore you to get the stories from your family elders. I
have been asked by my grandson and his Mom to answer about 100
questions about my past, the past of our family and our history. Here are
some examples:
 Who did you vote for in the first election where you could vote?
 Has anyone in the family served in the military?
 Do you have any religious or spiritual beliefs?
 Do you belief in ghosts?
 Do you have any special family heirlooms?
 Who do you look most like in your family?
 Who did you look up to the most?
 Do we have any famous relatives?
 What are your pet peeves?
 Do you have any nicknames?  How did you get them?
I recently gifted my grandson a 50 year old cribbage board, made for me by
the husband of my mother’s cousin and story about how I learned to play
cribbage. I then taught my grandson to play as he is the same age as I
when I learned to play. He quickly beat me.
Wisdom is in legacy. There is a lot of current trends for “mindfulness” and
“living in the moment” but the power, affirmation and life that exists in the
wisdom of legacy stories will lift you up and give you strength and
resilience.
Sisters and brothers, get wisdom.

It is said that one is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. Not so. In the course of this seemingly never ending pandemic there are 850,000 tragedies. This is an unspeakable loss for tens of thousands of people who have said goodbye to their loved ones via iPad or phone call. Many have not been able to have a gathering to mark the passing of their loved ones. There are over 160,000 children who have lost a parent or primary care giver to this pandemic.

What this means is there is an epidemic of grief. It is invisible, just under the surface and largely silent. This grief is shaping a generation of people and bearing down on thousands of children. This creates an environment for complicated mourning (more about that next week).

And no one is talking about it.

Grief that is not tended inevitably shows up in increased health problems like hypertension, depression and anxiety, substance abuse, suicidal ideation and sleep disturbance. Over the long term these conditions can contribute to heart disease and impaired immune function. One cannot experience the death of a loved one, have that death remain invisible because of a pandemic, and go on living life normally. With 850,000 deaths and counting, almost everyone knows someone whose life is impacted by loss. And keep in mind that this number does not include the usual statistics of death from heart disease, cancer and other diseases that claim tens of thousands of lives each year. Many of these deaths have also not been honored because of the pandemic.   

The pandemic has robbed families of the usual rituals that people use to cope when a loved one has died. When someone dies people often come to the house and bring food. There is conversation about the one who has died. There is laughter and tears and lots of story-telling. It is a crucial part of the grieving process. Funerals, memorial services and other life cycle rituals are important. For people of faith the funeral or memorial is a vehicle for commending their loved one to the Holy. Such rituals make the death real in a visceral way, especially if the family was unable to be with their loved one at the time of death. If loved ones are denied the funeral or memorial, there is another layer of grief and trauma added. In the absence of life-cycle rituals shared by the community, there is an added layer of isolation–not being able to receive support and know others share their loss.  

The pandemic has isolated hundreds of thousands of people and left them to grieve alone. It is impossible to estimate the long term crisis this creates because we have never been in this place. What we do know, however, is that grief needs to be validated and shared.

Wouldn’t it be great if, when it is safe, communities organized outdoor candle lighting vigils in memory of those who died from Covid? It is a concrete expression of solidarity and care for those who have suffered terrible losses in solitude. Candles piercing the dark night that so many have faced alone is an expression of hope for better days. Better days come when grief is tended to and expressed.

What you can do is organize a community memorial for friends and neighbors who have lost loved ones to Covid. Be the prime mover in your community. Pick a date in the Spring and begin enlisting help. Discover what bereavement resources are available. Ask local funeral homes what resources they offer. Talk to community hospice programs about their grief resources. Find counsellors and therapists who might be willing to lead a group.  Have a resource table with flyers and brochures. Help diminish the stigma of seeking mental health help. Enlist volunteers to make flyers and help spread the word. Ask community clergy to participate. Include all clergy, not just Christian clergy. Make it clear it is an interfaith service and all are welcome.

I believe that such events are of crucial importance to those who have grieved in isolation and need their losses validated. Further, this presents an opportunity for communities to come together around a shared experience that is not partisan or divisive. It shows compassion and manifests our shared humanity.  

Shared humanness and compassion are two of the qualities that can change the world. Organize a vigil in your town and change your corner of the world.

Insurrection: “A violent uprising against an authority or government.” (online dictionary)

“The legal definition of insurrection falls under the same suite of federal laws as sedition, and the two can be difficult to distinguish.  …It means, essentially, to incite, assist in or engage in a full-on rebellion against the government, a step beyond just conspiring against it and requiring that significant violence be involved.” (the Marshall Project)

Words matter.

Tomorrow will be one year since the insurrection at the Capitol building. It was not a riot. It was not an uprising. It was not a disturbance. It was an insurrection. The goal was preventing the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another. The goal was overthrowing a legally elected leader. It is no coincidence there were Trump flags, stop the steal flags and a host of other misinformation touted on that day. It was incited and organized in many ways and on many levels. The legalities of it all will take years to determine.

It remains, however, that how we speak of it matters. Newscasters speak of tomorrow as the anniversary, as if it is something to be celebrated. Granted, we speak of the anniversary of other national tragedies in a similar way. To use the word “anniversary” with “riot” minimizes the enormity of what happened on January 6, 2021.

We do so at our own peril.

As a nation we have been here before:

• During the war of 1812, British forces briefly took control of Washington on August 24, 1814. They set fires throughout the Capitol, burned the White House and the headquarters of the War Department and the Treasury Department.
• There have been other incidences of violence at the Capitol, but most of them involved people with significant mental health issues, particular complaints about government policy or some aspect of how the government functioned.

What makes the January 6^th insurrection so different is the wide range of people who participated. In the crowd of insurrectionists were former and current military members, CEO’s who flew in their private jets, business owners, sitting members of Congress and many others who do not immediately come to mind as trying to overthrow the government.

Make no mistake; this event was representative of widespread domestic terrorism. It lives at many levels of society and encompasses most of American geography. Militia groups like the Proud Boys, the Neo-Confederate League of the South, Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters provided strategic and organizational structure for the insurrection. The vast majority of participants were NOT militia members and this is a troubling fact that warrants our close attention. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the January 6^th insurrection was the result of a year of careful planning, underground communication, and reaction to the Black Lives Matter protests that sprung up around the country after George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer. 

The boogaloo boys, whose mission is to incite civil war, took advantage of the protests to commit acts of violence against law enforcement. According to the SPLC, “a self-professed boogaloo boy and active duty Air Force Sergeant, Steven Carillo, allegedly committed a drive-by shooting against Federal Protective Services in California. One guard was killed and his partner was wounded. Eight days later, he ambushed law enforcement in Ben Lomond, killing Sergeant Damon Gutzwiller and injuring two other officers.” (Visit SPLC.org, and click on features and stories to learn more)

Much of the organizational activity of the last year was never reported. This in and of itself is disturbing. The media in general are misrepresenting the seriousness of the events of the last year and the implications for the future. The “liberal media” is too busy trying to be politically correct and the “conservative media” are fanning the flames to further the unrest.

Write letters to the editor and write to local and national news outlets. Make your voice heard. Unless we accurately describe what happened on January 6, 2021 we have no way of being adequately prepared for what comes next.

As I was out and about this week, I was dismayed (read pissed) by people who were not wearing masks and people who wore their masks on their chin or below their noses. Wear a damn mask and wear it properly (over your mouth AND nose). This is not rocket science.

I don’t care about your personal rights, political affiliation, national pride or how high you wave the flag off your house or the back of your pickup truck. Are you really so selfish, so clueless and so self-absorbed that you are willing to risk the life of others for your silly ridiculous posturing? The apparent answer is yes and it’s time to get over it.

Wearing a mask is not about politics, it’s about faith.

At the root of every major religion in the world is love for the other. In Christianity it is called agape. It means love for another, the love that desires the best for another. It means love that considers the needs of another and then acts on those needs.

Agape is the root of compassion; the unique capacity to put yourself in another’s shoes and shift your actions and feelings based on a new and deeper understanding of their situation. Imagine that you are a transplant patient or someone who is immune suppressed because of disease. People do not wear tattoos on their foreheads announcing their medical conditions, so there is no way of knowing if someone in proximity to you has special health needs. Compassion is the capacity to act in the best interest of others. Inconvenience, personal “freedom,” arrogance, carelessness, national identity and cluelessness are not theological issues; compassion is.

The loving and compassionate thing to do is wear a damn mask and wear it properly. It’s that simple. At some point individual freedom, political stance, arrogance and plain old stubbornness need to take a back seat to the love and compassion that our faith demands of us.

There is another faith component to wearing a mask; God does not save us from stupidity. There is the matter of cause and effect. If you jump off a bridge, gravity will prevail and you will go splat when you hit the water. This has nothing to do with God’s love. Be clear about this.  God’s love is unshakeable, unchangeable, immutable and never ending. This, however, has nothing to do with cause and effect.

Cause and effect are at issue with masks as well. God also does not save those harmed by the selfishness of others. If you do not wear a mask, the effect may well be that a person around you becomes very ill and possibly dies. The Omicron variant is highly transmissible regardless of vaccination status. If you are an asymptomatic carrier you are the direct cause of that person’s death. Yes, their illness and death is on you. As surely as if you took out an assault weapon and mowed them down, their death is on you. The cause (you not wearing a mask and being a carrier) and the effect (another person becoming ill and possibly dying) rest with you.

You may blah, blah, blah on about how it is the other person’s responsibility to wear a mask and stay out of dangerous places. You may BS about any number of ways that someone’s illness and possible death are not your fault. Remember, it’s about love and compassion, not excuses.

I am tired of people ranting about their rights and their individual “freedom.” This is about basic love and compassion. This is what should be guiding our behavior if we claim to be people of faith. Commitment to God and the precepts of faith come first. National identity, political party and individual “freedom” are idols we worship at our own peril and that of our sisters and brothers.

The common good is a theological issue not a political one. It is high time our faith commitments eclipse our inconvenience, personal “freedom,” arrogance, carelessness, political stance and foolhardy pride. If we fail at basic human love and compassion we are bowing at the wrong altars. If we fail at basic human love and compassion we are guilty of the worst kind of idolatry.

Wear a damn mask and wear it properly. Amen.

Give thanks for the abundance in your life while being mindful of those who have nothing. Count the money as a family and decide which charity will receive it.

Give $1.00 for every telephone in your home.

Give $1.00 for every computer/tablet you own.

Give $.100 for every television you own.