I'm Back--Sorta

I've been gone for thirteen days to Ireland. Great trip with Brendan Vacations. Bus trip with 48 others. I will keep this travelogue short. Some parishioner snarled, "Don't talk about your trips. Nobody cares--and you'll just bore them or make them envious." Another similar funny: Pulpit Search Committee said, "We want a Pastor whose wife does not play the piano...who has never studied Greek...and has not been to  the Holy Land."

But it was refreshing to get away from the Trump Mobile even though it still seeped into TV over there. People I met in Ireland shook their heads and wonder about our President.

Getting back it looked like the chaos just continues and piles up.

Funny thing about Ireland. The whole country is besotted in holy places, shrines and churches. And yet--so very few people go to church at all. I wonder often if those that continue to wed the political game with Jesus in our country are not paving the way for a church with empty pews and an even more muted voice in society. Will we have courage to stand with Immigrants, with Transgenders, with public schools, with the poor, speak about gun violence and those millions still without health care? Will we raise our voices when ethics are thrown out the window and lies pile up on top of lies.

As theory told me about that million in Ireland that died in the Potato famine from

     photo by Laura Rosep/ flickr

1845-1852. I couldn't help but think of all those lucky ones who braved more than we will ever know too cross the choppy waters in tiny boats to get to this country, Remember our story?  The Irish were despised when they arrived--many worried about them taking our jobs and were just frightened of these foreigners with strange accents.

Jesus is more than a catchy slogan and certainly more than a photo shoot.

                            I keep thinking about that old poem by T.S. Eliot:

                                 "Remember the faith that took men from home 

                                  At the call of a wandering preacher.

                                 Our age is an age of moderate virtue

                                 And of moderate vice

                                 When men will not lay down the Cross

                                 Because they will never assume it.

                                 Yet nothing is impossible, nothing,

                                 To men of faith and conviction.

                                 Let us therefore make perfect our will. 

                                 O God, help us."

                                    --T.S. Eliot, found in "Choruses from 'The Rock'" 

--Roger Lovette/ rogerlovette.blogspot.com