Spiritually Speaking by Rev. JF Hudson
May (noun) 1.The fifth month of the year 2.The springtime of life; youth (from Maia, an Italic goddess known for her fertility)
This is what nature tells us. Everything lives and blooms again if only we are patient enough to allow the seasons to unfold at their own pace. Buds return to bare trees. Bulbs long dormant push up through muddy soil. Once brown and withered grass springs forth green. Birds long silent now sing out their love songs like amorous lovers. The peepers return with their nocturnal lullabies. The earth shifts on its axis and days grow long and warm. If April is the prelude to spring and about poignant longing, then May is the fullness of this symphony of life and all about us new hope is now beginning to be realized.
So here’s to May. It is spring! Let’s look for the signs of life. Let’s celebrate the fact that the Red Sox are in first place and actually beat the Yankees five out of six games in the past two weekends. Let’s open ourselves up anew to love and the possibility of having our hearts soar and swoon once again. It is spring! Open the windows! Let in the fresh air. Is there someone in your life you are angry at, who’s hurt you, who you’ve hurt? Forgive them. Forgive yourself. Let the hardness of your winter heart melt away under the warming rays of God’s gentle love and let go of all that old junk you still carry around. It is spring.
It is spring! Pack away all those bulky sweaters and cover ups. Put them up in the attic and take down your favorite summer t-shirts. Let your body out of its winter prison. Let the heat of high noon sizzle on your skin, wake up all of your senses and make your blood run warm with the energy of movement. Get on the bike. Get out and walk. Lace up your sneakers and go for a run, feel your lungs working hard and your thigh muscles burning with activity. It is spring.
It is spring! Work to make the world a better place. Drive less and walk more. Give a ten dollar bill to that homeless man you walk by everyday. Look him in the eyes and see that he is a human being too. Pray for peace. Better yet work for peace. Live in peace in your family and your workplace and your nation. Get involved. Get out of that house and out into your neighborhood. Leave work early. Play hooky. Drop the Blackberry into the bottom of your briefcase and don’t turn it on for a day, or a weekend. I dare you! Put a dust cover over the TV that lulled you into hibernation all winter and don’t turn it on again until September. It is spring.
It is spring! Open your eyes! Daffodils, pansies, tulips, hostas everywhere call out to be noticed, to be considered. Pay attention. Find a beach somewhere then kick off your shoes and roll up your pant legs and let the sand squish between your toes, and the cold water wash over the tops of your feet. Go to a little league baseball game and listen to the chatter of the kids playing a game just for fun. The crack of the bat. The snap of a flag in a brisk spring breeze. It is spring.
It is spring! Examine your life and look within. Identify old attitudes, old stereotypes, old and creaky opinions and ideas it time to just let go of, to discard and throw out in a spiritual spring cleaning. Resentful about someone or something? Give it to God to redeem and transform. It isn’t serving you anymore. Sad about an opportunity missed, a dream deferred? Try again. Then try again and then try again. Anything is possible in May. It is spring.
It is spring! Try going a whole day without complaining. You can do it! Look for the good and overlook the petty details which can so easily cause you to stumble and play victim. Love someone who needs to know another human being cares. Send an anonymous card to a neighbor in need of a pick me up. Better yet, sign it! Come home from work with flowers for your spouse. It will surprise the heck out of them! Go to church, return to synagogue, get down on your knees and thank your Creator for the simple gift of waking up this morning and taking in that first breath. It is spring.
It is spring! Have you noticed yet?
The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the West Concord Union Church (westconcordunionchurch.org). If you have a word you’d like defined in a future column or have comments, please send them to revjfhudson@aol.com or in care of The Concord Journal. For more “Spiritually Speaking” visit http://revjfhudson.blogspot.com.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
What about the gun?
4/26/07
“Jesus wept.” --John 11:35
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
(Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States)
Number of firearms related deaths in the United States: 29,569 in 2004
(US Centers for Disease Control)
Number of firearms possessed by civilians in the United States: 259 million--92 million handguns, 92 million rifles and 75 million shotguns
(US Department of Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, 2002)
Percentage of American households that own at least one firearm: 35 percent
(National Institute of Justice, 1994)
Comparison of U.S. handgun homicides to other industrialized countries: 1998
373 people in Germany
151 people in Canada
57 people in Australia
19 people in Japan
54 people in England and Wales, and
11,789 people in the United States
(Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence)
Ten: Numbers of years assault weapons were banned for sale in the United States (this federal law lapsed in 2004 and has not been renewed)
Zero (number of federal laws that regulate the sale and transfer of guns at gun shows)
8: number of children and teens killed each day by gun violence in the United States (Children's Defense Fund, 2007)
101, 413: number of children and teens killed by gun violence in the United States since 1979(Children’s Defense Fund, 2007)
50th: rank of Massachusetts among all US states in gun deaths per 100,000 population (Centers for Disease Control, 1999)
1st: rank of Nevada
Zero: number of major bills signed into federal law since 1994 limiting access to guns (Boston Globe, April 22, 2007)
Driver’s License, Green Card, Personal check, $571: items needed under Virginia gun laws for Seung-Hui Cho to purchase a 9mm Glock pistol at a Roanoke gun shop (New York Times, April 21, 2007)
Zero: Number of new federal gun law bills introduced in the wake of the worst mass civilian shooting in the history of the United States (Boston Globe, 4/22/07)
Federal Law S.397: The "Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act" was signed into law in October of 2005, and prohibits victims of the gun industry's negligent practices from filing lawsuits in America's courts. No other industry in the country benefits from such special legal protection. (Coalition to Stop Gun Violence)
33
The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the West Concord Union Church (westconcordunionchurch.org). If you have a word you’d like defined in a future column or have comments, please send them to revjfhudson@aol.com or in care of The Concord Journal. For more “Spiritually Speaking” visit http://revjfhudson.blogspot.com.
“Jesus wept.” --John 11:35
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
(Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States)
Number of firearms related deaths in the United States: 29,569 in 2004
(US Centers for Disease Control)
Number of firearms possessed by civilians in the United States: 259 million--92 million handguns, 92 million rifles and 75 million shotguns
(US Department of Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, 2002)
Percentage of American households that own at least one firearm: 35 percent
(National Institute of Justice, 1994)
Comparison of U.S. handgun homicides to other industrialized countries: 1998
373 people in Germany
151 people in Canada
57 people in Australia
19 people in Japan
54 people in England and Wales, and
11,789 people in the United States
(Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence)
Ten: Numbers of years assault weapons were banned for sale in the United States (this federal law lapsed in 2004 and has not been renewed)
Zero (number of federal laws that regulate the sale and transfer of guns at gun shows)
8: number of children and teens killed each day by gun violence in the United States (Children's Defense Fund, 2007)
101, 413: number of children and teens killed by gun violence in the United States since 1979(Children’s Defense Fund, 2007)
50th: rank of Massachusetts among all US states in gun deaths per 100,000 population (Centers for Disease Control, 1999)
1st: rank of Nevada
Zero: number of major bills signed into federal law since 1994 limiting access to guns (Boston Globe, April 22, 2007)
Driver’s License, Green Card, Personal check, $571: items needed under Virginia gun laws for Seung-Hui Cho to purchase a 9mm Glock pistol at a Roanoke gun shop (New York Times, April 21, 2007)
Zero: Number of new federal gun law bills introduced in the wake of the worst mass civilian shooting in the history of the United States (Boston Globe, 4/22/07)
Federal Law S.397: The "Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act" was signed into law in October of 2005, and prohibits victims of the gun industry's negligent practices from filing lawsuits in America's courts. No other industry in the country benefits from such special legal protection. (Coalition to Stop Gun Violence)
33
The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the West Concord Union Church (westconcordunionchurch.org). If you have a word you’d like defined in a future column or have comments, please send them to revjfhudson@aol.com or in care of The Concord Journal. For more “Spiritually Speaking” visit http://revjfhudson.blogspot.com.
Monday, January 15, 2007
This Week's Column
Spiritually Speaking by Rev. JF Hudson
Fan (noun) 1. An ardent devotee; an enthusiast. [Short for fanatic.] --The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
“Being a sports fan is a complex matter, in part irrational, but not unworthy: a relief from the seriousness of the real world, with its unending pressures and often grave obligations.” --Richard Gilman
I am a fan. Have been since I was a little boy, riding my bike to the local CITGO gas station to use my hard earned allowance to purchase an official “Fenway Park” glass mug, a mug I held on to for the next twenty years as if it were some sacred icon. I am a fan. Wars rage, governments teeter, scandals break but almost always during the season, the first page in the newspaper I always turn to is sports. Who won? Who lost? Who’s in first place? I am a fan. Put me in a group of total strangers in line at the airport or waiting for a work meeting to begin and I know that often the best way to break that social ice is to talk sports, dish about what teams we hate to love, the ones who break our hearts (think Red Sox) and what teams we love to hate, the ones who’d wear black hats if games were set in the Old West (think the Yankees). I am a fan and so in the days ahead, like so many other New Englanders, come Sunday afternoon or evening, I’ll gather around a TV set with my family and friends and cheer until I’m hoarse, talk possibilities with fellow fans before the game, talk of joy or heartbreak after the last play has been run. I am a fan.
Sports are an odd cultural phenomenon and have always spawned the fan, short for fanatic, “a person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm.” It would be easy to dismiss sports as somehow not real, not related to the lives most of us live day to day, with work and family and struggle. The athletes and teams we often lionize all too often have great feet of clay, get paid way too much, often charge way too much money for the privilege of watching. Modern professional sports are after all big business, profits often trumping wins and losses. It is tempting to imagine what the world would be like if fans like me poured as much passion and devotion into improving the world as cheering on the home team.
But still I am a fan like millions of others. For deep below the surface impressions of sports is the human truth that all of us need to retreat from life every once in awhile and pour our hearts into events that entertain and thrill us, and regardless of the outcome, not send the world spinning off of its axis because of a final score. Sports at their best take us away for a bit, away from all the challenges of modern life. Fans love sports because these games allow us to enter into a drama with little or no personal cost. And in a time when the news is often filled to overflowing with all kinds of bad tidings that do rock our world, that do feature unfair outcomes, sports give us the gift of imagining a life where every one does play by the rules. Where people give their best and play as a team. Where everything that happens in between the lines is self-contained, so at the end of the struggle players can cross the field and honorably shake hands with their opponents. Sports embody the hope that even when we lose there is always another game to be played, another try to be taken, another possibility for victory. I am a fan.
God knows our world needs that kind of joyful diversion sometimes, something to bind many of us together, that goes beyond religion or class or station in life. I know: it is only a game after all. A game—but that’s what makes it so fun. That’s what makes me a fan.
The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the West Concord Union Church (westconcordunionchurch.org). If you have a word you’d like defined in a future column or have comments, please send them to revjfhudson@aol.com or in care of The Concord Journal. For more “Spiritually Speaking” visit http://revjfhudson.blogspot.com.
Fan (noun) 1. An ardent devotee; an enthusiast. [Short for fanatic.] --The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
“Being a sports fan is a complex matter, in part irrational, but not unworthy: a relief from the seriousness of the real world, with its unending pressures and often grave obligations.” --Richard Gilman
I am a fan. Have been since I was a little boy, riding my bike to the local CITGO gas station to use my hard earned allowance to purchase an official “Fenway Park” glass mug, a mug I held on to for the next twenty years as if it were some sacred icon. I am a fan. Wars rage, governments teeter, scandals break but almost always during the season, the first page in the newspaper I always turn to is sports. Who won? Who lost? Who’s in first place? I am a fan. Put me in a group of total strangers in line at the airport or waiting for a work meeting to begin and I know that often the best way to break that social ice is to talk sports, dish about what teams we hate to love, the ones who break our hearts (think Red Sox) and what teams we love to hate, the ones who’d wear black hats if games were set in the Old West (think the Yankees). I am a fan and so in the days ahead, like so many other New Englanders, come Sunday afternoon or evening, I’ll gather around a TV set with my family and friends and cheer until I’m hoarse, talk possibilities with fellow fans before the game, talk of joy or heartbreak after the last play has been run. I am a fan.
Sports are an odd cultural phenomenon and have always spawned the fan, short for fanatic, “a person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm.” It would be easy to dismiss sports as somehow not real, not related to the lives most of us live day to day, with work and family and struggle. The athletes and teams we often lionize all too often have great feet of clay, get paid way too much, often charge way too much money for the privilege of watching. Modern professional sports are after all big business, profits often trumping wins and losses. It is tempting to imagine what the world would be like if fans like me poured as much passion and devotion into improving the world as cheering on the home team.
But still I am a fan like millions of others. For deep below the surface impressions of sports is the human truth that all of us need to retreat from life every once in awhile and pour our hearts into events that entertain and thrill us, and regardless of the outcome, not send the world spinning off of its axis because of a final score. Sports at their best take us away for a bit, away from all the challenges of modern life. Fans love sports because these games allow us to enter into a drama with little or no personal cost. And in a time when the news is often filled to overflowing with all kinds of bad tidings that do rock our world, that do feature unfair outcomes, sports give us the gift of imagining a life where every one does play by the rules. Where people give their best and play as a team. Where everything that happens in between the lines is self-contained, so at the end of the struggle players can cross the field and honorably shake hands with their opponents. Sports embody the hope that even when we lose there is always another game to be played, another try to be taken, another possibility for victory. I am a fan.
God knows our world needs that kind of joyful diversion sometimes, something to bind many of us together, that goes beyond religion or class or station in life. I know: it is only a game after all. A game—but that’s what makes it so fun. That’s what makes me a fan.
The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the West Concord Union Church (westconcordunionchurch.org). If you have a word you’d like defined in a future column or have comments, please send them to revjfhudson@aol.com or in care of The Concord Journal. For more “Spiritually Speaking” visit http://revjfhudson.blogspot.com.
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