<html><body><div><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(44, 48, 51);">Part 2</span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(44, 48, 51);"><br></span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(44, 48, 51);"> But let’s be honest. There <b><u>ARE</u></b> times when we feel that, somehow, even The Holy One has left us. And who could blame God? All those warnings, all those promptings to care for others as well as ourselves, to see ourselves as part of ever-increasing circles of community; there are times when we let these prompts slip by and we forget all the connections we have. The pain gets to us. Or is it self-pity?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Babylon, then as now, was a city set with glorious potential. It could sustain millions. It could offer water, food, entertainment – just about whatever one might wish. Yet the prisoners and refugees couldn’t stop thinking about the past. And, as they dwelt on that in the worst possible sense, they reached one of the most horrible scenarios of the history of God’s people. They allowed themselves to think of no one but themselves – not even of God … <b><u>THAT</u></b> line was just an excuse; they thought only of what they believed they deserved and they turned every last ounce of poisonous venom they could muster on others, especially those whom they thought were the cause of everything evil and disruptive. They covered over their own waywardness, and they lashed out. They wanted every last person whom they thought had crossed them to be exterminated. They even addressed the God whom they chose to ignore, and invoked God to smash the heads of every baby every rock, or stone, or wall that could be found.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Can you imagine the depths of the hate of these people? They couldn’t, they wouldn’t, see a scintilla of worth in anyone who didn’t kowtow to them. They were totally blind to their own responsibilities.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Now <b><u>THAT</u></b> would keep me awake at night, would make me sweat buckets, if only I saw how much I’d fallen away from God, and blamed everyone else.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> What disturbing about the terrible outburst of the people of Judah twenty-five hundred years ago is that it’s never stopped.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Today, this very day, children are not only being talked in exactly the same way, they’re being smashed, along with their mothers and fathers – in Syria, in Sudan and South Sudan, in countries across Central Africa, in South and Central America, and throughout the countries of Israel and Palestine from which those original captives had been taken to Babylon.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> And the rhetoric in this country, the threats of bodily harm, the seemingly endless polarisation, the killing of children here: when will it sop?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> If it <b><u>IS</u></b> to stop, it <b><u>HAS</u></b> to stop right here, with me, with you, with those around us, those to whom we talk and with whom we interact.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Time and again, Jesus talked of His Peace being with us. We repeat this in liturgy after liturgy. We HAVE to show that we have the faith to say, “No! I won’t succumb to the nightmares. Somehow, I’ll go to that place, the place Laurie Gudim called “that place where God dwells and all we belong together.’ And, starting there, I’ll work to end the nightmares, the awake-jolting cold sweats.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> This afternoon, we take time and energy to acknowledge God’s sovereignty over all of and all in creation when we remember the words attributed to St. Francis: “Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” <sup>2</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Then, this evening, at sundown, we remember, with our Jewish sisters and brothers, the fresh start of Rosh Hashanah, the new year.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Jesus urges us to keep hold of what may seem like the smallest art of faith so that terror, abuse, warfare, everything demeaning, <b><u>WILL</u></b> be overcome. At the same time, Jesus reminds us that there is no place on earth where the Love of God cannot reach us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> All it may take is a bit of time before we see, and hear, and comprehend this.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> So don’t ever give up. Jesus is depending on us! No more nightmares! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">NOTES:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><h2 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333px;">[1]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"> “</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(71, 71, 71); font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.episcopalcafe.com/speaking-to-the-soul-michaelmas/" title="Speaking to the Soul: Michaelmas">Speaking to the Soul: Michaelmas</a>” </span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">September 29, 2016</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span><em><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(44, 48, 51); font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;">by Laurie Gudim: Episcopal Café </span></em><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(44, 48, 51); font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.episcopalcafe.com/speaking-to-the-soul-michaelmas/">http://www.episcopalcafe.com/speaking-to-the-soul-michaelmas/</a><o:p></o:p></span></h2><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “<i>Prayer attributed to St. Francis”, “Book of Common Prayer”</i>, Church Publishing Inc., New York, © 1979 page 833.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p><br></o:p></span></div></body></html>