<html><body><div><div>I was writing this yesterday and went to an all day workshop today.</div><div><br></div><div>Here's the draft for tomorrow.</div><div><br></div><div>Happy weekend!</div><div><br></div><div>Bob<br></div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY, OREGON </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST<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;">LAMENTATIONS 1:1-6 PROPER 22 c<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;">2 TIMOTHY 1:1-14 2<sup>nd</sup> OCTOBER, 2016<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;">LUKE 17:5-10 PSALM 137<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;"> For some reason, I’ve had a feeling of walking in darkness this past week, so this has been flitting through my mind, especially while I’ve been working on this sermon.<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;"> Is there anything that wakes you up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat? What terrifies you most? What makes you cringe with embarrassment when you remember something you did, or said, or even thought?<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;"> No, it’s not necessary for you to blurt out a confession. Nor is it my intention to make you and me squirm any more that necessary. And, who knows, you and I may even find something in the midst of all of this to make us smile, to help us breathe deeper, to relax a little.<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;"> That’s what we hope happens in the middle of the night when we wake. After we think about what is uppermost in our minds, we hope to find some sort of resolution, even if it’s only postponing till morning thinking about what disturbed 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;"> Sooner or later, though, we have to react, and how we do this can make the situation better, or worse; something with which we can live, or else create something else with which we have to deal.<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 is it that wakes us, though? Night time, dream time, is that portion of our lives in which we back up all the files of our minds. Sleep time is when we create new or more elaborate memories and, somehow – I’m guessing here! – somehow, we leave file names, sub-headings, little clues to help us to retrieve these thoughts and memories, once we’ve cleaned our hard drives and need reminders.<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, are we wakened when some memory just won’t store? Or does the curator of our memories ever reject anything because it’s too hard, too bad to endure? At that point, do we feel nothing but the blackness that surrounds 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;"> We become aware, as we jolt awake, of some dark, troublesome thought, so we have a choice: deal with it; think about it; see what possible remedy or resolution we may find. Or else shelve it, shove it away from our consciousness as far and as fast as we can, and hope that it will never resurface again.<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;"> Of course, we know that that will never happen. Whether we become conscious of whatever is bothering us, we know that it will always be there, colouring our every thought, our every decision, our every relationship.<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 are we to do, then, when we face the inevitable disappointments, frustrations, anxieties and dangers?<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;"> The people of Judah thought they’d been doing fairly well, all things considered – at least those who didn’t really have many opportunities or much power to have much in the way of control. Those who <b><u>DID</u></b> have the power, though, that was a different story. Jeremiah spent practically all of his life warning those with any degree of power that the way they were living, the way that they were abusing others to the enrichment of their own lives; Jeremiah warned the people that society in Judah was being rotted from the inside out, and that soon there would be little left to make any course corrections if they didn’t look to justice issues, to equality issues, to quality of life issues.<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;"> God, said the prophet, longed for the time when the whole people would live in harmony and compassion, for the time when no one would be abused, when all would be respected. This simply made sense. Without compassion, without the love of God expressed for all, the fabric of society would be torn, perhaps irreparably.<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 so it was. The army of Babylon rolled over the other territories of the Middle East and carried the people to lands which seemed strange, and inhospitable, and frightening.<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;"> For the people of Judah, this was their worst nightmare. This was Egypt all over again. This was what wakened them in the middle of the darkness and made them sweat.<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;"> “How shall we sing the Lord’s song upon an alien soil?” They thought that there was nothing to relieve their misery and their fear. Too late, they realised that they’d been sold down the river, or across the desert, by their leaders. Too late – was it too late, they wondered? Had they missed their chance to find fulfillment, to explore what the prophet had said about God and God’s desires for them?<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;"> Think how miserable the people of Judah were, isolated from everything which was familiar, everything which gave them comfort, everything which filled them with hope. They felt so defeated they couldn’t even pick up their lyres and pluck the strings in a way that would remind them of home. It seemed that nothing could or would help them.<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;"> I can’t speak about you, but there have been a few times when I’ve been there, in one sort of a Babylon or another. When you or I wake up in the middle of the night, wondering what on earth we can do to try to set ourselves on an even keel, a path to some sort of hope; when we waken how are we to find help? How are we to find a guide to resort our thoughts? How are we to deal with the fears and uncertainties that come at us from every side?<o:p></o:p></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;"> Writing about last Thursday’s Feast Day – St. Michael and All Angels – Laurie Gudim said, “<span style="color: rgb(44, 48, 51);">It seems like everybody is afraid, these days. I know I am – afraid of the polarization in this country, of the escalating racism that is leading us to commit untold atrocities and of the ignorance worn like a badge of courage on the breasts of decent people.<o:p></o:p></span></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);"> “To reach for assistance with the roiling anxiety that freezes me and makes me want to bar my doors and windows, I’ve stepped up my prayer life. Both intercessory prayer and contemplative prayer help me sink into that place where God dwells and where we all belong together, no matter our differences. It helps me remember that, no matter what, we are linked through that ‘room’ in our souls where we are one with The Holy One.” <sup>1</sup><o:p></o:p></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);"> Think about that last comment – “no matter what, we are linked through that ‘room’ in our souls where we are one with The Holy One.” – this is great! This, that Laurie’s been there and survived, is so encouraging!<o:p></o:p></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);"> </span></p></div></div></body></html>