The Rev. Ronald E. Halvorsen
July 2, 2006
Psalm 116, Philippians 4:4-9
''INDEPENDENCE DAY MUSINGS''

A few years ago, I officiated at a memorial service at the United Nations Chapel in New York City for a woman I came to know as a chaplain at New York Hospital/Cornell Medical Center. Her name was Bernadette Liddell and what was so memorable about this service is that I read from a set of journals she kept, which she called the ''Gospel According to Bernadette.'' The journals contained a wide variety of writings, which spoke to her and defined her life. These readings helped us to tell stories about Bernadette and celebrate her life and her essence. Shortly thereafter, I began my own journal, which thankfully I have not called the ''Gospel According to Ron!'' It contains mainly writing of other people, which have touched and informed my life’s journey. My premise this morning is that the building of such a journal is a sacred activity. God, I believe, speaks to us in varied ways and if we are receptive and diligent, profound insights can be gained and they can be valuable tools in building our character.

Today is our second service of the summer season, which should be a time for relaxation, rejuvenation, and spiritual growth. It is a time of less formality and greater playfulness…a time, I believe, for musings, what I am calling today, ''Independence Day Musings.'' Thus, I have decided to share some of the writings from my journal, with the hope that it gives a peek at part of my sacred journey; and more importantly, encourages you to record the writing and events that shape and inform your life. I will try to find the balance between serendipity and organization…hopefully revealing synchronicity, a term Carl Jung defined as sacred coincidences. I have arranged my musings by subject.

My first musing is about sermon writing and being a pastor. My mother, who is my spiritual mentor, says that a ''sermon should have a good beginning and a good ending, and they should be as close together as possible.'' I am claiming this quote as my ''good beginning.'' Frederick Bueckner suggests that one should ''preach as if you wish to be understood by an unusually-bright ten-year-old,'' recognizing that ministry is a ''risky, yet holy, trade.'' One should start a sermon like Robert Frost started poems, ''with a lump in the throat.'' Karl Barth gives all preachers hope when he said, ''as a minister, there is always the chance that something better than what you are can happen, that something more than you know can be spoken and heard.'' William Brodrich, in his book The Sixth Lamentation, says that pastors have to be ''candles burning between hope and despair, faith and doubt, life and death, all the opposites. That is the disquieting place where people must always find us. And if our life means anything, it is somehow, by being there, at peace, we help the world cope with what it cannot understand.'' A daunting expectation, to be sure. Pastors understand that there is always ''the dance between doubt and faith, darkness and hope,'' and that their job is to help ''define the soul'' and be ''authentic witnesses to God’s active role in the world.'' We are trained to ''listen to the music behind a person’s words.'' And finally, Henry Ward Beecher, the rather-eccentric 19th century preacher, admonishes us clergy by saying ''it requires piety to be a rascal, and it would seem as if religion were simply a cloak for rascality.'' So much for musings about my role.

My second musings relate to success and character development and perseverance, particularly for those of us who have ''the slight patina of age.'' James Hillman, in his book The Force of Character, said, ''the integrity of character is the full company on stage at the end of the opera…life wants the whole ensemble.'' The son of the writer William Maxwell wrote about his father’s character by saying, ''his face changed as he grew older so that it only conveyed character and feeling…he was immensely erudite and funny and gracious…a true friend.'' Four days before his wife died and twelve days before he died, both in their 90’s, the Maxwells went in their wheelchairs to see French Impressionist paintings at a local museum. Defining success, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, ''to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition, to know that even one life has breathed easier because you lived-that is to have succeeded.'' Finally, in Tennyson’s Ulysses, he encourages people of all ages when he wrote, ''some work of noble note, may yet be done…Come my friends, tis not too late to seek a newer world…one equal temper of heroic hearts…to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.''

My next musings from my journal involve quotes that speak about human grit and determination. President Teddy Roosevelt speaking at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1910 said, ''It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.'' He also said that ''life is like football: don’t flinch; don’t foul; and hit the line hard.'' In Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, he reminds us that ''the world breaks everyone the same but some become strong at the broken places.'' Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner, Elie Wiesel tells us that, ''there may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. The opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.'' We are asked to think as one ''who could meet Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same…who could watch the things he gave his life to broken, and stoop and build them up with worn-out tools.''

I muse about how we face life. The poet Rumi says, ''This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.'' Henry Channing tells us, ''To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion…In a word, to let the spiritual unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common-This, he says, is to be my symphony.''

Some thoughts about the inevitability of life’s seemingly-random losses and challenges…''The day will come when the wild waves would wet us too and the winds would lash us, and the great beast browsing its way up from below would raise its head and notice us at last.'' But, in spite of life’s vagaries, hope and perseverance seem to prevail. One author writes, ''Sorrow comes in great waves, but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us, it leaves us on the spot, and we know that if it is strong, we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain. It wears us, but we wear it and use it in return; and it is blind, whereas we, after a manner, see. The storm, by it very nature, moves on.'' The English poet, William Blake writes, ''joy and woe are woven fine, a clothing for the soul divine…under every grief and pine runs a joy with silken twine.'' At times of great sorrow or darkness, there may be brief moments of light which the author, Joyce Rupp, calls ''gems in the darkness.'' These are moments in which we see goodness or hope or tenderness, which softens our grief. We need to be on the lookout for these gems. There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize God or not.'' In the words of the Psalmist, ''I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my supplications. Because he has inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live'' (Psalm 116:1-2).

Some musings about being sick in mind, body, or spirit…''We are children of God and not a structure of cells that are out of control. We are, rather, tangibly spiritual.''
''We don’t have to be frightened when disease asserts with its bluster and aggressiveness and says, ''I’m going to have my way.'' Don’t let disease persuade you that it has authentic and final power.'' Disease may say, ''This is the way you will feel.'' Jesus says, ''I will not leave you orphaned.'' And ''anytime something cramped relaxes, whether it is a muscle, a memory, or an attitude…that is healing.'' Finally, ''God is not like a person sitting outside the universe looking down, but rather, is the deepest reality of a complex universe. When we pray, we try to put ourselves in harmony with that spirit, to cooperate with it and receive its power.'' Therefore, ''God is always a sustaining influence for good, no matter what comes our way,'' and ''we should never put a period where God has put a comma.''

Finally, as we approach the 230th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, my ''Independence Day Musings'' speaks to the subject of leadership. It has been said about my namesake Ronald Reagan that ''he had the confidence that comes with conviction, the strength that comes with character, the grace that comes with humility, and the humor that comes with wisdom.'' He came at a time when we needed to be proud and he made us proud to be an American again, and he stood up to adversity with aplomb. Reagan said of himself, ''I wasn’t a Great Communicator, but I communicated great things and they came from the heart of a great nation.'' Winston Churchill said a similar quote about Great Britain during World War II. He said, ''It was a nation and a race dwelling all around the globe that had the lion heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.'' Churchill also said ''courage is a mental conditioning born of practice. It is a habit nurtured by making the right choices in undemanding times because it cannot be invoked from nothing in an emergency.'' As Edward R. Morrow said, ''Churchill mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.'' In 1992, as altzimers disease was taking its toll, Ronald Reagan said, ''Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. And never forget your heroic origins; never fail to seek divine guidance; and never loose your natural God-given optimism.'' Good leaders, I believe, would agree with Paul when he said, ''whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things'' (Phil 4:8).

And, of course, great leaders also seem to have a great sense of humor. Reagan once said to his political adversary and good friend, Speaker of the House Tip O’Neal-''If we both died at the same time and only one of us was going to heaven, I want you to know that I would follow you to hell.'' He also quipped that ''today’s dreadfully somber problem is next weeks joke about the hell we went through last week.''

So ends my Independence Day Musings. They represent a fraction of my journal and just give us a somewhat biased glimpse of various subjects. But, to me, they represent God’s grace touching my life and informing my journey. I would like to close with the following: ''May today there be peace within you. May you trust your highest power that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content knowing you are a child of God. Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, and to bask in the sun…it is there for each and every one of us.'' AMEN