Piloting Faith: Let's be very clear about this.

A Word for the Day...
Yesterday we got to see the real impact of a more conservative Supreme Court. The Court issued an unsigned 5-4 order allowing a ban on transgender people serving in the US military to take effect.
Let's be clear: this is not about military effectiveness. This is absolutely about discrimination against one of the most vulnerable groups of people in our nation. Transgender people are an easy mark to rally a base who already believes that women and LGBTQ people are lesser citizens.
Someone last week asked me why I as a pastor, a theologian, cared about politics. Why become involved? Why should any of us? Here is my answer: Because our personal theology drives our public policy.
If you believe men are ordained to have authority over women, you will create policies that deny women access to healthcare and equal pay.
If you believe homosexuality is a sin, you will fight to deny marriage rights, adoption rights and civil protection from violent acts.
If you believe white people are better than everyone else, that slavery in the Bible was condoned for a reason, then dismantling the Voting Rights Act makes perfect sense.
If you believe our birthright is to "dominate and subdue the earth," then you will work to destroy the Environmental Protection Agency and argue that climate change is bad science.
Our laws come from our theology. What we believe about God becomes what we fight for in the world.
Jesus spent his life fighting against the bad theology of the leaders of his day. He was ultimately killed by it. His ministry was profoundly political. He fought for fair economic access. He stood up for the rights of widows, the poor and children. His message was unquestionably one of love and inclusion. His teachings were the antidote to a cruel world that preyed upon it's most vulnerable.
We need that message once again today, and this time you and I are the ones to preach it.
- Rev. Cameron Trimble, author of Piloting Church: Helping Your Congregation Take Flight

Prayer for the Week
(This past week we lost a Saint, poet Mary Oliver. She put into words some of the most profound human experiences and taught us to see the world around us. In her memory, let's meditate on her words.)
"Wild Geese"
By Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
