Author: Rev. Eric Anderson

Story: The Generous I’iwi

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 5 Comments

October 13, 2024

Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Mark 10:17-31

I’iwi are not known for their generosity. They tend to chase other i’iwi away if one comes too close, and they have an expansive notion of what “too close” means. They’re willing to put up with other birds, most of the time, but if there’s an ohi’a tree full of flowers to be sipped at, well. Then things can get exciting, and they’ll chase the ‘apapane and the ‘amakihi away.

One day an i’iwi was perched in a tree and saw a family of four humans come along. They stopped for a moment nearby and the big humans gave the little humans the last two cookies out of a little bag. The littlest human, a boy, took big bites. The next-littlest human, a slightly older and taller girl, nibbled at her cookie, enjoying its sweetness.

When the little boy had finished his cookie, the parents announced that it was time to keep walking, and their son burst into tears. He was tired. He didn’t like walking. Most of all, he was still hungry, because he hadn’t had enough cookie.

But there were no more cookies in the little bag.

Big sister – who wasn’t that much bigger, remember – looked at her cookie. More than half of it was left. Without a word she broke it in half and gave a piece to her little brother. He stopped crying – mostly, he snuffled some more – but the two of them finished their cookies together, and then the family moved on.

The i’iwi was impressed. Half a cookie had done so much good for the little boy, and also for the parents who wanted to comfort him but couldn’t. Half a cookie wasn’t a big thing, but it made a big difference.

The i’iwi decided that he’d make a difference, too. Not with cookie halves, which he wasn’t going to eat anyway, but with ohi’a flowers. He’d bring those to the hungry birds of the forest.

If he could figure out how.

An i’iwi’s long curved beak is pretty good for sipping nectar, but it’s not that good for snipping flowers from branches or carrying them. His first few experiments showed him that he damaged more flowers beyond use than he actually carried. He managed to get one blossom in his beak, however, and flew off to find a hungry bird to give it to.

After a few minutes, he found a section of the forest where the trees weren’t blossoming much, and then he found a sad-looking ‘apapane perched on a leafy, but flowerless, branch. He landed and carefully placed the flower on some leaves before he said, “Here. You look hungry. Take a good sip.”

The ‘apapane looked surprised and then puzzled, but said, “Thank you,” before dipping her beak into the flower. Sadly, there wasn’t much nectar to be found. Much of it had dried out when it was plucked from the tree and carried through the air.

“I’m sorry,” said the i’iwi. “I’ll go get you another one.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier,” asked the ‘apapane, “to show me the tree you found it on?”

“Why, yes,” said the i’iwi. “It would. Why didn’t I think of that?”

Cookies don’t grow on trees. Sometimes if you want to share, you have to divide them up. But sometimes if you want to share, you can bring your friend to the flower, not the flower to the friend. However you share, though, remember that small things can make a big difference, and that giving to someone goes a long way.

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory – memory plus improvisation – so what you hear will not match what you’ve read.

Photo by HarmonyonPlanetEarth – I'iwi|Pu'u o'o Trail | 2013-12-17 at 12-43-196 Uploaded by snowmanradio, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30241883.

Thirty-Six

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 10 Comments

I was ordained in my home church, Union Congregational Church UCC in Rockville, Connecticut, thirty-six years ago today.

A lot of things have changed in the intervening three and six-tenths decades. For one thing, my home congregation left the United Church of Christ, which is a lingering ache. My father retired from a distinguished career as a public school educator, completed a seminary degree, and was ordained himself. My daughter has also graduated from seminary and I look forward to celebrating her ordination. My son has kept his concentration on the writing and creating he wants to do, a quest that has taken him to the heartland of Arthurian stories in Wales.

The UCC has lost members and lost churches every one of these thirty-six years. We’re not alone. Similar things have happened in “mainline” Protestant denominations and in traditions that have rejected the mainline. The church has aged. Even now, as I have entered my sixth decade, I remain younger than a majority of my parishioners.

It seems like I ought to have learned something over all these years, and to have some wisdom to offer to colleagues, friends, church members, and church leaders. I feel like I should. If I do, I wish it were clearer to me.

The time has passed in the blink of an eye, a blink of an eye that has included innumerable endless days.

A couple weeks ago ministers of the Hawai’i Conference gathered for a retreat, which was held just a few miles from my home. On one of the afternoons, we participants could participate in “adventures.” For various reasons, including the vigorous advocacy of a young person in my congregation, I was asked to be the local pastor who accompanied (and joined) those who took part in a zipline adventure.

It wasn’t entirely outside my wheelhouse. While in Connecticut, I sought training as a ropes challenge course facilitator. I really enjoyed the training and the work of guiding people through an experience of testing their boundaries, trying something scary and finding a new sense of accomplishment. As I’ve put it more than once, facilitators spend their time safely on the ground, but in training we spent more time at the heights. The conference’s retreat center didn’t have a zipline, but I did get a chance to try one before moving to Hawai’i.

The simple truth is that I don’t have much fear of heights, and doing that training and that work taught me to trust the equipment.

I still wasn’t sure how I’d feel until I set off on the first zipline that afternoon. Would it be exhilaration? Had I developed a fear of heights without realizing it? Would something else happen that I didn’t anticipate?

It did. I settled into the harness, glided along the cable, and felt about as relaxed as I’ve felt in some time.

Yes. You read that right. I felt relaxed.

I was surprised, too.

Relaxation can be hard to come by in a pastor’s life. Sometimes pastoral duties come with a lot of anxious energy. The other day I received an urgent call to go to the hospital, as someone from another church, someone I have known and worked with, had been rushed there by ambulance. When I got there, nobody had a record. It turns out that they’d died in the ambulance without ever reaching the hospital.

That afternoon brought a lot of concern, anxiety, shock, and grief.

If I have any wisdom to offer on the thirty-sixth anniversary of my ordination, it’s this: Relax into the glide of the zipline. Ministry can feel like an uncontrolled glide over a yawning chasm at times: mercifully, not all the times. When it does, the mechanisms that keep me from falling aren’t readily apparent, or if they are, I may not be convinced of their strength. Those pitfalls look awfully deep.

Relax into the glide.

You’ll get to the other side.

It’s an imperfect metaphor, of course. One of the features of ziplines is that they make straight lines between one place and another. Ministry frequently doesn’t. You set off in one direction, and find yourself landing in a completely different place. Thirty-seven years ago, did I expect that I’d do interim ministry? Play the guitar and ukulele? Manage IT and publications for a Conference? Facilitate on a challenge course? Pastor a church in Hawai’i?

No, no, no, no, and no.

Not all of my transitions have been gentle (far from it) and not all of my landings have been soft (far from that, too). The ground that looked firm has crumbled beneath my feet both at the beginning and the end of the traverse. I still don’t really understand the systems that have kept from out of the crevasse all these times.

But if I have one piece of advice, it is: Relax into the glide.

You’ll get to the other side.

The photo shows me (a gray figure with an orange helmet) gliding down a zipline over a waterfall. Photo by Ben Sheets.

Camels and Needles

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 8 Comments

“But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.'” – Mark 10:24b-25

A camel, which is a beast with sense,
will cast a jaundiced eye upon a needle’s eye
if told that they’re to pass on through.
At most, a knobby hoof may paw the ground.

Yet I engage in exercise of needle-passing
almost every day, and have for one score years,
and ten, and six, endeavoring to tell
a story so it lifts a heart or redirects a mind.

A task for fools, I say, as those I teach
nod sagely in agreement with my words,
then go to do the opposite of what I’d said,
and what they’d then approved,

Because, you know, though there’s a better way,
the one we know is still the one we’ll do.
We thank you for the wisdom of your words
and hope the world one day works as you say.

If only it were only “they,” the ones to whom
I speak! For it is also “Me,” the one I seek
to govern by your guidance, Christ, the “I”
who also cannot seem to follow you.

I would despair, save that some seeds I never thought
would bloom have grown, have blossomed, borne
sweet fruit as marginalized people claim
their place and power where they once had none.

So take my challenge, camel. I will make
my painful way through this so-tiny eye,
and once we’re through, what visions might we see,
what glory celebrate, in God’s sweet possibility.

A poem/prayer based on Mark 10:17-31, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Proper 23 (28).

The image is a Roman needle of a type found in first to fourth century contexts. All rights reserved, Philippa Walton, 2014-11-29 19:38:23 – https://finds.org.uk/database/ajax/download/id/494882Catalog: https://finds.org.uk/database/images/image/id/494882/recordtype/artefacts archive copy at the Wayback Machine Artefact: https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/652383, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77020469.

This poem/prayer was written on the thirty-sixth anniversary of my ordination. I rather regret not having taken (that I can find) a photo of a camel.

Because of Your Hardness of Heart

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / Leave a comment
A stone in the shape of a heart.

“But Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you.'” – Mark 10:5

The wreckage left by hardened hearts
includes the charioteers of Pharaoh,
swept away by churning waters of the sea.
The murmurers of Meribah, the fallen kings
of Canaan, even Babylon the proud,
lie in the rubble of their stony hearts.

How curious that there should be a law
accommodating a so-painful thing
as calcined cardia. How strange to say
this pain, this hurt, will come, and we
cannot avoid the fault lines of
a marriage. Let crevasses divide.

But Jesus called it out for what it was,
for hearts go cold to set aside the pain,
and so inflict the hurt upon the other. Then
we must admit that Moses had it right,
that weeping lovers walk away in order that
old wounds might heal, new wounds avoid.

Yet wounds they are and still remain,
inflicted in the adamant of soul,
and rising emerge as grieving tears,
while Jesus weeps for what, with open heart,
need not have been.

A poem/prayer based on Mark 10:2-16, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Proper 22 (27).

The image is by muffinn from Worcester, UK – Madeira – Ribeira Brava – heart-shaped stone, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58001718.

Story: Follow the Leaders

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments

September 29, 2024

Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29
Mark 9:38-50

It’s a funny thing about people. Sometimes people choose leaders without getting them ready for leadership first. You’ve probably seen it in school sometimes. The teacher asks someone to lead the class in a song or a reading, but it turns out they hadn’t learned it yet.

That can be pretty embarrassing.

As it happens, it’s not just humans who do such things, although it turns out that for a lot of those creatures, a school is also the place to do them. A school of ta’ape, or “Bluestripe Snapper,” selected a relatively young fish to be the leader of their school one season. He was pretty big, he seemed pretty smart, and as far as anyone could tell without asking, he seemed to know what he was doing.

He… didn’t know what he was doing.

The first hour was a disaster. He tried calling out from the front of the school, “Everybody turn right!” And everybody turned right. Everybody who heard him. That wasn’t all that many of them. It was a big school, and his loudest voice didn’t carry all the way to the back, or even to the middle. Fish swam off in all sorts of different directions. It was quite a muddle.

Fortunately, he was a smart ta’ape, and one thing about being smart is knowing when you need to learn something. Clearly there were things he needed to learn about leading the school, and he needed to learn them quickly. So when the school was feeding quietly on some beds of algae, he sought out some of the ta’ape kupuna and said, “I need some help. How do I get the school to follow?

The kupuna were gracious. One or two of them did think he might have learned this before, but they kept quiet about it. They told him the secret.

“You need to choose fish to lead with you.”

“The school is too big for one fish to lead,” they said. “As you’ve found, it can’t be done by one fish. So you appoint other leaders, and space them throughout the school. The ones closest to you listen for what you’re doing, and the ones farther away listen for what they’re doing. When you turn, they turn, and the other leaders turn, and the school turns.”

The leader was relieved. He didn’t have to do this alone. He would have help. He promptly asked as many of the kupuna as were willing (some of them thought it was time for some new fish to learn) to become the other leaders, and he found a few more fish and taught them what. They needed to know.

The next time he directed the school toward clearer water they turned in a flash. He laughed for joy, and so did the other leaders, and so did the whole school full of fish, because he’d led them all in joy.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory. And sometimes I don’t remember the names of the fish.

Photo of a ta’ape school by Tchami – Bluestripe Snapper, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34504430

Not Enough Cooks

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 7 Comments

“[Moses said,] ‘I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me.’ So the LORD said to Moses, ‘Gather for me seventy of the elders of Israel…'”

They wept for food, the wandering people did.
Their palates had grown weary of the miracle,
which sounds ungrateful. I suppose it is.
But who does not grow weary of life’s wonders?

Then Moses was displeased, and not with weeping
people, but with God, whom he accused of treating him
so badly. “Why do you lay the burden of these people
upon me?” For Moses, too, had wearied of the wonder.

And God – the singular, the Trinity not yet
imagined, whose powers had rained flies
and hail and pestilence and death upon
the wailing people of the Pharaoh – said,

“You shall not lead alone. You never have.
Did you forget? We’ve been a team, we have,
with you and me and Miriam and Aaron.
The team will grow by seventy today.

“They say too many cooks will spoil broth.
Sometimes, you know, that’s true, if they
neglect to speak and listen to each other. Now
my Spirit shall be given to these elders.

“They shall prophesy, including those
who missed the memo in the camp.
And you, my harried, whiny Moses, shall
at last be glad for helpers on the road.

“As for these weeping people, now:
Let them eat quail.”

A poem/prayer based on Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29, the Revised Common Lectionary Alternative First Reading for Year B, Proper 21 (26).

The image is Moses elects the Council of Seventy Elders by Jacob de Wit (1737) – AQGtI5P6nkpYyw at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21988106.

Story: Everybody’s Songs

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments
An 'apapane, a red bird with black wings, singing in tree branches.

September 22, 2024

Jeremiah 11:18-20
Mark 9:30-37

Everyone thought she was one of the best singers among the ‘apapane. Her notes were clear, her improvisations were delightful, and she had the breath to sing long bubbling musical runs. Other ‘apapane used to listen for her in the mornings, and if they heard her, they’d take off in her direction.

It turned out that she used to sing loudest and longest when she found a grove of ohi’a with lots of blossoms, so everybody who flew into the neighborhood got a good meal. She’d sing, however, even in a tree between flowering times. When she did, the other ‘apapane – and the akepa, and the ‘alawi, and the ‘amakihi, and even the i’iwi – settled into nearby trees to listen.

It was like having a great concert every day.

She couldn’t help noticing that a fair number of birds got a free lunch, or breakfast, or dinner out of her songs. At the start she didn’t mind – she was pretty flattered that everyone flew to hear her sing – but as time went on it started to rankle. “Can’t they find their own trees?” she grumped to her brother one day, and if he had anything useful to say, she didn’t listen.

Then she had a bad scare. She’d landed on a branch near to the ground, which she rarely did, and began to sing. Suddenly the branch heaved with a heavy weight. She fluttered into the air, taken by surprise, and only then noticed the hunting cat which had leapt onto her branch and only just missed her.

She flew higher into another tree, whistling with alarm, and watched while the cat climbed back to the ground and disappeared into the forest.

The next day the sun rose, but her voice didn’t rise. The day grew brighter, but nobody heard her song. Other ‘apapane and ‘amakihi and mejiro and the rest begin to sing, but she remained silent.

She found a place deep within some leafy ohi’a branches and hid from the world.

They noticed that she wasn’t singing that day, the other birds did, but they mostly thought she’d gone to another part of the forest and would be back soon. But one day became two, and two became four, and four became over a week and nobody had heard her song. They began to look around, hoping to find her well, and terribly afraid that something bad had happened.

 Her mother found her – mothers often have a talent for finding their children – still huddled in her ohi’a tree, silent and afraid. She told her mother about what had happened with the cat.

“I don’t want to sing ever again,” she said.

“Your songs are beautiful,” said her mother. “Everybody loves you for them.”

“Everybody follows me because they think they’ll eat well,” said the daughter. “Somebody else can do that. Not me.”

“Listen for a moment, daughter,” said the mother, and the two were quiet. The forest, however, was not. The calls and songs of the forest birds sailed out over the trees.

“Listen to that,” said mother. “It’s everybody’s song.”

“Won’t they attract cats?” asked the singer.

“They might,” admitted her mother, “but there are ways to sing beyond their reach. Mostly, though, realize that it’s your voice, and your melodies, but it’s not really your song. It’s everybody’s song when you share it, greater and more wonderful than you know.

“What do you think, daughter? Can you sing with everybody’s song?”

In answer, the young ‘apapane opened her beak and sang.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in advance, but I tell them in worship from memory and from improvisation. What you’ve just read will not match what you watch.

Photo of an ‘apapane by Eric Anderson.

The Argument

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment

“Then they came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.” – Mark 9:33-34

Sitting in your house, you catch my eye.
I see the smile play upon the corners of your lips.
“That argument you had along the way. Now tell me:
What were all those snarling words about?”

Now, I don’t want to tell. You see that, right?
Your eyes move on from mine to James, and John,
to Andrew, Philip, Matthew, Simon, James,
Bartholomew and Thaddeus, Thomas, Judas, too.

“So tell me!” you repeat and smile, still.
You know, I know, because my frozen face
declares it. So do all the faces of the twelve.
You shake your head at our embarrassed silence.

“Would you be great?” you ask me, and I need
not answer. Yes, I would! I’d be the warrior
at the side of Christ, to fight and even die
if need be. I would live in glory.

“If you’d be great,” you say, and lift
the ragged cuff of my left sleeve,
“you won’t be first, but last. You’ll be
the servant of the least of these.”

All right, you’ve said such things before,
and we had nodded, for your words were wise.
I somehow never thought that they’d apply to me.
I somehow never thought I’d die in poverty.

I may have held my tongue since your rebuke
of “Get behind me, Satan!” but I do not yet
accept your forecast of betrayal and a cross.
I’d overcome those evils, not embrace them.

I see again, however, you and I
have taken sides in opposition here.
My greatness is not yours. Your greatness is
not mine. I can’t think what to do.

Whatever happens, I will not abandon you.
I’ll wrestle with these things I do not want
to understand, and maybe one of us
will change their mind. In honesty?

I hope it’s you.

A poem/prayer based on Mark 9:30-37, the Revised Common Lectionary Second Reading for Year B, Proper 20 (25).

The image is The Tears of Saint Peter by El Greco (ca. 1590) – National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Norway), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98036830.

Story: Celebration Songs

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 7 Comments

September 15, 2024

Isaiah 50:4-9a
James 3:1-12

He was her brother. She was his sister. They’d been raised in the same ‘apapane nest up in the ohi’a forest. They’d been fed by the same parents. They’d learned to fly together. They’d learned how to forage in the trees together. They both wore bright red feathers and black wings with white feathers underneath. They were…

Completely different from one another.

He was a complainer. No ohi’a blossom ever had enough nectar. No bug was ever crunchy enough. If he ate a caterpillar, it wasn’t soft enough. The sunny days were too hot. The rainy days were too… well, too wet.

Worst of all, in his opinion, were all the other birds. I’iwi were too obnoxious. ‘Amakihi were too yellow. Mejiro were too green. ‘Akepa were too orange, unless they were female ‘akepa, in which case they were too green. ‘Io were too hungry.

I grant you that, since ‘io like to eat ‘apapane, he may have had a point with that last one.

His sister, on the other hand, was a celebrator. She savored the taste of the nectar in the smallest ohi’a blossom. She enjoyed the crunchy bugs and slurped down the soft caterpillars with the same enthusiasm. She let the rain cool her and she spread her wings to dry in the heat of the sun.

As for other birds, well. She sang with other ‘apapane, chirped with the i’iwi and the ‘amakihi and the mejiro and the ‘akepa and everyone else she met. She was sure there something good to say about the ‘io, but she’d have to find a safe way to chat with one to find out what it was.

Her brother perched in an ohi’a tree dripping with blossoms and moaned. His sister sang joyful songs in a tree with a single flower. Her brother insulted birds that came by about their feathers, their songs, and their diets. His sister complimented their flight and their colors and their voices.

Now, not every day is a good day for an ‘apapane. It can get pretty cold on a rainy night, and they’ve got to watch out for hunting ‘io. Sometimes lots of trees are in blossom, and sometimes there’s just a few. She wasn’t always happy. Sometimes it took time to find food, or a dry place, or to get through a long cold night.

But in the good times, on the good days, she celebrated the good things, whatever they were. Other birds joined her to share in the nectar or the sunshine and always in the joy of being in her presence.

Her brother went through bad times with grim satisfaction that all his woeful predictions had come true once more. And when bad times turned to good, he… sat glumly in the tree and complained about the nectar, and the bugs, and the sun, and the rain, and the way that nobody seemed to want to be around him.

He made his bad times harder, and his good times glum. She made her good times better, and her bad times easier. Given the choice, my friends, I think I’d rather be like her.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in advance, but I tell them from memory. And I improvise. So what you’ve just read will not match the way I told it.

Photo of an ‘apapane by Eric Anderson.