Reflections

2022… Well. And Not so Well.

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 6 Comments

At the end of 2021, I commented on the lost promise of that year. Despite the warnings of epidemiologists and other medical professionals, I like others hoped that the advent of vaccines would end the pandemic, or at least reduce its risks. As 2022 began, however, we were in the midst of the highest level of COVID-19 transmission we’d seen. Church of the Holy Cross UCC continued to worship online-only until the Sunday after Easter – a disappointment for certain.

Still, we did welcome a congregation into the sanctuary in April and were able to observe Pentecost, All Saints, and Christmas with gathered worshipers. We maintained precautions even then. The congregation did not sing hymns until December, so that the first songs they sang were Christmas carols. Our choir director, Doug Albertson, assembled a thirty-five plus voice choir plus string orchestra for a magnificent performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia of Christmas Carols. It was great fun to take part in that ensemble.

A glance at my photos will make someone wonder why I didn’t seem to get around as much as in previous years. There are a lot of flowers but not a lot of varied scenery. COVID remained a factor – I wanted to minimize my exposure so that it would minimize the risk I presented to others – but so was my transportation. Though the Chrysler 300 I’d bought on moving to Hilo continued to run just fine, some of its parts were definitely showing its sixteen years, and I began to avoid long drives. In November I replaced it with a new Kia, leading to the inevitable joke that this pastor finally has a Soul.

I did travel during the year. I attended my first in-person off-island conference since 2020 in May. I went to O’ahu for a disaster response event and spoke about the interfaith response to the Kilauea eruption of 2018. At the end of August I flew east to visit family and friends. I even managed to attend the Wyman family reunion (my paternal grandmother was a Wyman) and The Blandford Fair on Labor Day weekend. I enjoyed seeing everyone, and entirely forgot to get selfies with a good many of them. The trip home afforded the opportunity to get photos of a sunset over the Pacific.

For the most part the family is doing well. My kids continued to share an apartment this past year, but both are looking to moves in 2023. I have hopes that Rebekah’s ordination will come this next year, and Brendan is working toward beginning a Ph.D. program in English literature. Bekah has been working for The Julian Way, an organization focused on education and empowerment with, for, and by, persons of diverse embodiments. They work with congregations and other faith institutions to foster fully inclusive environments.

In October I attended the Pastoral Leaders’ Retreat on O’ahu, the first time we’ve had a full gathering for that event since 2019. Though I wasn’t on the leadership team, I was asked to find a musical selection for the occasion – and as is typical of me, I couldn’t think of one. The result was the song that leads the 2022: A Year video above: “Take the Labyrinth Road.”

It was a busy year musically. During Lent, I set a goal of writing one song for each of the six weeks of Lent. I did it (see: A Lenten Success). By year’s end, I’d written twelve new songs, equaling those produced in 2021. I sang one of my original songs each Wednesday and presented hour-long concerts via live stream twice a month. You can see them all (oh, my) on my YouTube channel in the Music playlist.

Music gave me a couple ways to deal with the stress of the year – and 2022 was certainly stressful. It was a creative outlet, of course, both in composition and in performance, though it could also be exhausting. It also became one of my chosen methods of “retail therapy” this year. During the pandemic I found that I would feel calmer while I waited for a package to arrive. In 2022, three of those packages contained new instruments: a Martin D-10E guitar in sapele wood in March, a Kala KA-ATP6-CTG 6-string ukulele in May, and a Kala KA-EBY-TE in striped ebony in July.

2022 brought some terribly painful times. I officiated at a series of funerals in the spring for people I had known and treasured, and there were more as the year went on. In June my friend and former colleague Drew Page stepped down from his work with the Southern New England Conference UCC. He had been suffering from cancer for two years and the disease had reached a stage where he wanted to give his time to family and friends. In July we talked via video chat. I wrote “To the Banks of the River Jordan,” and about four hours after I sang it live, he died.

I told a few other friends not to make me write such a song for them any time soon.

As the year ended, one of my cousins from my father’s generation, Don Pease, died. Once more my heart wept.

2022 has not been an easy year for grief. In May the United States suffered its one millionth death from COVID-19. At year’s end, many whose lies had contributed to the death toll via social media had recovered access to some of the platforms they’d abused. If I’d doubted that COVID was still around, I’d have been disabused of the notion by catching it in November. It laid me out exhausted for days. I did not fully recover my stamina until late December, just in time for the Christmas services (whew).

I was reelected Chair of the Hawai’i Conference Council in June and will serve until June 2024. My term as President of Interfaith Communities in Action will end in February of 2023, though I expect to continue working with the Steering Committee and Working Group on Family Homelessness. I was asked to rejoin the Hawai’i Island Association’s Committee on Ministry as we have a shortage of ordained ministers on the island who can serve. I have also continued on the Board of Directors of the Ku’ikahi Mediation Center.

May 2023 bring blessings to us all!

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2022 – A Year

My Friend Drew

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 8 Comments

Drew liked to tell the story of how we met. My daughter had signed up for a winter event at Silver Lake Conference Center, and I had asked if I could volunteer with the other age group that weekend. Drew and Debby led the group I wanted to work with.

Although it’s always useful to have adult counselors at these events, Drew wasn’t at all sure he wanted to include this unknown “helicopter parent” who might both distract the other group and leave him without a fully engaged counselor. I assume he got enough reassurance from the camp directors because he and Debby welcomed me with no signs of his reluctance.

I confess that I brought my own hesitations. Drew set off all sorts of alarm bells going back to my teenage years. He was tall with a booming voice. He was an athlete. His hair was closely cropped. He led the event with an air of confident authority. He reminded me of too many people I’d had painful relationships with many years before.

And… he was tall. He had a booming voice. He was an athlete, winning a bronze medal in his age group at the US National Fencing Championships in 2016. He did change the length of his hair, but it was never very long. He did carry himself with confident authority.

That weekend also demonstrated the incredible depth of his heart and soul. Drew had trained to be a public school teacher because of his passion for teaching and inspiring young people. He left the classroom because the administrative overhead frustrated him more than he would accept (my father, who worked many years as a public school administrator and teacher, would have sympathized). He poured that commitment to teaching into coaching. He founded a fencing school in Willimantic, Sword in the Scroll, which offered both modern fencing and German broadsword.

When we met, one of the other counselors for the weekend, a college-age student, was nursing some bruises from a mistake in her guard. Drew the coach was both sympathetic, making certain that she wasn’t doing things that would delay her recovery, and also evaluative, helping her understand what she’d done so that she could do it better next time.

It was a good weekend.

I didn’t yet know I’d made a friend.

Some time later the Silver Lake directors asked me to consider becoming a dean for a week-long summer conference. “We’ll set you up with experienced deans,” they said. So in summer 2008 I joined Drew and Debby Page as the third wheel dean for “I Learned it All in Volleyball.” Volleyball, incidentally, is an enthusiasm Drew and I shared. Among the trio, Drew was known as the “alpha dean,” Debby as the “beta dean,” and I was the “omega dean.” It worked so well that we did it again the next summer (and my son Brendan came along as a counselor).

In the meantime, Drew and I had started to spend a lot more time together. At the end of 2008, we offered him the position of Media Assistant for the Connecticut Conference UCC. It was not an easy choice. We had some really solid candidates who offered very different sets of talents and skills. The position was new and none of us really knew what it would become. In the end we settled on Drew because he was not only skilled, he was constantly adding to his skills. He would do so throughout his work with the Connecticut Conference and the Southern New England Conference over the next 13 years.

Drew joined me in a large but rather noisy and visually chaotic office on the “Garden Level” (basement) of United Church Center in Hartford. Noisy? Drew’s desk sat next to three servers and other network appliances whose fan noise varied but never ceased. Visually chaotic? Shelves around the room contained computer equipment, reference manuals, and stacks of storage media. I had a habit of retaining the packing boxes of computers we’d recently purchased in case a defective unit needed to go back. And I had an, um, elastic notion of “recently purchased.”

Drew settled in to maintain mailing lists, postal and electronic. He assisted with feeding various databases. He was a solid copy editor, cleaning up my more awkward constructions (and I’d rather like him to read this piece right now). He took on writing projects for our printed and online publications. His first byline, as far as I can tell, appeared in spring 2009. He stepped behind a video camera at Conference events, and like his boss (me), carried a still camera on his shoulder.

He’d done some of these pieces in other parts of his life before, but he learned new things incredibly fast, as well as combining these skills in ways that really served the ministry we were doing. Drew’s ideas rose from a deep understanding of what we were trying to accomplish, what benefit we were trying to bring to the people of the conference. We didn’t try everything he thought of. Not everything we tried worked. A couple things that I thought worked well took more time than we had for them – I really regret the video reporting we couldn’t do.

We gave Drew more hours. Drew took those hours and turned them into precious gifts.

We shared an office. I remember one spring when we had a very heavy workload. We were preparing for a spring meeting of the Conference. We were also filming and editing 32 brief videos in which Silver Lake deans invited young people to their conferences. Each one lasted a minutes, but – there were 32 of them!

The two of us recorded them together during a gathering of the deans. He’d film one group while I filmed another. When we were back to the office, Drew sat down at his computer and forged through those recordings, reviewing each take (there was always more than one), adding transitions, fixing the audio as best he could, and putting in the titles. It was hours of work – and he did it so well that Silver Lake has continued to do much the same in the eight years since.

Sharing an office isn’t just about work. You learn things about office mates that you don’t learn about the folks who work down the hall. When Drew was preparing for competition at the national level (this was before 2016), he changed his diet and work habits – by which I mean, he made sure to move around more and avoid stiffening up at the desk. When he suffered increasing shoulder pain from an old injury – and when that injury was aggravated – I was one of his companions in the journey to heal.

And then we started going out to lunch.

I have… irregular meal habits. I frequently skip lunch entirely. Drew, a much more careful person around health and diet, did not. It might be light, but he made sure his body was being properly sustained.

But then once or twice a week we’d go out to lunch along with Emily (then Hale) McKenna (who may have got this started in the first place). There were several places we enjoyed in that immediate West End neighborhood. We’d take the opportunity of workers everywhere to gripe about our workloads (I was formally Drew’s boss, remember), but mostly we talked about the important things outside of the working life of the church. We talked about music and kids and dreams. We told stories about our pasts and imagined things for our future.

In the office we were partners and collaborators. At the table we were friends.

I can’t remember more than a fraction of the stories. I can’t remember more than a portion of the dreams. What I remember was the assurance of friendship, or companionship, of faith in one another as well as in God.

Friends at a table – Drew is just behind me.

When I left the Connecticut Conference and moved to Hawai’i, Drew told me that he’d committed to making only three phone calls to ask me about a problem. Those calls, by the way, were more than fair. I’d left a working system, but I’d left a system that, for the most part, I’d built. There were a lot of things that, despite my best efforts to document them as I was leaving, I was probably the only one who knew. I expected that Drew would have to make more than three calls despite his best efforts and intentions.

He only made two.

In February 2020 Drew received a diagnosis of colon cancer. He went through radiation and surgery, writing about them quite frankly in his blog, Drew’s 2 Cents – and he did it during a global pandemic. He had a reassuring season, but in January of this year learned that the cancer had spread to lungs and lymph nodes. Though there were treatment options, none would have much impact on the course of the disease, and all would reduce his ability to enjoy the life he had. He chose to enjoy that life.

“In otherwise,” he wrote, “dream of the things you want to do, enjoy the life right in front of you, and try like hell to be good to other people. If you have the skill, knowledge, or talent to impact other’s lives, do it. If you have the opportunity to witness something amazing, don’t hesitate. And don’t underestimate what can amaze.”

Last week I wrote a song for Drew, performing it during my weekly live stream. Its formal title is “To the Banks of the River Jordan,” but truthfully it’s Drew’s Song to me. About four hours after I sang it, Drew went from our care to God’s.

When I heard Drew had died, my prayers were not suitable for human ears. God may be excused for not listening for a while. They weren’t coherent. I was not blaming anyone, not God or a person or even that demon “Cancer.” I was just blistering the metaphorical air with my hurt.

It didn’t take too long for me to be mad at the world. “Why aren’t you stopping?” I shouted (silently). “My friend has died! Stop! Just STOP!”

Neither the world, nor I (to be honest), stopped. When has it? When, to be honest, have I?

Drew was far more than my experience of him. We were co-workers and friends. Drew was also a husband. It was a joy to witness his relationship with Debby. He was a father, and over the years the only thing that grew faster than Duncan and Dani was his love for them. He was a teacher and coach, and I had only a glimpse of that. He was a musician, and oddly enough the two of us didn’t make much music together, though we played the same gig once.

In the end, what can I say but this: He was my friend, and I have rarely made a better choice than to enter this friendship. Now he is gone, and I am deeply sad. The memories remain in their precious fragility, but more than that the love endures, and will endure beyond the end of time.

Why the Stories Have Returned

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment

Just a brief warning: this essay claims to share no great wisdom. It won’t give you either step-by-step hints about technology (a la An Ordained Geek Becomes a Televangelist) or assist you with deep reflection on a subject (a la… um). If you know you are interested in the way a pastor/writer/musician’s life works, this seems like something you’d appreciate. If you’re not, or don’t think you are, it’s harder to predict. Give it a try. Who knows? As well as learning something about me, you might learn something about you.

One of the most frequent descriptions people apply to me is: “storyteller.” It’s a title I receive with gratitude. I like telling stories. I like listening to stories. I like preparing stories for others to hear. I like interacting with them while I do.

As a pastor, I have always told stories, most often as part of a “Children’s Time” or “Moment with the Children” in worship. I’ve told stories in other contexts as well – places like summer camp or vacation Bible school – but for the most part they’ve had a place in worship.

For many, many years of my ministry, I prepared no more than a sketch for each story. I preached from notes. For stories I used no notes at all. Occasionally I would take time afterward to write the narrative in full, but that usually only happened when I’d had a specific request. As much as people told me they appreciated the stories, those requests were rare.

Then the stories became rare. For about fifteen years of my ministry I did not serve a local church. My responsibilities as a member of a UCC Conference staff did not include a great deal of worship leadership. I preached little and I told stories less – in part, because I developed the habit of telling one particular story the first time I spoke anywhere (that story isn’t on this blog, which I ought to correct at some point).

In 2016 I laid down my responsibilities in New England and took up the pastorate of Church of the Holy Cross UCC in Hilo. For the first time in a long time, I had to prepare a weekly sermon. For the first time in a long time, I had to prepare a weekly story.

During the preceding years, I’d made a big shift in my preaching practice. I’d switched to preparing a full manuscript rather than using notes. I’d done it, in fact, when I was invited to the pulpit of the church in which I worshiped. They had two Sunday morning services and the timing was a little tight. I had to control for time. A manuscript did the job. By the time I came to Hilo, I’d settled into the pattern and was happy with it.

I had not, however, made a similar adjustment with stories. The stories received no more than a few sparse notes. Within a few weeks I decided that I did want to share a written version of each one, so I began writing each story up on Sunday afternoon. The first was “Sun Astonished” in May 2016.

It turned out that this work process of Sunday afternoon note expansion wasn’t sustainable. Many of the church’s boards and committees met on Sunday afternoons, further separating the writing from the storytelling. Putting the sermon online required more work as we added an audio recording. The church’s electronic newsletter demanded attention on Sunday afternoons so that the office manager could send it Monday mornings. Gaps began to appear. In November 2018 “The ‘Apapane’s Own Song” became the last story to appear on this blog for over three years.

How have they returned?

Thank you, COVID.

When Church of the Holy Cross moved to an online-only worship format in March 2020 in the first days of the pandemic, I made a new shift in preparing sermons and stories. A streamed worship service, I felt, needed to take less time. I dropped several elements, mostly hymns and musical responses. I also merged the story with the sermon, or rather, I led the sermon with the story. For over two years the first words out of my mouth after the Scripture had been read were the first words of a story.

I began to craft the story as part of the sermon, and that meant that it would receive a full manuscript in its composition. That made sense for my writing process but it also made sense for the worship experiences I was trying to support. Along with the worship outline and response materials, I posted a written text of my sermon to the church website before worship each Sunday. Those with hearing difficulties or technical difficulties would have the sermon text to read as well as that of the pastoral prayer.

And, because it was the first thing in the sermon manuscript, they had the story.

On April 24, 2022, we resumed worshiping with a gathered congregation. On that first Sunday I continued the practice of combining the story and the sermon. I received some feedback, some very clear feedback, that that would not do. The young people liked the stories, but they also liked the time with their pastor, a time which said that they were important to me and to the Church and to God. Time with the Children returned on May 1.

When it did, I did not return to my long-time practice of brief notes. I kept writing the full manuscripts, and I also write the story before beginning the sermon proper. We continue to live-stream the service over the Internet, and that means a backup copy could easily be helpful. So now each worship service on our website includes a manuscript of the sermon, of the pastoral prayer, and of the story.

Those experiences do not and cannot match. In a virtual worship service, I could and did (mostly) read the story as written. With a congregation present – with children present – I do not use notes for the story except to remember certain words I’m likely to forget. I may have written a complete text, but I am still working from an outline in my memory.

Sunday afternoon has gained a new task. I still post the sermon text to the church’s website along with a video of the worship service. Side by side with that I post the prepared story text to Ordained Geek, accompanied by video of how the story was actually told in worship.

And that’s why stories have returned to Ordained Geek.

Photo by Eric Anderson.

Scripture and Poetry for Good Friday 2022

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 5 Comments
The video will premiere at noon HST on Good Friday, April 15, 2022.

These seven poems and the song are based on Scriptures associated with “the Seven Last Words of Jesus” – strangely, there are eight lessons. The video includes reading of the Biblical texts, reading of the poems, and performance of the song, “As We Bring Him Down.”

First Reading: Luke 23:26-32

You strode those streets to teach,
to worship and to heal.
You strode those streets to cast
the moneychangers from the Temple courts.

And now, with failing strength, you stumble up the street,
too weak to bear the instrument of death.
Where once you rode in festival parade
they follow you to mourn for what has been and what will be.

Second Reading: Matthew 27:33, 34, 37

I’m sure that Pilate knew just what he said.
This is what happens to the ones who claim
they have no emperor but Caesar.
King of the Jews? Claim the title if you like,
but know that title brings you only here,
to die upon a cross, not reign upon a throne.
So Jesus, claiming spiritual rule, will offer up
his spirit to the Roman callousness and fear.

Third Reading: Luke 23:35, 36; 23:34, 39-43

How strange a criminal, whose deeds “deserved”
a death of torture, understood the reign of God
much better than the priests, much better than
the Roman Governor, much better than the monarch,
better even than the ones who followed Jesus.
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
For Jesus, entry to that realm was not through gates of stone,
but gates of death. Beyond those gates our eyes
see only shadow, but to his, and to this criminal,
the shadows have been thrown by brilliant light.

Fourth Reading: John 19:25-27

Your friends look on, O Jesus. See?
Your mother Miriam: she weeps with Miriam
and Miriam. She will not urge you to a wedding feast,
not now, or prompt you to transform the vinegar
of death into a vintage rich with life.
Instead, as scarlet stains your hands and feet,
you transform stranger into son,
and woman into mother. Here amidst
the panoply of power and of hate,
you fill the purifying jars of love.

Fifth Reading: Luke 23:44-45

Who could not bear to watch from heaven?
Was it the sun, ashamed to the Savior die?
Was it the moon, unable to divert its gaze?
Was it the angels who had praised Messiah’s birth?
Or was it simply that the clouds must gather, too,
and witness bear, and mourn, and weep?

Sixth Reading: Matthew 27:46

Forsaken the Anointed One.
It seems so strange
that Son of God, Messiah
should cry out in
abandonment – or…
Does it?

Do we not hear the question echo
down the years, the centuries, and on,
“I was your God, and you my people,
and you turned away.”
We worship a forsaken God.

Seventh Reading: John 19:28-30

I could not blame you, Christ,
if you let “It is finished” be
your final word. You only came
to do us good, and we?
We desecrated you,
we desecrated the tree
on which we watched you die.

I could not blame you, Christ,
if you decided that we had
rejected your salvation – for we did –
and now could live in suffering – as we do.
And you, who stood for truth, nearly let
us live the lie, but you could not let
“It is finished” be the end.

Eighth Reading: Luke 23:46

“As We Bring Him Down”

The calloused feet that trod the miles.
The mobile lips the formed the smiles.
The fingers that bathed his friends’ toes
Are still – are unmoving –
Are released from the world and its woes.

[Chorus]

Hold him gently as we bring him down.
Throw aside the bitter thorn crown.
Lay him in the cloth we could find.
The world has been cruel to the kind.

The sparkling eyes that held yours in peace.
The worker’s hands that feared no disease.
The ears that heard more than we knew
Are still – are unmoving –
Are now just memory for a few.

[Chorus]

The open arms we have crossed on the chest
Where the loving heart beats not in his breast.
Draw the fabric across the dear face
So still – so unmoving
Oh to see it again. Oh to find such a place.

[Chorus]

Cross-posted at holycrosshilo.com.

Poetry and music © 2022 by Eric Anderson

What *Do* People Say to Ministers?

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

Author’s Note: I wrote this essay in January 2012 responding to a video produced by some people completing their seminary education. Those people have become treasured colleagues and effective leaders in the Church – they also decided to make that video private, so sharing the link won’t do anything.

I posted the original essay to Facebook. I’ve returned to it because the Memories feature drew it to my attention.

A video appeared in my News Feed ten years ago. I watched it. I recognized one of the actors. I chortled. I laughed out loud. And, being somewhat cautious in the language I use in public, I hesitated to re-Share it on my own Wall. It was, after all titled “[Stuff] people say to ministers.”

The word was not “Stuff,” of course. It did begin with the letter “S.”

I’ve been an ordained minister for thirty-three years. And I’ve heard most of the questions asked in the video over that time (I’m particularly fond of a sequence of blank stares). OK, I haven’t been asked about being a nun, and I haven’t heard many of questions about the Mayan calendar. I suspect that’s just chance. But I’ve certainly been asked what I do when it’s not Sunday, and people clearly stop before telling me certain jokes.

I watched it. I recognized the people being played by the actors. I chortled. I laughed out loud.

And I hesitated before sharing it on my own Wall, because I knew that this light, playful, slightly wistful mirror on the life of an ordained minister, which had been created by four people still in the early days of that life, could so easily be seen and heard as a dismissal of those earnest, honest people who dared to lay aside their ignorance and ask a question.

It wasn’t, and I know it isn’t, and so I commend the filmmakers, my colleagues and friends (alums of my own seminary), for their gentle humor, their earnest wrestling with the new shape of their lives, and their courageous honesty. I offer them my sympathy for the misunderstandings that did, indeed, come their way.

There are so many ways in which members of the clergy share the experience of other professionals, other “experts” in a field of study. We are sought out for what we know and what we know how to do – for exposition of texts treasured by communities for thousands of years, for comforting the bereaved in the midst of shock and loss, for expressing the needs and longings of a community to powers beyond us – and we are also subject to being dismissed for filling those expectations. The therapist frustrated by the client who rejects the advice “that sounds like something a psychologist would say” and the safety consultant dismissed for being “over-cautious” will recognize the experience of the preacher whose warnings about selfishness go unheeded because that, after all, is “what ministers always say.”

Like these other professionals, ministers may be discounted if they seem to step outside their field. The auto mechanic is unlikely to be taken seriously when giving stock advice, and the securities trader may be ignored when suggesting a remedy for car trouble. The minister faces this problem in the week-to-week exercise of the profession, however, attending to the management of a physical plant and to the oversight of financial resources. Not all ministers are good at these things. I, for example, am far better at recognizing plumbing problems than fixing them. Those who are highly skilled, however, may find it difficult to have their skills recognized by congregation leaders.

Ordained ministry comes with a huge load of cultural expectations, some of which have been confused amidst the shifts of culture, some of which have combined expectations from disparate traditions, and some of which have been muddled by imperfect transmission of the traditions. In a society increasingly disconnected from a common religious heritage, this puzzling welter of expectations is likely to only get more scattered.

As I said, I’ve been asked what I do when it’s not Sunday. It’s not really a bad question. Very few people prepare a new public presentation every week, so it’s difficult to appreciate the planning time required for a sermon (and indeed, the entire worship service). One hundred years ago, the pastor’s house-to-house visits which kept the community aware of its members’ needs were easily visible down the street or across the fields. Today, the pastor’s car blends in with the rest, and in cities and suburbs the pastoral visit is a rare event since families are only briefly together at the close of day. Planning meetings, hospital visits, and convalescent home calls are mostly invisible. It’s Sunday morning that can be seen.

But some of the questions reveal the power – and the constraints – placed upon clergy by others’ expectations. “Oh, so you’re a minister? I used to sleep around a lot in college.” It’s funny; it’s also a statement of profound honesty that I can’t imagine being addressed to a member of very many other professions. The mere mention of the vocation’s name invited a memory and a moral reflection. It’s an invitation (potentially, anyway) to a deeper conversation. The same is true of “Why do bad things happen to good people?” and “Can you lead us in grace?”

How many people, walking into a room, communicate the compassion of a community, and of a Power greater than any community, simply by their presence?

Likewise the constraints: the questions about musical tastes, and sexuality, and drinking, and swearing. “It’s so great that the church lets you out.” Oh, yes, and my favorite, the puzzled stares. Those are real. There’s a line in the ordination service which is so true it’s nearly universally ignored: “Set apart by the laying on of hands.” The cultural expectation, however muddled and confused, follows right along. Ordained people are, in some way we may not entirely understand, different. Set apart. Subject to a different set of expectations. Accountable in entirely different ways.

The best example I can come up with is the expectation about, well, dumb questions. Every professional, every worker in a trade, gets them. Few will be surprised at the occasional annoyed outburst. Hurt, perhaps, but not surprised.

From clergy, it’s not acceptable.

That’s not unique – many of the other helping professions come with the same expectation – but I recall the degree of shock and even some outrage which greeted Lillian Daniel’s exasperated (though considered) response to one-too-many casual “I’m spiritual, but not religious” conversations with strangers. She should have listened to the person, I read. There may have been wisdom she hasn’t heard.

Perhaps she should. Perhaps there was.

But if she was a therapist with years of study in her field and twenty years of counseling practice, would we so easily endorse a questioner’s statement, “I don’t need therapy for my failings. I’ve got my own resources.”

Perhaps we should. Perhaps he has.

But perhaps he doesn’t.

What do people say to ministers? They accept the invitation of the calling and the office to go places they might not go with anyone else in the world, powerful places of self-examination and spiritual exploration. They project upon the minister, the rabbi, the priest, the monk, all the power of spiritual community and spiritual Power, and reaching through that projection, they sometimes find the real thing.

And what do people say to ministers? They may also project their mistaken understandings of the office and the calling, and stumble into conversations that will take huge effort to end up somewhere good. Sometimes they’re innocuous and humorous – for Protestants, at least, that describes the questions about sex – but sometimes they’re not. “Well, I don’t believe that the world was created in seven days, so I don’t believe in God.” That’s a place it’s hard to move on from. Not impossible, but very, very hard.

Full credit to these, my now-and-future colleagues in this puzzling, precious calling. They’ve dared to ask the questions, because they’ll be faced with them as they live their lives: lives set apart by the laying on of hands.

Self-portrait by Eric Anderson.

2021: Not As Advertised

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment

It had such promise, you know?

COVID-19 vaccines were the great dream of 2021. I received my two doses in March and April, and the booster (after some delay due to supply concerns in Hawai’i and my confusion about eligibility) in December. Like so many, I believed that the vaccines would be rapidly sought by an eager public and that viral spread would slow and stop.

Well. That didn’t go as planned.

Like so many others, I watched with horror as furious supporters of electorally defeated Donald Trump assaulted police officers and broke windows to gain the Capitol building. It was a Wednesday, and I was just back from some time off (if not away). As I did on most of 2021’s Wednesdays, I sat down to sing one song on camera, streamed live to YouTube. It was the theme song of 2020, and also of 2021: “When Will We Find Healing?”

That night, we shared a Prayer Time for our Nation.

Over the course of the year, I composed twelve new songs (two of them are featured in the 2021: A Year video at the top of the page). I sang twenty one-hour Community Concerts in addition to all those Wednesday songs. I recorded What I’m Thinking videos. I wrote #LectionPrayers for this blog. I led worship online for Church of the Holy Cross. In June one of my poems was published in the collection Pitching Our Tents.

I spent far more time on camera than I’d ever believed credible – or desirable, for that matter.

Enjoying the company of dear friends in May.

The vaccine’s timing made a trip east in May an acceptable risk, and so I journeyed east to celebrate Rebekah Anderson’s graduation from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, receiving her Master of Divinity. I spent some time in Connecticut as well to visit my brother, stepmother, and several friends – but I didn’t get to see Brendan. He was still working on his master’s program in Bangor, Wales. I’m still really sorry that this pandemic made it unwise to cross two oceans and visit him there.

In April I represented Interfaith Communities in Action at the groundbreaking for HOPE Services Hawai’i’s Sacred Heart Village. Having been elected Chair of the Hawai’i Conference Council last year, in June I presided over the online 199th ‘Aha Pae’aina. In July I served as a delegate to the UCC’s General Synod, also online (more time on camera).

Summer brought reduced illness rates across Hawai’i and across the nation, and so I got to receive visiting friends once again. Polly and Bruce introduced me to a local cacao grower and chocolate maker. With Liz and Beth I ventured out to Kilauea again, and when David and his family visited in November we got a view down into the lava lake at the caldera summit. In June Church of the Holy Cross considered gathering the congregation for worship again – and then Delta arrived.

In just a couple of weeks we went from fairly low COVID-19 diagnoses to the highest we had ever seen. The highest we’ve ever seen – except for Omicron’s arrival in December, when we have been planning for worship gatherings once again.

No, the year has not gone as I had dreamed.

In October, as the Delta wave subsided, I headed east once more to celebrate the wedding of Ian and Sarah, joining Paul Bryant-Smith once more so that Boys in Hats could sing for one of their long-suffering road crew. The bride and groom had already married legally, but seized this occasion to gather friends (outside) and celebrate (outside) with all the joy we could muster.

We mustered a lot of joy.

I have to take off my hat to the TWA Hotel in New York. It’s the only hotel on the JFK airport grounds, and it was so relaxing to spend just a night there. The decor is deliberately anachronistic, recalling Trans World Airlines heyday in the late 1950s. The telephone in the room had a rotary dial.

I called the front desk to inquire about checkout procedures just so I could use it.

Back in Hilo, I finally resumed morning walks in December, at least when it wasn’t raining (and it rained a lot in December). I’d hoped to visit the Kilauea summit at sunrise, but rain has delayed that as well so photos and video of the lava lake in the dark will have to wait until… 2022.

I hope you enjoy the photos and the songs. Love to you all!

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Unreturned Compassion

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

I originally wrote this essay in 2010 as a Facebook “Note.” Since that portion of the service has steadily faded away, this seems an appropriate moment to republish the piece here at Ordained Geek.

In an opinion piece carried by the The Hour in Norwalk, my good friend the Rev. Paul Bryant-Smith, pastor of the First Congregational Church UCC in that city, makes the case that ‘It is our responsibility to defend our Muslim neighbors from slander.’ I commend the essay to you, and I have very little to add to it, except to note that the chorus of those American Christian leaders affirming interfaith relations of kindness and integrity is far larger than those opposing it.

As is frequently the case in these days of instant comment on the Internet, though, one of the latter voices appears right below Rev. Bryant-Smith’s. It’s discouraging, and it features, near the end, this dispiriting flourish: ‘So please, for this weekend of mourning and remembrance, save your one-sided message of unreturned compassion for your pulpit.’

That’s the crux of the matter. Unreturned compassion.

The argument goes like this: ‘They (pick a They, any They) did something bad to us/said something bad about us/think badly of us. That’s Bad.’

So far I agree.

‘Because They did this bad thing, They are Bad.’

Perhaps. All too frequently, one person stands as surrogate for another’s bad acts, with whom they can be identified because of (frequently superficial) shared characteristics. Guilt by association usually looks much different to the one being condemned than it does to the one doing the condemning.

But for the moment, let’s assume that the people named are no surrogates; They bear some actual responsibility. Are They therefore Bad People?

The Gospel word, the Good News, says both yes and no. Remember those whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices, says Jesus (Luke 13:2). Were they worse sinners than anyone else? ‘No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.’

Sin and sinning aren’t escapable things in classic Christian theology. We do the best we can, but we can’t be perfect. With absolute purity unattainable, we rely on the grace of God.

So are they Bad People? Yes. And so are you and I, in our own ways.

But now we really come to the heart of it. What are we to do with Bad People, with Them, and with You and with Me?

‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you’ (Luke 6:27-28).

Unreturned compassion. That’s the crux. That’s the center. That’s the Cross.

That’s where we have hope for a society that is greater than what we have. That’s where we will find (or at least glimpse) a blessed community. If we save it only for the pulpit, we’ll never have the glimpse.

Unreturned compassion. That’s the crux. That’s the center. That’s the Cross.

What I’m Thinking: Pitching Our Tents

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

This is a crosspost from holycrosshilo.com.

I’m busy with the UCC’s General Synod this week, so I’m reading a poem that has just been published in Pitching Our Tents: Poetry of Hospitality. It’s a fundraiser for the Peace Cathedral in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Here’s a transcript:

The first thing I’m thinking is how grateful I am to the Rev. Jonathan Roach, who will be filling the pulpit at Church of the Holy Cross this coming Sunday. I’m grateful to Jonathan for his time, but even more for the wisdom and insight that he brings to the message that he’ll share this coming Sunday. I know I look forward to watching the recording.

The reason that I won’t be in the pulpit is that this week I am a delegate to the General Synod of the United Church of Christ. The last plenary, in fact, occurs during our worship service and I seriously can’t be in two places at the same time. General Synod this year is being held online, via the Internet, so I won’t actually be going anywhere further than, oh, this desk right behind me. Still, it does mean that I will be spending a number of hours in committee meetings and in plenary sessions, and so therefore, rather than try to share a Scriptural reflection this week, I’ve instead turned to a small book that recently arrived in the mail. It’s a chapbook, that means a short book (a new word for me). It’s called Pitching Our Tents. It’s edited by Maren Tirabassi and Maria Mankin.

The book is an effort to raise funds for the Peace Cathedral in Tbilisi, Georgia. That site dedicated to peace is attempting to expand, to provide a space for a Jewish synagogue and for a Muslim mosque, called respectively the Peace Synagogue and the Peace Mosque. It’s a book full of poetry, and among the poems is one of my own. I was so flattered when Maren Tirabassi extended me the invitation. 

Maren has been reading some of the poems from this chapbook on her Facebook page. She also read one of mine and if I can manage to find the link I’ll include it.

But I did want to read my own poem for you. The title is “August 28, 2017,” and it is based upon a real incident that occurred when an ecumenical – interfaith – group of people chose to witness for peace and love and justice for people of all races.

August 28, 2017

Grass glowing green, sky beaming blue.
Sun streaming down upon the figures
stretched along the sidewalk, bearing signs
inscribed upon their neon glow that
“Racism is sin.” “Justice for all.” “Aloha not hate.”

The same sun heats the sober sable garb
of Buddhist priests and Christian clergy,
glints from clerics’ collars, shines from smiles
of Latter Day Saints and Unitarians,
of Anglicans and followers of Amida.

The sun has blessed this gathering of witness
to the spectrum of embraced humanity
because another gathering beneath Virginia’s sun
had stormed, consumed a human life,
to magnify their power to oppress “the other.”

Does the sun see shaka signs displayed
as cars drive by, or hear the horns that sound
in affirmation? Does the sun hear voices
raised in rage against the signs of hope?
Does it hear the words of poison spat again?

UCC and MCC, Hongwanji and Quaker
hear the calls of violence and know:
until the fury fades, while race and faith 
are used as reason to oppress, the signs
must wave beneath the sun in witness

To another day,
when tents are pitched
beneath the oaks of Mamre
and the traveler and sojourner
find peace.

From Pitching Our Tents: Poetry of Hospitality, edited by Maren Tirabassi & Maria Mankin

You can purchase this book – and I have no problems in advertising it because I’m not actually benefitting financially from this in any way. It is fully a fundraiser for the Peace Cathedral and the Peace Synagogue and the Peace Mosque. Go the Alliance of Baptists website and look to donate there for the Pitching Our Tents: Poetry of Hospitality (Note: the suggested gift is $10). You can find it on Amazon to have it printed and mailed to you. But also you’ll find that you can get it electronically. If you’re looking at this at either the ordainedgeek.com or the holycrosshilo.com websites, there will be links in the text to help you find this book.

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below; I’d love to hear from you.

By the way, did you know I have a YouTube channel? I do. It’s where live stream worship from Church of the Holy Cross lives, as well as musical performances and occasional appreciations of the beauty around me. Oh, right: and a weekly Scriptural reflection called What I’m Thinking. Feel free to check it out!

Pitching Our Tents

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 6 Comments
Pitching Our Tents: Poetry of Hospitality
Edited by Maren C. Tirabassi & Maria Mankin

Pitching Our Tents: Poetry of Hospitality is a special project of Maria Mankin and Maren C. Tirabassi supporting interfaith reconciliation and shared ministry in the Middle East. Specifically, the book will help fund the Peace Cathedral (Baptist) in Tbilisi, Georgia, in its quest to build spaces to include a small synagogue and a small mosque beneath its roof.

The chapbook (I had to look that up; it’s a short paperback booklet) features the work of thirty-two contributors from seven countries beyond Georgia. Their poems rise from roots in experiences of inclusion and connection. I am honored to be among the writers.

Maren Tirabassi writes, “Peace Cathedral in the Republic of Georgia was established as First Baptist Church of Tbilisi in 1867. Its history is full of dangerous activist stands, and it has been involved in interfaith work for more than twenty years, trusted by Muslim, Jewish, Yezidi and other religious traditions, in a context where the more dominant Christian culture often responds violently against minorities. They are constructing a mosque and a synagogue under the roof of their church building to turn it into a spiritual home for Abrahamic faiths. In addition, there is a Centre for Interfaith Dialogue, an interfaith adult library and a children’s library with programming and summer camps. Their pilgrimage program brings people to visit the Republic of Georgia to learn about the hopes and struggles of people of all of these faiths.”

In these days of complicated publishing, obtaining a copy of the chapbook is fairly straightforward – making sure that the purchase funds the Peace Project may be a little more difficult. Follow these steps:

  • 1.     Go here to donate to the Peace Cathedral via the Alliance of Baptists. The suggested gift is $10.00.
  • 2.     To pay by credit card, select 1. On the second line of the form, where it states, “Other Designation,” please write in Peace Project – Tbilisi. To pay by check, choose 3, and write in Peace Project – Tbilisi on the Memo line.
  • 3.     Use this Book Funnellink to receive your free electronic copy of Pitching Our Tents: Poetry of Hospitality with a choice of e-book formats or a PDF, in thanks for your support of the Peace Cathedral.
  • 4.     If you would like a print copy, it is available on Amazon. The cost is as low as Amazon will allow (this only covers the printing cost). The authors do not receive royalties from this, nor will the proceeds go to the Peace Cathedral, so if you’d like to support them, please follow the donation steps above.  

Published

In some ways I consider this my first foray into being a published author. I mean, look: I’m in a book! In truth, though, I’ve been a published author for a long time. I spent seventeen years writing for the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ (now part of the Southern New England Conference UCC), eventually becoming senior publications editor. My by-line appeared on newsprint and on glowing screens, and it has also appeared in United Church News.

My work as a poet has appeared almost entirely on my personal blog. So is that… published? Well, I think it is. It’s potentially visible to far more people than ever saw my columns in the print editions of ConnTact. I grant you (with a ruleful smile) that the readership has, well, not risen to its potential.

What sets this moment apart for me is not the format or the publisher, but the invitation. I have admired the work of Maren Tirabassi for longer than either of us care to admit. Her compliments on my work published in this blog have filled me with deep gratitude. To have her ask me to contribute… Well. I practically fell over myself to say yes. And write something.

Behind the Poem

Photo by Eric Anderson, August 28, 2017

For the moment, I’m not sharing the poem here. I will eventually, unless I forget, which is possible. I encourage you to gain access to the poem by supporting the Tbilisi Peace Project with a donation; that’s the purpose for which I wrote the poem in the first place. I will, however, tell something of the story behind the poem.

On August 12, 2017, the “Unite the Right” rally sparked racist violence to Charlottesville, Virginia. Marchers chanted Nazi slogans against non-whites. They chanted slogans targeting Jews. They raised the flags of slave-holding and rebellion. One sped deliberately into a crowd, and Heather Heyer died.

The nation’s leadership failed to condemn the racist and anti-Semitic platforms of the marchers, famously claiming there were “good people on both sides.” Demonstrations sprung up around the country condemning the white supremacist foundations of the Charlottesville rally, calling for repudiation of racist ideology, policy, and activity. Among the places was Hilo, Hawai’i. Interfaith Communities in Action gathered a small group for an hour’s roadside sign-waving on Monday, August 28, 2017.

What the planners, including me, had not expected was a counter-protest.

A smaller group gathered across the street, purportedly protesting against abortion but with signs, speech, and a bullhorn clearly opposing the anti-racist stand of ICIA and its participating communities. They chose one name to shout, taking it from the press release announcing the rally. That name was mine. I heard it clearly shouted in tones of threat.

A few of the counter-protesters even ventured across the street to confront us directly. There was no violence, but for weeks afterward a photo of myself appeared in the group’s materials, identified as a false minister. I reflected on the events in a Pastor’s Corner in Church of the Holy Cross’ The Messenger.

Graduation 2011 & 2021

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

Graduation 2021

I wrote and posted this essay on June 18, 2011 – ten years before this update. I wrote it about my son Brendan’s impending graduation, and I appended a video of his remarkable presentation for the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts’ Senior Celebration earlier that month.

Today Brendan anticipates another graduation, though it’s a few months away. He’s working on a Master of Arts degree in Arthurian Literature at Bangor University in Bangor, Wales. His sister Rebekah received her Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary just last month. Their accomplishments continue to thrill and astonish me.

In the last ten years, the “central truth” I chose to tell through their childhoods has asserted itself again and again. Humanity’s purported dominance of the world collapsed last year, not to earthquakes, storms, or fires, but to a virus. Humanity’s purported wisdom fractured into power games. Humanity’s inventiveness could not keep up with humanity’s willfulness. The United States of America, self-proclaimed greatest nation on earth, still holds the lead in the greatest number of deaths attributed to COVID-19. Despite this, some cling to folly as if it were virtue, and some of them hold power.

My children’s careers have already taken sharp turns from my own. I stayed continuously in school from the age of 4 to the age of 24. At 25, I entered my chosen vocation of pastor. The road from there to here has had more than a few unexpected turns, but today I work as a local church pastor much as I did in 1988.

My son and daughter have taken more time to consider their vocations. Even today, with master’s degrees in hand or nearly so, they continue to weigh new options. Perhaps they learned something about the hazy nature of “plans” from my erratic career. Perhaps they have just been wiser than I was… or perhaps they have been wiser than I am.

Once more they cross the “stage” that arbitrarily separates one season of their lives from another. Once more I wonder what this new season might bring. Once more I realize that they bring fullness of life to this season, and to the next, and to the next. Once more I realize that in them I have been richly blessed. Once more I pray that they will find rich blessing in the season before them.

Once more I rejoice to be part of their seasons.

Graduation 2011

On Monday, my firstborn child will take a few more of the steps into adulthood. He will walk across the platform and receive the diploma that marks the close of his public school education. With scores of other parents in the seats, and thousands across the nation, I will applaud him. My heart will fill with joy and pride, and my eyes with tears.

Adulthood is not conferred by arbitrary markers such as age, education, or achievement, but it is suggested by them, sometimes even confirmed by them. My son will be very little more mature on Tuesday than he is today (I can hope for at least a little bit), but this is one of the milestones used by our society that shouts loudly indeed. Even though I’ll continue to support him for some time to come – college tuition comes to mind – even in my eyes he can no longer be the boy I’ve known so long.

I hope I’ve been a wise father. In some ways I suppose I resemble the metaphorical “helicopter parent,” hovering over my children. I still read aloud to my children every night, and they still tolerate it. I still walk to the bus stop in the morning with them. This Thursday I saw my son onto a school bus for the last time.

If I am a helicopter father, I’m one who has chosen to tell a central truth. Life comes with pain, and pain comes with life. I had few options about concealing this truth. At a very young age my son learned a great deal about pain and fear, when his baby sister needed treatment for a life-threatening illness. I didn’t try to lie to him about pain, and risk, and heartbreak, and fear. These are realities of the world, and even the most loving parent in the world lacks the power – not the desire, the power – to hold them all in check.

I hope I’ve succeeded in doing what I set out to do instead: to make it clear that though I could not necessarily protect him, I could be with him. There is pain, but there is also comfort. There is death, and there is life. There is sorrow, and there is joy.

I don’t know how well I did with that. It’s a life lesson, and he’s plenty of time to learn it. For the moment, I ache for his disappointments. I ache for mine as well, but I ache especially for his. To some extent, I know, he has made or found his own comfort. To some extent, I fear, his hurts endure.

And I know, imperfect person that I am, that I have inflicted or contributed to some of those hurts, for which, my son, I am most sorry.

I am a minister of the Gospel, and he’s paid some of the price for that. I spent too many evenings away from the supper table, unable to lend my voice to the bedtime story. He has endured the pressure of being a “P.K.,” pressures I can’t wholly know. I lost my relationship with his mother, and I can hardly imagine the tears he’s shed for that, only know that they had an echo in my own.

And it must be said that my flaws of personality, intelligence, and wisdom have nothing to do with that vocation at all, and he’s suffered for those, too.

My son sees, and he dreams. He dreams, and he thinks. He thinks, and he writes. He writes, and he speaks. He’s eloquent, and far more wise than I remember being at that age. He clothes himself in black, to make something of a suit of armor for himself, even though he knows it does not protect him and cannot. And he still he dreams of Camelot: of “the powerful fighting for the powerless, instead of exploiting them.”

My son, go forth and make it real. There is pain, and there is no armor that will keep it from you; there is no shield you can place before anyone else that will entirely prevent them from suffering. But there is also brilliance, and eloquence, and wisdom. There is generosity, and joy, and courage. There is strength and resilience and endurance. There is faithfulness and honor, there is love, and laughter.

My son, there is life. You have it in abundance.

So go forth into Tuesday morning, and the Tuesday mornings that follow. There are books and classes still to come for you, there is time to splash about in the lake. There are long trips and short excursions, there are embraces and there are kisses. There is sorrow and loss and disappointment, and son, there is life.

And if you’d like someone to stand with you when you stand in your armor, hoping your courage will last, call. I walked to the bus stop with you. It’s just one more step.

Congratulations, son.