Story: Independent

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

March 24, 2024

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Mark 11:1-11

The ‘amakihi aren’t the most social birds in the world. They often forage by themselves, with their mate, or with a few family members. When the hatchlings have left the nest they sometimes join loose flocks of other ‘amakihi, ‘apapane, ‘akepa, and so on. But not always.

One young ‘amakihi took this a little further than most. He announced to his family and friends that he didn’t need anybody.

If you looked at things a certain way, that seemed true. An ‘amakihi doesn’t need a lot of help to find food in the forest. They eat pretty much anything. They’ll eat nectar. They’ll eat fruit. They’ll eat bugs. In fact, mostly bugs. If it’s edible on the mountain, the chances are that an ‘amakihi is eating it.

Although they will fly above the trees, the ‘amakihi are very nimble fliers. They can stop dead in the air, which is quite a trick. They don’t worry too much about the ‘io or the pueo. If they’re above the trees when they spot one, they can dip back into the trees pretty quickly and the ‘io doesn’t have the turning ability to keep up through the branches and trunks. It’s a careless ‘amakihi that becomes somebody else’s meal.

So the other ‘amakihi weren’t entirely surprised when the young one announced, “I don’t need anybody!”

“No help to find bugs?” asked one.

“No need!” he said.

“No help to find water?” asked another.

“No need!” he replied.

“No company?” asked his mother.

“No need!” he announced, but maybe a little too quickly and a little too loudly.

“All right,” said his grandmother, and the little group of his family and friends flew away and left him there alone.

It was fine for a day. He ate well. He kept an eye out for ‘io. He had good places to rest.

It was fine for a second day. He found an ohi’a grove nodding with blossoms.

It was starting to feel not so good on the third day. He hadn’t made his way through all the ohi’a yet, but he felt heavy and kind of sad. The sweetest bugs didn’t cheer him up.

On the fourth day he realized he was lonely.

He sat and sang a sad little song, one you don’t often hear from an ‘amakihi.

The branch he was sitting on bounced down and up, and he turned to see his mother perched there. She listened to him finish his sad little song. Then she waited.

“I think I need somebody sometimes,” he said.

“I’m not surprised,” she replied.

“Really?” he said.

“Everybody does. We don’t live by bugs and nectar alone.”

The two of them flew back to find the rest of the family and a less lonely future.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in advance (it’s what you just read) but when I tell them it’s a time of re-creation, not recall.

The photo of an ‘amakihi is by Eric Anderson.

Kicking the Cobblestones

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments
A mosaic of a boy feeding a donkey, ca. 5th century CE.

“[Jesus] said to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” just say this, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.”‘” – Mark 11:2

I was just minding my business, which is:
Kicking at cobblestones. It’s what I do.
Others may carry the great and exalted
or strain to haul carts, but not me. Oh, no.

I kick at the cobblestones. It’s what I do.

Along come these dudes. I’d never seen them
or smelled them or known them, so what did they do?
They untied the rope that ran from my halter
along to the post. I didn’t panic. Or move.

I kicked at the cobblestones. It’s what I do.

Give me a chance, though, idiot dudes,
and I’ll kick your cobbles. You know that I will.
They fussed at the rope and they petted my nose.
I sniffed them for sugar, but they weren’t that smart.

I kicked at the cobblestones. It’s what I do.

A couple of neighbors – I’d seen them before –
spoke to the dudes. I paid no attention.
I had my afternoon plans good and set.
Neither neighbors nor dudes would bollix those up.

I kick at the cobblestones. It’s what I do.

There’s a tug at my halter. Both neighbors and dudes
are nodding, and telling me, “Come along now.
The Lord needs your services. Step down the road.”
I’d have reared or planted my feet, but I went along.

I kicked at the cobblestones. It’s what I do.

Next thing I know there’s cloth piled on me.
I thought about kicking it off. It was hot.
But then there’s another dude sitting upon me.
I braced then to toss him off, placing my feet,

Kicking the cobblestones. It’s what I do.

“A moment,” the dude said, and breathed in my ear,
“I need you today,” and his hand brushed my neck.
Are you kidding? There are others who’ll carry
and haul. They’re not me. I’m my own. I won’t carry at all.

I’ll kick at the cobblestones. It’s what I do.

But my hooves took their steps down the Bethany slope,
into the valley, along to the gates.
There were people about and they shouted, “Hosanna!”
They laid clothing and branches ahead of our way.

They covered the cobblestones – but it’s what I do.

I kicked at the cloth and I kicked at the greens.
The dude on my back, well, he chuckled at that.
“Kick away, little friend,” came that intimate whisper.
“It won’t be too long ’till you’re back home at last.

“And kicking the cobblestones.” It’s what I do.

With anyone else on my back I’d have bolted.
The noise and the heat, the dust made me sneeze,
the leaves made for treacherous footing beneath,
so that kicking made balance a tenuous thing.

When kicking the cobblestones is what I do.

The dude left my back with a softly said, “Thank you.”
Two of the dudes stripped the cloaks from my spine.
They turned me around to the gates and the valley,
and back up the Bethany hill to my home

Where I kicked at the cobblestones. It’s what I do.

A poem/prayer based on Mark 11:1-11, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Sixth Sunday in Lent, Liturgy of the Palms.

The borrowing of a “colt that has never been ridden” is an odd element in the odd story of Jesus’ serio-comic “triumphant entry” into Jerusalem. Mark gave it twice as much time as he gave to describing the procession itself. The entire project of borrowing an unridden colt begs for disaster: arrest for theft, an animal that refuses to move, Jesus careering through the streets on a bucking colt. I don’t claim to have captured the colt’s perspective in any real way here. Hopefully I’ve given some idea how odd it all was.

The image of a child and a donkey is by a Byzantine mosaicist of the 5th century – The Yorck Project (2002) 10,000 masterpieces of painting (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=148600.

Promise Unfulfilled…?

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. – Jeremiah 31:33

Of all the promises you’ve made, O God,
through human speech of ancient poets, this
I wait for most expectantly. Oh when, I ask,
will human hearts be oriented to your will?

From Jeremiah’s day to this, I do not see
a sudden change in human righteousness.
Not even Jesus’ resurrection prompted us
to set aside our greedy lust for power,

Our tolerance for prejudice,
enshrining it in law that breaks the Law
I yearn to feel a-written on my heart.
How bright would be the dawn of such a day!

But God, I fear that knowledge of your law
within the heart would do no better than
to write it on papyrus, paper, wood, or stone.
We learn it, and we know it, and we break it.

So did you, have you, written on our hearts,
and did we find a way to curtain it away,
as centuries of Christians have ignored
the Savior’s last command to love?

I tremble that this promise is fulfilled.

A poem/prayer based on Jeremiah 31:31-34, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year B, Fifth Sunday in Lent.

The image is Cry of prophet Jeremiah on the Ruins of Jerusalem by Ilya Repin – http://www.art-catalog.ru/picture.php?id_picture=11437, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3257688

Story: Weird

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

March 10, 2024

Numbers 21:4-9
John 3:14-21

“I think they’re weird,” said the ‘amakihi.

“Definitely bizarre,” said the ‘akepa.

“Not like us,” said the ‘apapane.

“Not like us at all,” said the i’iwi, who usually doesn’t take part in this kind of conversation but was close enough to overhear.

“They’re not so bad,” said the elepaio, but nobody was listening to him.

“They don’t eat nectar,” said the i’iwi.

“Not everybody does,” said the elepaio, who didn’t.

“They’re not brightly colored,” said the bright orange ‘akepa.

“I’m not either,” said the elepaio, who wasn’t.

“They sit still all the time,” said the ‘amakihi.

“Not everybody needs to hop around to find food,” said the elepaio.

“They don’t sing out the way they could,” said the ‘apapane.

“Would you sing out when there’s an ‘io overhead?” asked the elepaio.

The other birds finally noticed that the elepaio was there.

“What are you going on about?” they asked.

“I don’t see that there’s anything that strange about the ‘Oma’o,” said the elepaio. “In fact, most of the things you’re criticizing are things you could say about me.”

The other birds were silently embarrassed for a while. Some of them had, in fact, said similar things about the elepaio when they thought they wouldn’t be heard.

“Don’t you think they’re different?” asked the i’iwi, who most of the others thought was kind of different himself.

“Certainly they’re different,” said the elepaio. “Different doesn’t mean strange, or bad, or wrong, though.”

The birds were silent.

“If it helps any,” said an ‘oma’o who was sitting there quietly and completely unnoticed in some koa, “I can’t help think that you’re all rather different, too. But you know,” she said thoughtfully, “it seems to work for you.”

The birds looked at one another: red feathers, green feathers, tan feathers, black feathers, yellow feathers, long beaks, short beaks, different shapes to their wings.

“You’re right,” said the ‘apapane thoughtfully. “It does seem to work for us in our different ways.”

“Not so weird.”

“Not so bizarre.”

“Different from us, but it works.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

We had a technical failure and lost the audio from the beginning of the story this week. Our apologies!

I write these stories ahead of time, then tell them from what I remember of what I wrote. Since I don’t remember things perfectly, and since I invent new things in the telling, the story I tell may not match the story I wrote.

Photo of an oma’o by ALAN SCHMIERER from southeast AZ, USA – OMA’O (9-4-2017) pu’u o’o trail, kipuka ainahou section, hawai’i co, hawaii -06, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74675325.

Nicodemus Nods

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

“And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.” – John 3:19

Too close to power, Nicodemus,
to be unaware
of what a savage place the palace, or
the council chamber, is.

The finest houses are adorned
with “those retired”
by the coups and calumnies
of those who rule.

Sometimes they’ve stepped across
the corpses slaughtered
on the battlefields of Munda
or the streets of Rome.

By sprays of blood or of dishonor,
Caesar’s heirs and Herod’s
threaten you, poor Nicodemus,
and you know it well.

The light has come into the world
by law and prophets’ words,
and greed has shrouded it in murder, theft,
and royal robes.

So nod, then, Nicodemus, as
you ponder on the snake
which, lifted up, no longer threatened life
but gave it back again.

How strange to find the light at night
as Moses’ people found
their healing in the very form they feared.
So, Nicodemus, nod.

The day approaches when you’ll gaze
upon the lifeless form
of light, and carry it into the dark,
and light will shine once more.

A poem/prayer based on John 3:14-21, the Revised Common Lectionary Second Reading for Year B, Fourth Sunday in Lent.

The image is Nicodemus by JESUS MAFA, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48385 [retrieved February 28, 2023]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).

Story: No Signs

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments
kolea (Pacific Golden Plover)

March 3, 2024

Exodus 20:1-17
1 Corinthians 1:18-25

The kolea had successfully made his first flight to Hawai’i the previous fall. He’d hatched a young bird in Alaska, he’d been fed by his parents, he’d learned to find his own food, and eventually he’d taken off for the long journey to Hawai’i. He’d found a spot here to look for worms and seeds and berries. He’d worn his mottled tan and brown feathers through the winter months. He was starting to put on the black and white feathering of summer.

He’d also been paying attention to people. I advise you to pay good attention to people, because you are people, and paying attention to people who are people like you helps you to learn how to be people, and it also helps you to know what other people are going to do, like when they might step backward and one people steps on another’s people’s toes.

Um. Person’s toes.

While it’s useful for people to listen to people, it’s not always so useful for other creatures. For some reason, this kolea heard a lot of people talking about signs. If you want to find your way to Hilo, follow the signs. If you want to find your way to the beach, follow the signs. If you want to go not too fast and not too slow, follow the signs.

Where, wondered the kolea, would he find signs on the way to Alaska?

Mind you, people do put signs out on the waters. If you look around Hilo Bay, there are marker buoys out there to help boats find their way to the harbor mouth and back home. They’re easier to see at night, when they blink red and green. As you get further from the shore, however, there are fewer of them, and not many at all across the vast expanse of ocean.

The kolea hadn’t noticed any on the way to Hawai’i, and didn’t expect to see any on the way to Alaska.

“Where will I find the signs?” he asked.

“Why do you want signs?” an older kolea wanted to know.

“People use them all the time,” he answered, and the other kolea thought he meant kolea people rather than human people, and flew away because he wasn’t making any sense.

It was another older kolea who sat him down for a heart-to-heart, brain-to-brain, and feather-to-feather talk.

“What signs do you expect to see?” she wanted to know.

“Clouds, stars, lights, glowing plankton in the ocean,” he said.

“Did you see any coming here?” she asked.

“Of course I did,” he told her, because those things happen around the oceans.

“Did they tell you how to get here?” she asked.

Well, no, they hadn’t.

“How did you get here?” she asked.

He gave her an answer that he understood, and she understood, because they’re both kolea and they can fly three days over open ocean without signs, but that I don’t understand because I’m a human person and I don’t know how they do it.

“The signs are inside you,” she told him.

We live with a lot of signs around, it’s true, telling you everything from what the name of this church is to how far it is to Kona. Some things, however, and some of that is in our lives of prayer, take place within us, in our hearts and in our souls. There are signs for that, like the Bible, but down deep we’ll find the guidance of the Holy Spirit to bring us safely home.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time and tell them in worship services from memory. As a result, the prepared text and the told story rarely match. I’m quite pleased how much of the paragraph with all the people I remembered this week.

Photo of a kolea in Hilo by Eric Anderson.

First Denial

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / Leave a comment

February 21, 2024

[Verses]

Don’t you like it, Simon, when I say
that your Messiah is not what you want?
Don’t you like it, Simon, when I tell you
I’ll be raised up on a cross?

Of course you don’t, dear Simon.
How could anyone be pleased to hear
Messiah is no conqueror,
except to turn the tables on Death.

I told you, but you wouldn’t hear it, Simon.
You tell me how to live my life
and die my death, and no. That’s not yours
to settle or define. It’s mine. And God’s.

Ah, Simon Peter, my dear Rock,
so hard of head, transparent of heart,
so certain of things that must be true,
and come to pass, and be:

I chide you hard for this denial now.
A night will come when your denials will
tap like a clock ticking toward dawn.
And then, I will not chide,
for you will turn aside

And weep.

© 2024 by Eric Anderson

This song is based on the #lectionprayer “Simon Peter’s First Denial.” As you’ll find there, I was asked if the poem had been set to music. It hadn’t – but now, with some lyric adjustment, it has.

The song’s premiere performance was on February 28, 2024.

United

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 5 Comments

For Jews ask for signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. – 1 Corinthians 1:22-24

Even Cephas, who when travelling with Christ
was always first to say it wrong, agrees:
Do not divide the church.

Apollos, now, whom some of you
prefer to me, prefer to Christ, agrees:
Do not divide the church.

I asked him if he’d come to you,
and do you know the words he said? “No.”
“I could divide the church.”

If you must give me up to live in Christ,
then do it. Give up Cephas, too.
Do not divide the church.

I was not crucified for you.
My resurrection still is years away.
Do not divide the church.

Or else – what follows then?
A Church dividing like the fractured bread –
Do not divide the church –

But unlike when our Savior broke it
on the hillside, who will eat?
Do not divide the church.

Across the centuries, I see it. So can you.
Love abandoned for these power plays.
Do not divide the church.

Or they will follow your example.

A poem/prayer based on 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, the Revised Common Lectionary Second Reading for Year B, Third Sunday in Lent.

The image is Saint Paul Writing His Epistles by Valentin de Boulogne (between 1618 and 1620) – Blaffer Foundation Collection, Houston, TX, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=596565.

Story: The I’iwi in the Flock

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

February 25, 2024

John 15:16

It was summertime. The nests around the ohi’a and koa forests had had their eggs, had had their cheeping chicks, and had been emptied. Young birds were flying about with their parents and aunties and uncles. The summer flocks were coming together.

Much of the year, the honeycreepers of the Hawaiian forests don’t gather in big flocks. They move about by themselves or in twos or threes. But in summertime, they gather, and they gather ‘amakihi with ‘akepa with ‘alawi and even some ‘apapane. But not, most of the time, i’iwi. When nesting time comes back around the flocks disperse. In summer, they fly together.

A young i’iwi watched a flock of ‘amakihi and ‘akepa and ‘apapane skimming the trees as they searched bugs and blossoms. He turned to his grandfather. “Should we fly with them?”

“Oh, no!” humphed his grandfather. “They don’t have the right kind of beak.”

In fact, none of the birds in the flock had the long curving bill that the i’iwi did.

He asked his grandmother, “Should we fly with them?”

“Oh, no!” said his grandmother. “They don’t have the right color feathers.”

The ‘apapane came closest, but he had to admit that you could see the difference.

“Should we fly with them?” he asked his friends, and they all said, “No! They can’t do what we do!” in different ways.

A day later, all by himself, he approached the flock, and perched next to an ‘amakihi.

“You don’t have a long curved bill,” he remarked.

“No,” said the ‘amakihi, somewhat puzzled. “I don’t.”

“It seems to work well enough,” said the i’iwi.

“It works pretty well, I think,” said the ‘amakihi.

“It might be awkward to get into an ohi’a blossom from below,” said the i’iwi, and the ‘amakihi admitted this was true.

“You don’t have bright red feathers,” said the i’iwi.

“True,” said the ‘amakihi. “Mine are bright yellow.”

“Do they get you places?” asked the i’iwi.

“They got me here,” said the ‘amakihi.

“Can you do all the things I can do?” asked the i’iwi.

“Probably not,” said the ‘amakihi. “Can you do all the things I can do?”

“Probably not,” said the i’iwi.

Then he asked, “Do you mind if I fly along with your flock?”

“With your red feathers and curved beak and things I can’t do?” said the ‘amakihi. “Join us and welcome.”

That’s how an i’iwi became part of a summertime flock.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories, then tell them from memory. Since my memory can be erratic, the stories as told rarely match the stories as written.

The photo of an i’iwi is 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

Simon Peter’s First Denial

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” – Mark 8:31-33

Don’t you like it, Simon, when I say
that your Messiah is not what you want?
Don’t you like it, Simon, when I tell you
raising up will be upon a cross?

Of course you don’t, dear Simon. How
could anyone be pleased to hear
Messiah is no conqueror, no King
except to turn the tables over Death.

I told you, but you wouldn’t hear that, Simon.
You tell me how I’ll live my life
and die my death, and no. That is not yours
to settle or define. It’s mine. And God’s.

Ah, Simon Peter, my dear Rock, so hard
of head, so transparent of heart,
so certain of what must be true,
and come to pass, and be:

I chide you hard for this denial now.
A night will come when your denials will
emerge like clockwork ticking toward the dawn.
And then, I will not chide, for you will turn aside

And weep.

A poem/prayer based on Mark 8:31-38, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Second Sunday in Lent.

The image is The Denial of Saint Peter by a Follower of Hendrick ter Brugghen (ca. early to mid-1600s) – http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/follower-of-hendrick-terbrugghen-the-denial-of-5747353-details.aspx, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29903198. In a rather-quick-and-not-very-diligent search, I did not find many artistic renderings of this scene in Mark 8. I chose to look into the connections, tenuous as they are, between Simon Peter’s rebuke here and his denial of Jesus in Mark 14.