Reflections on a 67th Solar Return* - Part II

[Continued from Part I]

 

A Lot of Teachers Along the Way

 

At the end of the day on which I began my 67^th orbit around the sun, I found myself awake late that night. As I lay in my bed surrounded by the soft snoring of Andy, my beloved life partner of 46 years, Oscar, our dachshund and Saidy, our beagle, I found myself looking across my room at the family tree bearing photos that looms above the family altar I have assembled below. It includes family of birth as well as family of choice. And in all honesty, I ran out of wall before I could include all the faces that I’d love to place there.

 

I have been blessed with a wide range of friends all of my life. Some came into my life for a season and then departed. Sadly, not all of those departures were on good terms. I still feel the pain of them and I fear some of them may as well. I regret that.

Others I have known and loved since first grade in that elementary school in Bushnell and our friendships continue until this day. And then there are my non-human companions without whom my life would have been incomplete. And finally, I have had loving relationships with several people in my life, male and female, all of them leaving an impact on my life. 

I treasure them all.

What occurred to me as I began to drift off to sleep was what a rich life I have been privileged to live. And here I wish to express my gratitude for that richness.  

Through no merit on my own, I was born into a very bright, thoughtful and loving family matrix. I grew up under the guidance of two college educated parents who would travel the world, literally, before they died, and encourage their children to do the same. I have two siblings who are equally bright, thoughtful and educated. A black nanny, Henrietta, was also an essential part of our family. Her love and wisdom shaped me amidst a segregated, bigoted society. And I was the beneficiary of a tight knit family that extended to grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who played major roles in my life.

For my family of birth, I am grateful.

Like my parents, I, too, have been able to travel the world, now to four continents (still missing Australia, Africa and Antarctica) and all 48 continental states (still missing Alaska and Hawaii). It has been a vital part of a life-long love of learning and I have been fortunate to be able to pursue the education I have always cherished all of my life. 

That began with a stellar two years at Lake-Sumter State College in nearby Leesburg – a great relief after the time I labored in a high school dominated by future farmers, football and hunting where kids like me had no place. That was followed by an undergraduate degree in history, secondary education with minors in political science and journalism at the University of Florida.

Those areas of study foreshadowed the shape my life would take. There would be a brief career as a public school teacher. Many of my students would be poor kids in special ed programs. That would be followed by a law degree again at UF and several years of practice, mostly with poor people.

Then there would be a divinity degree for which I’d cross the country to study at an Episcopal seminary in Berkeley that allowed me to become an ordained Episcopal priest (I still have a hard time believing this sometimes). I would also begin a long period of visiting Latin America and engaging liberation theology as a result.

All of that would come together in my doctorate in Religion, Law and Society at Florida State University. The fact I was able to get admitted to all these schools and to find funding for them, most of which I paid back in the form of loans, also speaks to my good fortune if not my privilege. I have had wonderful teachers in all of the schools I have attended. I am grateful to them all. 

But the school of life experience has also been at least as important as the formal education in which I have spent most of my life as either student or teacher. A child of the 1960s I watched rockets blast off to the moon from just across the state and lived through the desegregation of schools. My work history began in the pepper fields of Central Florida and would extend to serving as a consultant for nationally published college textbooks. I have served in the halls of Congress as an LBJ intern and as an international election monitor in war-torn El Salvador.

The Buddha is purported to have said that “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” Apparently I have been ready to learn all of my life. And I have had a wonderful assemblage of teachers.  

 I have had the opportunity to hear in person the wisdom of teachers from Jimmy Carter to Fred Korematsu and from Mary Daly and Suzanna Heschel to Cornell West. I have studied with some of the finest minds on the cutting edge of western religion from Gustavo Guttierez to Richard Rohr and the rest of the Living School faculty to Matthew Fox and the staff of the Institute for Culture and Creation Spirituality.

But I also am in the debt of teachers who bore no credentials but who had wisdom to impart to me simply by sharing their daily lives. I learned much about the value of hard work and the gratitude we owe the working poor who ensure that we all have our daily bread from those I labored among in the agricultural fields of Sumter County.

 

I owe much to my students at every level who may well not have known that they taught me as much I taught them along the way. I often called my college students at Valencia and UCF my Jedis.  I still believe they will change the world. It is one of my life’s greatest pleasures to watch their lives as adults as they make their own impacts upon the world.

I learned much as a public defender from my impoverished clients who opened my eyes to the life of the working poor and my own privilege. And I will always be indebted to the village of Las Guabitas in the middle of the Panamanian countryside where I lived for a summer. It was a life changing experience that taught me about generosity, community and the value of the human person in the context of deep poverty, war and societal deprecation.  

Perhaps most importantly, I have learned from a series of difficult lessons from the suffering I have endured in my life, some of it unmerited, some of it self-inflicted.

My parents had always encouraged me to dream boldly. But the doors did not always open for me to say the least. A dogged but hopeful persistence arose from that reality.

I didn’t get accepted to law school my first application and I had to take one part of the Bar Exam twice. I had substantial rewrites required of me during my comprehensives in my doctoral program. And my path to ordination as an Episcopal priest was long, harrowing and the result was never a given right up to the very end.

With each disappointment – and there were many  - I picked my hurting soul up, dusted it off, and began working for the next round of challenges. I learned early on that what was worth attaining required perseverance.

I learned a lot about “good ole boy” politics along the way and the values of the white professional middle class, a place within which my educational attainment had secured for me even as I found that lifestyle to be largely alien to my deepest values. I learned first-hand the dehumanizing impact of homophobia. Dealing with the irrational prejudices of others would be a constant throughout my life starting with the bullying I endured in public schools. I also learned the costs of pointing out the elephant in the room, speaking out about racial and class injustices. The costs of that outspokenness would be extracted from my very soul in my darker days lived out in places with names like Inverness and the Orange County Juvenile Justice System.

In the process, I have endured a lot of self-inflicted harm, suffered through a lot of hangovers, periodically teetered on the edge of taking my life and more than once finding myself in situations in which I barely escaped with my life.

And yet, I am here to tell about it, all of it.

I am a believer in the miracle of grace. And I am a case study in the power of redemption in virtually every sense of that term. For that I am deeply grateful and I am very clear I was never entitled to any of it. I also have a sense that the squad of guardian angels that has protected me for all these years is going to want to have a little talk with me when I arrive at the Pearly Gates.

I recently had a chance to see The Greatest Showman on Earth on HBO. When the Grammy Winning song “This is Me” was performed, I sat up in my chair, electrified by what I was hearing. As I watched the parade of human beings demonized as “circus freaks” striding down the street undaunted by the gauntlet of angry, frightened townspeople through which they passed, I heard a chorus of my own life story being sung there:

“I am brave, I am bruised

I am who I'm meant to be, this is me” 

It has taken me all of my life to own all of who I really am. Loving who I am is still a work in progress. But I am a lot closer to it than I’ve ever been. For that I am profoundly grateful.

 

Deepest Gratitude for a Rich Life

At the end of the day September 1, as I was about to drift off to sleep, a couple of thoughts occurred to me. First, while I’m not totally sure what my soul desired in coming to this life, if it was life lessons that would allow my soul to grow, I think I’ve done a pretty good job of finding those opportunities. While my life has never been devoted to amassing of material riches or power, I have had a very rich life nonetheless.

And that led to the second realization. Should I die today, I would have lived a very full and purposeful life. It has been an unusual life, unpredictable and unorthodox from the start. It has never been free of pain. But always rich. I could die tomorrow without regrets.

That said, I should hasten to say that I am in no hurry to die just yet. I love retirement. I have no obligations to anyone or anything that I cannot ultimately say no to.  Retirement gives me time to tend to my beloved jungle, read the hundreds of stacked up books I’ve promised I’d finally read, and I even find some time to write. I am happy I finally have a chance to function part-time as priest in my parish. And the myriad of projects I attend to from commemorating the Ocoee race massacre to engaging in Jungian depth psychology keep my mind stimulated. For all of that I am grateful. 

But I feel I still have some things to attend to before taking my leave. Indeed, I sense that all of the life I have led up to now has been preparing me for something yet to present itself. I recently heard a quote from Carl Jung that seems to sum this up:

 “To this day God is the name by which I designate all things which cross my willful path violently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans and intentions and change the course of my life for better or worse.”

Whatever that G-d might have in mind, as I begin this 67^th year of a very rich life, I await it.

For now, as I begin this 67^th revolution around Brother Sun, I simply need to express my gratitude for the rich life I have lived and for the many people who have played a role in it. I pray that I will prove ready for what may come next. And I thank those who have taken the time and trouble to read my reflections herein.

I understand that a saying popular among 12 Steppers is “More will be revealed.”  Of that, I have no doubt.

* The solar return chart is an astrology chart that's calculated for the exact moment the Sun returns to its "natal" or birth position.    

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Harry Scott Coverston

Orlando, Florida

  mailto:frharry@cfl.rr.com

  hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

  If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

 Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

 For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

 Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

   © Harry Coverston, 2020

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Reflections on a 67th Solar Return* - Part I

 

Tuesday (September 1) I celebrated my 67th birthday. Like the day I was born, it was a hot one. My Mother never let me forget it was the hottest day in 1953 when I was born in Good Samaritan Hospital on the shores of Lake Worth in downtown West Palm Beach. All of my life my Dad would tease me by calling me “Yankee” - a culturally contextualized slight for families with Southern roots like mine - because I’d been born across Lake Worth “within sight of the Kennedys.”

I spent my birthday doing things I love as I think everyone should. First thing on the agenda, coffee mug in hand, was to conduct a virtual Morning Prayer for St. Richard’s parish from my home computer. It was the Feast Day of David Pendleton Oakerhater, an indigenous man once imprisoned here in Florida in the old Spanish fortress, Castillo de San Marcos, in St. Augustine, only to emerge a Christian missionary and become an ordained Episcopal deacon in Syracuse, NY. 

I love the synchronicity.

Truth be told, I’m not terribly fond of these virtual processes. I think the term “virtual” is generous given the benefits they supposedly provide. And there are a lot of headaches involved. But in a time of pandemic, I recognize virtual is the best we can do for the time being. And so I began my day at my desk talking to a computer screen, leading a religious service.

Go figure.

 

“Where Mayberry Meets the Twilight Zone”

 

The next part of my day was spent in one of my favorite places, the Cassadaga spiritualist community about 45 minutes north of here. I love the Victorian homes and the intensely spiritual sense of the town. Andy always goes with me as I meet with my medium for my annual check-in. He says the town has a good vibe to it.

After my reading, I always spend a little time in the little shops there. Last year I came away with a tee-shirt bearing one of the unofficial mottos of the town: “Cassadaga – Where Mayberry Meets the Twilight Zone.”  This day I was looking for a post card for my Wiccan friend, Luci,  and some polished stones to display in ceramic pots around my home

Supposedly each of these stones bears some kind of spiritual power. The lapis lazuli stone was advertised as bringing “inner power, love, purification, intuition, positive magic, self-confidence, manifestations.” (Wow, I could sure use some of that!)

Now I don’t know if these stones will bring about “positive magic” but I am clear that stones generally carry valences that impact those around them. One only has to spend a half hour among the weathered rocks along the shores of Iona in the Inner Hebrides or the tidal pools at the beach at Pacific Grove, California to know that. These are decidedly deeply spiritual places.

I was struck by the practice that I observed all across Israel of small stones atop grave markers left in remembrance of departed loved ones. I believe a bit of the energies of those who leave visible tokens of their ongoing devotion remains present in the stones they leave behind. 

I have taken to engaging in this practice myself. When I visited my Mom and Dad’s grave in the National Cemetery near Bushnell a few weeks ago I left behind two small polished black pebbles atop their grave, one for each of them. As I placed each stone I reminded them that I love them, miss them and am always happy to encounter them in my dreams as I frequently do.

“Deep Calls Out to Deep”

From Cassadaga we drove east, headed for the Atlantic, through some of the last vestiges of natural Florida left before the arrival of the bulldozers. I grew up in a 1960s Florida that was just beginning to blast off into a frenzy of unregulated population growth. The coming of air conditioning and mosquito control would eventually make Florida the third largest state in the country in population before I turned 60.

There is a mournful sense among these remaining woodlands and their unseen inhabitants as we pass through this day. How anyone could understand the replacement of this natural beauty with gridlocked highways, endless strip malls and soulless tract housing to be “development,” I am not sure.

 

It would only take us an hour to get to another of my favorite places in the world, the beach at Cape Canaveral. There we would order our lunch from a local pizza joint on A-1-A that has perhaps the best spinach pie I’ve ever eaten. From there we’d drive the mile over to the ocean at Cherrie Downs Park. The boardwalk among the sea grapes there has just been rebuilt and today there was no one sitting in the pavilion at its end. With a roof over our heads to keep the intense noonday sun at bay, the onshore breeze coming off the ocean kept us cool as we ate our lunch.

I realized a long time ago that I can never live very far from an ocean. In the middle of the country I find myself becoming disoriented, losing my breath, overwhelmed by an almost claustrophobic panic as I drive through places with names like Iowa and Nebraska. It’s almost as if I can hear my soul screaming out “Where is the water? And how quickly can we get there?” Perhaps that’s not surprising for someone who was literally born on the shores of an ocean.

Standing in the sand looking out over the incoming waves is where I feel most at peace. I cannot go long periods without visiting the ocean. My soul needs Mother Ocean, as fellow Floridian Jimmy Buffet called it. As the psalmist said, deep calls out to deep.

I can never go to the shore without at least getting my feet into the water. So after lunch we quickly waded through the heated sand, much of it recently pumped from just offshore in a renourishment project, and down to the water. It was high tide and the descent from its eroded cliff to the water itself was brief and sheer. But the cool water was worth the clamber down particularly given the intensity of the sun overhead.

 

On the far horizon the gantries for the Space X launches were visible. I never cease to be amazed by the magic of the space program. At a very basic level, the space program is a part of my Florida soul as well.

At the water’s edge I would gather my second round of treasures this day from among the small seashells and pieces of coral rock that covered the beach. My pockets jingled with my finds on the way back to the car. But as much as I love the beach, it was just too hot to stay on the beach very long this day. And given my upcoming visit to the dermatologist to have yet another chunk of skin with its basal cells excised, it was better to be safe than sorry. 

 

Birthday Dinner, Cake and Presents

But the celebration of the day of my birth was definitely not over yet.

I arrived home to unpackage the treasures I had collected at Cassadaga and Cape Canaveral and found another waiting for me. My niece, Grace, who has lived with us for the past year, had made me a birthday card. I love her cards and they are special coming from her. I have learned a lot about being in the position of a parent this past year. Grace has been a good teacher. And I have come to have a lot more respect for parents as a result.

It was the perfect ending to a perfect birthday.

 

At the end of the week, my Brother, David, and Sister-in-Law, Ruth, would take the three of us out to dinner. It would be the first time I’d been to a restaurant since February. We ate out on the open-air porch surrounding Miller’s Ale House in Winter Park. We had the whole end of the porch to ourselves so it was low risk. The staff all wore masks and observed social distancing.

Dining out is definitely not the loose, easy and gregarious experience it once was, but I was grateful to have had this night even in the midst of what is hopefully a waning pandemic.

The night was capped off with birthday cake and presents at David’s house. Ruth gave me one of her paintings, an image of a Royal Poinciana (Flamboyan) tree in full bloom. I have loved those trees since I was a little kid in South Florida.Her style is very reminiscent of The Highwaymen who used to sell their tropical landscape paintings along U.S. 1 in South Florida. As a kid I remember seeing them with their paintings propped up against ramshackle cars along the shoulders of the highway. I particularly cherish having an image in their style to add to the many other images I have gathered from around the world in this unpredictable and unorthodox life that I have lived.

It would take me a week to read through and respond to all the birthday messages I got. That is a nice burden to have. Several people called and left messages. A few sent emails. Over 200 people sent me birthday greetings on Facebook. For a man who has spent much of his life feeling unsure of himself and his value as a human being, this kind of affirmation is, overwhelming. 

[Continued in Part II]

* The solar return chart is an astrology chart that's calculated for the exact moment the Sun returns to its "natal" or birth position.    

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Harry Scott Coverston

Orlando, Florida

  mailto:frharry@cfl.rr.com

  hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

  If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

 Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

 For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

 Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

   © Harry Coverston, 2020

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"To Bind Up Our Wounds"

“Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”

 

 

 

This morning’s Gospel reading has a very familiar ring to this recovering lawyer. It lays out a 3 step procedure for resolving disputes within a church. The process is designed to reconcile differences which hopefully will result in the reintegration of those who have run afoul of the community. Failing that, it provides a means for communities to police their ranks and remove those who disrupt them.

 

Matthew urges those who have been harmed by others to “Point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.”          But, as is often the case, those confronted with the harm they have caused others are not always receptive to hearing their failings pointed out to them. Denial is always more than a river in Egypt.

 And so the writers of Matthew lay out a procedure to resolve the conflict within community: Try talking with the wrongdoer along with two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, bring them before the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, kick them out.

Those familiar with Hebrew Scripture will readily recognize this legal procedure. The requirement for three witnesses is right out of the Torah. As is often their custom, the writers of Matthew have dipped directly into the inkwell of Jewish scripture to write their gospel, this passage coming directly from the book of Deuteronomy.

 

 A Pattern That Transcends Time and Culture

If you’re thinking this really doesn’t sound much like Jesus, you’re right. And there is a good reason for that: This simply isn’t Jesus talking to us. It’s the early Jesus movement speaking to itself. 

The key giveaway here is the reference to a church. Jesus was not a Christian and there will be no church as we know it for another couple of centuries after Jesus has died. The gospel of Matthew is a work of the second generation of the Jesus movement living in the period following the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple by the Romans in 70 CE.

What had begun with Jesus of Nazareth as a Jewish messianic movement had become an increasingly Gentile body which was now evolving into a separate religion. Not surprisingly, this evolutionary process was marked by conflict. 

The Jesus movement would find itself increasingly at odds with the Jewish synagogues from which they were emerging. Before it was all over, the Jesus followers would find themselves expelled from those synagogues and alienated from their former coreligionists. The Gospel of Matthew is rife with the bitterness which marks this parting of the ways.

So why did the canonizers of the Christian scriptures include these passages in this gospel? If Jesus did not actually say these words, why attribute them to him? And why continue to read them in our lectionaries all these years later?

I suggest that the reason this passage is included is because Matthew knew it had something to say to people of faith in every age that we need to hear. Despite the myth that Reformers spun of a golden age before the Catholic Church corrupted it when all Christians believed the same things and got along famously, in fact a wide range of understandings of what it means to follow Jesus has marked our tradition from its very beginning. And so, not surprisingly, divisiveness and schism have also been an important part of our history from its outset. Indeed, we need go no further than our own parish’s long struggle with the local diocese to know that first hand. 

Moreover, such conflicts are hardly relegated to churches. We live in the most fiercely polarized time in our nation’s history since the Civil War. Many of us have stopped speaking to those whom we have confronted privately to no avail and then publicly with as many witnesses as might encounter our exchanges online. Our social media these days is rife with urgent messages to “unfriend me if you disagree.” So there is a reason that this passage from Matthew was included in the Christian canon. It speaks to a very human pattern of behavior that exceeds both time and culture.

St. Paul knew those conflicts well as the reading from his letter to the Romans today reveals. It is consistent with much of what we hear from St. Paul in his letters to the developing Christian communities. His repeated message often boils down to something like this: Be nice to one another. Act like you love one another even if you have to work at it. Show others respect even if you deeply disagree on issues you both consider to be fundamental. And, remember, others are watching.   

Bear in mind that if St. Paul felt the need to tell his communities to act like mature adults, you can bet it’s because they were failing to do that.

His words today are striking: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments… are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

That last line is worth repeating: Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefor love is the fulfilling of the law. When love of our neighbor is our ultimate concern, it supersedes any differences we might have with them. The dignity of their person becomes the bottom line in the way we will respond to them.

Love That Runs Deeper Than Differences

My Dad died about four years ago. My Father and I rarely saw eye to eye on a number of things, not the least of which was politics. Toward the end of his life I spent a lot of time with him over at our family home in Bushnell discussing genealogy, his medical treatment and his estate which I would eventually administer. In his later years Daddy had become a Fox aficionado.  Now I have never had a lot of time I was willing to devote to the fare served up on Fox. So I began to take a book with me to read and a set of earphones to listen to meditation music to drown out the noise of the television.

It was only after a couple of visits that I suddenly realized one night that my Dad had begun to mute the TV when I was there. It was a small concession on his part. But it spoke volumes about the two of us. What we both had realized was that our political differences were less important than the loving relationship we had shared with one another for 63 years. And that became more and more true as he neared the end of his life. I look back with gratitude for that time we had together. And I believe it holds a lesson for my life and for others as well.

 Two Possible Paths

Whatever the result of the election in November, the deep divisions within our nation will not disappear overnight. Much like Matthew’s embittered synagogue exiles, the resentment and rancor that arose during the period of separation of our competing groups will not go away overnight. Indeed, it is in part the failure to reconcile the differences of the first Civil War in our nation that have led to the current cold civil war that threatens the ongoing existence of our nation today. 

Our lessons today present two options available to us. We can, like Matthew, go through all the procedures of divorcing ourselves from one another and going our separate ways, demonizing the other in the process. Or we can take St. Paul’s advice to the Romans. We can look past our differences on the surface to the deeper relations to one another we share and let love of neighbor inform our responses to them.  

Let me be clear here. That first path is dangerous. Abraham Lincoln recognized a similar danger when he said at the dedication of the Gettysburg battlefield, that the question of his own time was whether his nation, or any nation conceived and dedicated to democracy, could long endure as a house divided against itself. Lincoln was clear that the deadly path of tribalism with its mutual anathematization of the other would not lead in the direction of endurance. The same is true in our own time. 

Lincoln also provided us with some advice on how to avoid that fate that sounds a lot like what St. Paul is telling us today. In his Second Inaugural Address, with an end in sight of the war which divided them, Lincoln begged his countrymen and women to act “with malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right.”  Lincoln called on his listeners to “[S]trive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds.”  

That calling is our calling today.

 

Lincoln believed that human beings could call upon their better angels to find the way to transcend their differences. While I agree, I believe it will require more than that. Clearly it will demand the humility to recognize that each of us, no matter how assured we are of our own understandings, could be wrong. And it will require that we engage in ongoing self-examination as to what motivates our interactions with others. As St. Paul said, if love of neighbor is that foundation, everything else will fall into place.

But if we are being honest with ourselves, we will admit that we cannot live into such a challenging calling alone. If there has ever been a time when we needed G-d’s guiding presence in our lives as a people, it is today. 

It’s important to remember that there are two parts of our responses to our Baptismal Covenant. The first part is “I will” but the second is equally important: “with God’s help.” Our recognition of our urgent need for G-d’s guidance, strength and healing presence in this time of testing of our nation’s soul is reflected in the collect appointed for today and so I close with it.

 

Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

 

 

A sermon preached at St. Richard’s Episcopal Church, Winter Park, FL on September 6, 2020.

14^th Sunday after Pentecost, Propers 18

Texts: Romans 13:8-14, Matthew 18:15-20

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Harry Scott Coverston

Orlando, Florida

  frharry@cfl.rr.com

  hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

  If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

 Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

 For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

 Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

   © Harry Coverston, 2020

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