Day by Day goes by and I still struggle to get beyond my little space. I am very lucky to have my wife by my side to give me a reason to still struggle with this world. I doubt there are any readers of these words but I write because I wrote for so many years that when I started to be quiet, I was suffocating with my own thoughts! I have not really lost my faith --- I still think there is a power beyond this human existence; yes, there were times when I was completely lost in this world. I had destroyed my life, lost everything of meaning in my life. I had hurt so many people, not because I meant to, but I was a hollow shell. I was frightened, depressed at times by anxiety. I could not understand life, I could not hold on to anything or anyone!
But here I sit, living through Covid and watching the world struggle, our population spending too much time blaming others for one thing or another. Prior to covid, I witnessed about 40 % of our population in this country become emotionally ill; they were trying to overcome our democracy with thoughts that simply did not make sense to me. Though I was born a liberal, what else can a mental patient be right, as a priest I served a majority of conservatives in SE New Mexico. I had no trouble loving them for they were my flock, and it was my job not to argue politics but to care for them. Being a liberal, I always looked to my conservative brothers and sisters as checks on my thoughts where I had to think through what I believed for they taught me, as a liberal, "not to throw the baby out with the wash!" I was grateful to my true conservative friends, who were my brakes, where I would not become so far left where I could no longer communicate --- where I could not reason communicate with my conservative friends and flock. But I was a liberal, I supported women for priesthood in the Episcopal Church or any church. I supported the Gay movement because I simply knew God in Christ simply asked me to love, not telling me why or how but to love above all. Remember I studied in a real and true Methodist Seminary. I studied the Bible both in West Virgina Wesleyan College and the St Paul's Seminary, Methodist. I learned that there were Christians who would pick and choose whatever they wanted, to "string pearls" to prove not what was really in scripture but rather prove what they wanted scripture to say, to back them up in what they believed! Yes, I graduated from Seminary and loved the Bible as the history and the story of a people who struggled to understand and follow God --- full of fables, legends stretching way back to a world who as of yet could not communicate with a book. When they could write and gathered all sorts of written stories of faith, or the lack thereof, some big church committee 'decided' what they considered as holy enough for the Bible and what was not good enough--- I love those giant committees (have you ever served and on a very large committee --- not an easy task)! I also love history in and of itself and was able trace this faith community as they passed through the years to our very day. Very enlightening but if you were going to use the Bible as something that proved your way of thinking, there was always another group of the faithful who did not quite see the story meaning what you thought it meant. Plus remember the 'drunken' scribe who had too much to drink and couldn't quite keep his thoughts straight. Yes, you can prove just about anything you want by pointing to some scripture or another. It truly is the greatest book ever written about the struggle of humankind to believe in something more than themselves. But of course there were books from other cultures who described a different journey with God. I did take a course Islamics and the Koran.
Well, I got on soap box, sorry about that!
But I sit in Happy Valley, Oregon, wondering what is going on in this world. Yes, I believe in 'global warming', all you have to is watch the daily weather reports about new records in temperatures, more windstorms in our country and around the world, and yes, the water level seems to be rising. Should I be worried or maybe it is best to put my shutters on my eyes and my mind and just put one foot after another, to just live day by day because I have children, a job and stuff right in front of me that is enough.! I would also have to consider that about 40% of people around me seem to be suffering from some psychological enigma where fascism seems okay for it will block having to deal with human problems, let 'Big Brother' (MAGA) take care of all that, then I do not have to think about the problems of the larger world. People seem to think the country's problems are way over their head and they are not smart enough to deal with these problems (or do not want to be bothered), maybe some dictator will handle the problems. Yup dictators in the world have always done great jobs throughout history. I will ignore the fact that I read anything revealed anything about the world of 'Big Brother!'
Since I feel these words are simply floating around in cyberspace and I not have to answer to any faith-oriented thoughts, right? But even though I am probably writing to myself and do have to deal with all those years I spent preaching the Word of God (maybe I should have let Him speak for himself)! Good Grief, I do remember, I started studying the Christian Faith and the Church way back when I lived at 15 Foster Place, Hempstead N.Y. As a teenager, I studied the Methodist Course of Study. It was a long way back studying to get a Local Pastor's License! I used this license to be a Local Methodist Pastor to a Four-Point Charge (four little churches) in College at West Virginia Wesleyan College in ole Buckhannon, West Virginia. This was same Methodist Church that kicked me out the ministry years later after I had graduated from seminary. The Church did need to act but to discharge, cut off mentally ill pastors and dispense with them so they would not contaminate the church --- really did not seem to fit ministry of Jesus. Recently I tried to get the United Methodist Church to find the record of my studies for Local Pastor --- 'but of course' this was not something they could find or do! Best way to deal with mentally ill people is get rid of them --- remembering this was the Church lead by Christ! (I will say I did have several 'real' Methodist Pastors who tried to get the Church to help me -- but their efforts fell on deaf ears. Remember I fought my way back to mental health somewhere in my thirties remembering I had two major breakdowns, one as a teenager, then in my twenties. Eventually with the help of a Episcopal Bishop and other lay people, I got back into the ministry (I was accepted on the second try by one vote, I might mention)! But gratefully I was ordained Deacon and then to the Priesthood by the same Bishop Richard Trelease who believed I had recovered from life-long battle with mental illness. (Might mention that I did pass two complete psychological exams) Yes, mentally ill people do recover! I never forgot this miracle and became advocate for the mentally ill and for a time was a Mental Health Counselor and a Director Mental Health Facility At this time I was also I was fulltime Rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Artesia, New Mexico. If there is anyone reading this, I want to witness to a real truth --- I am 84 years old, a Bladder Cancer Survivor, Prostate Cancer Survivor, Skin Cancer Survivor, also survived a AAA (I could list a bunch more with heart and gastro, but you get the point) I want to witness to this truth: all the pain of these physical illnesses (could have listed eyes too) in no way, even scratches surface of the pain, the agony, fears and Pure Hell of mental illness. The real Insanity is the fact we have closed Mental Hospitals and now my brothers and sisters who live these illnesses live on the streets, in tents if their lucky, by the thousands. A real Sin of Humanity!
Yes, I am a Christian, still a retired Episcopal Priest after serving for 30 some odd years. I was a small man, in a small church, in a small town! (Artesia, New Mexico) Never earned more than a 'minimum salary' in the Diocese of the Rio Grande --- and whether you believe or not this was by choice for I turned down several 'calls' to bigger and better parishes because, for some reason, I became interested and supported the survival of the small Mission and Parishes. Don't ask me why maybe I was frightened of Big Churches because when I was sick it was a Big Church botted me out! Yes, I deserved discipline, but I also needed help for I was destroying my life and the life of my family and continued destroying lives around me.
But whether you want to believe it or not I did get well! Somewhere, somehow on a mountain top in New Mexico (Capitan) above Valley of Arabella I received a message " Herb get the hell off My Mountain and get back into life, you are not a guru or prophet. Yes I am still a man of faith because I left that mountain, I left that valley and for the first time, I walked as a man 'healed' of mental illness and travelled to the town of Roswell, NM (I could see the lights of that town from the top of Capitan). Day by Day my life was put back together --- I found a job with trouble youth, met a woman who had the courage to love me, and gift of son I could adopt and call my own and finally I once again could serve people as a Pastor. Though am I sincerely upset with much of the Christian Church, who have not in the majority really followed the simple two great commandments its Leader gave to them. They spent their time dividing themselves into hundreds of denominations: hell, if they don't believe in 'what I know as the truth' I will simply start another 'True' Church. These 'True Churches' some are the largest some are smallest --- but they all tell the world who the 'real' believers are --- they tell people what to believe and how everyone should live and love! I still follow the God of my youth not because I think I have found 'the way', no I follow in hopes of Him showing me just the simple few facts of how to I can be truly human, truly loving, truly forgiving. The Church cannot be 500 different denominations who tell you what it really means to be a Christian, saying only they have the Real Truth; who the Good and Bad People are, who and how to love, who you can kill and who you cannot kill! Who and what to love and those you should condemn to hell (or maybe simply ignore)!
I can tell anyone who is listening, maybe no one --- I know less now at 84 years of age, than the day I was born! If the Church was the Church, why war, poverty, destruction of the very planet we live on? If there is a truth we can live together, why all this hate, why all this division (yes, most especially between supposed Christ Followers?) Some declare we are a Christian Nation, that has never been the case. What convicts us is all the wealth these denominations possess -- not just money, but buildings, land, and all the side businesses and hidden property? The wealth of the Christian world if it was turned to money, to truly serve the poor, the sick and dying, where would we be. Yes what about the wars we stand by watching trying to side with those we think are right --- but Russians and Ukrainians are dying by the thousands, and somehow we cannot stop it. People are now celebrating, Right to Lifers now celebrate they have saved the babies in someone else's womb --- yet they do take of the orphaned children; many Christian support capital punishment (so sorry if we made a mistake 'to err is human), wars continue to continue. I am old enough to have lived 'The War to End All Wars --- how far from the truth was that? Look at our nation, we have more guns than nation in the world. We have folks who proudly ware a pin of a cross next to a pin of an AR15! Really? How many would really choose their Bibles over their guns?
I am sorry, I do not want anyone to die, I do not want enemies, I have no right to have enemies! When I think about all this history I have studied; I know enemies 'are made', they are made not of themselves but by others. Noone is born an enemy!
Enough for today, just words of an old guy, 84 years old and not the smartest cookie in the jar --- but even average me has dumbed down by the world I live in--- Yes, I knew more on the day I was born than I do this day. If there anyone reading this, if you are offended by my words, I am truly sorry. I am a man of faith who fights to hold onto something sacred --- but my eyes are dimming, my hearing is fading, my body is almost ready to die, yet, here I am at a keyboard, still searching for a truth that will save humanity; I was born in 1939 --- I have seen enough death, we kill each other over and over again: what kind of animal are we? What is the Image we human's portray to the Universe? I have to hold on to my faith for without it, how will I find any meaning to this life? I just want to be able to love, love all people, I don't want enemies, I do not want to be an enemy of another! I know I was not born to evil ---that is not how I came into this world!
