​
“When you welcome the stranger, you welcome Jesus.”  — 
 
The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry
Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church
​

Many Americans stretching across our wide political divisions, to the left and right and in the middle, are now welcoming Afghan refugees to America.
 
“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” – Hebrews 13:2

​
There are ways you can help through many organizations.

Refugees admitted to the United States for resettlement come through the United States Refugee Admissions Program, or USRAP. The USRAP is an interagency and public-private partnership; Episcopal Migration Ministries is one of the nine national agencies that works in partnership with the US government to resettle refugees.
​

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​Episcopal Migration Ministry Resources and Steps in the Process

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To help fellow Americans impacted by hurricane Ida please consider another gift to Episcopal Relief & Development services.

​Contribute

Responding to 2021 Hurricanes


​

— Opinion
 
HONORING OUR DEMOCRATIC VALUES

The USA criticizes China, Russia, Myanmar, and other forms of authoritarian governments for being anti-democratic and illiberal, in the classical sense of liberal democracies. And yet, too many Americans refuse to see or acknowledge that GOP controlled State Legislative efforts are intended to restrict voting and in a significant way voter suppression and oppression under the false claim of “Election Integrity.”
 ​
They cannot claim voter fraud, it does not exist, so they create a new term, a novel vocabulary. GOP controlled state legislatures are trying to fix something that is not broken. They are creating a crisis where there is none. All this controversy is false. It is a controversy, which never had a basis in fact. Please recall, that audits and recounts confirmed the accuracy of the vote count in Georgia and elsewhere, and lawsuits there and in other states by the Trump campaign and allies failed to show otherwise.  In case after case, they lost every one of those cases in a court of law, under the rule of law.
 
However, President Trump still sought to discredit the 2020 election, and is still doing so today.  We are now eight months past the November 3, 2020, election and his hardcore supporters and base are still believing his lies. He unlawfully asked Georgia's Secretary of State to change the vote totals. This is the “Big Lie” he still repeats today in his public appearances.

In response, Georgia, Florida, Texas and other state lawmakers are moving to repair an electoral system that was never broken and proven to be secure. The 2020 election was the most assured ever. This is what authoritarian autocratic governments do to gain and retain power. This is what the GOP leadership is doing and supporting at a state and national level.
 
There is no election fraud, there is no rigged election, there is no stolen election. There may be though if we do not question what is happening now. These are all false claims, arising from State Lawmakers who cite public concerns about election security based on lies. Based on Trump’s "Big Lie."

These concerns were originally generated by disinformation that President Donald Trump spread week after week while trying to overturn the election. An overall effort that culminated in the events of January 6, 2021, when the Capitol was stormed, and Congress placed in danger. Please do not allow this history to be rewritten or reframed by others. Democracy needs friends, now, more than ever.
 
Why have people forgotten January 6th now and want to dismiss and discount what happened? Why are GOP leaders ignoring what happened on January 6th and the storming of the Capitol? Why are they trying so hard to revise this narrative and create a revisionist history?
 
Why is the GOP embracing and encouraging these anti-democratic and illiberal measures and means? Why is the GOP supporting autocratic authoritarian measures that erode our American values of democracy and our global leadership role as the world's oldest democratic Republic?

Why are GOP leaders willing to abandon this nation's historic role as the leader of the free world? Why are they abandoning and destroying our democracy?
 
It is important for us to remember that the protection of fundamental human rights, and certainly the right to vote, was a corner stone in the establishment of the United States over 200 years ago.  That good work was always a work in progress.  It still is today.

We must recall that since WWII and the formation of the UN, the central goal of U.S. foreign policy has been to promote and encourage a respect for human rights, embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
 
“The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections, which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.”
 
We cannot embody and promote these democratic values globally if we are not willing to honor and protect them at home. To act in any other way, to pass laws that limit and restrict the power of any single person's right to vote becomes the highest form of hypocrisy. As Americans who value their democracy and the rule of law, we must not let it stand, it must not be so.

15th Amendment

1.  The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section

2.  The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

I've heard arguments from various people, include our two Senator's from Texas, that this is a "States' Rights" issue, but the 15th Amendment still stands. It is still a part of the United States Constitution.

And the Voting Rights Act is still a law of the land, and a part of the Rule-of-Law we hold dear as a nation and within any democracy.  The VRA still protects minorities, "languages minorities" included, and voting dilution actions from discriminatory voting practices.

Texas Democrats are well within their right to question and to prevent any steps to undo and undermine these values, to resist the passage of unconstitutional and anti-democratic restrictive voting laws in Texas, and to seek and support new Federal legislation that strengthens the 15th Amendment and Voting Rights Act.  This is how democracies work and should work, and it is a part of our Democratic Republic representative form of government.


Critical Thinking Matters — History Matters — Leadership Matters – Character Matters – Democracy Matters — Truth Matters — Tell People the Truth
​

Leadership Matters – Character Matters – Democracy Matters

Tell them the truth...

​FOR the last four years and more America has lived in a post-truth world, absent of truth. Our democratic republic has been assaulted on many fronts.  We have now gone past a point where truth no longer matters too many. The truth is fluid, it is whatever someone claims, especially the ambitious politicians who would misuse and misdirect the anger and fear of many people to advance their own path to power.  

DO not let them twist this time of anguish and angst to suit their own ends and gain that power to the detriment and destruction of America.  Demand more of them now, today. Ask them to tell the truth and to honor the oath of office they took to defend and protect the constitution.
 
“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So, help me God.”
 
What do these words, "I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same," mean to us as   American citizens?

AS this new year advances, after we move forward from the tragedy of January 6th, and the  inauguration of President Biden on January 20, 2021. Americans must seek a more insightful “Truth and Reconciliation,” process and tell it true. We must tell the truth to one another. We must seek this truth as a democratic republic. This truth telling is an accounting which will take us far beyond any possible criminal prosecutions and convictions.

IT is an intimate and integral process and a hallowed practice we must pursue as part of a greater national healing. In any “Truth and Reconciliation” process, we would be calling ourselves as citizens to a more thoughtful and prayerful account of our own actions and behavior.  We would be doing this sacred-holy work of the people for the people.
 
WE need to understand our own role in how we came to be where we are today. And how our democratic norms became unraveled, broken, and this tragic travesty of events unfolded. How and why did our democratic values and practices break down, and how have our historical inequities played its part?

FOR us to imagine that his election has saved the union would be naive. There is a higher calling we must answer. More work is required now from each of us.  We must be ever vigilant and watchful. Such populism, such a cult like following of another firebrand, can easily rise again in America.

THERE are politicians like Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, bending the truth even now, so that they might rationalize and promote other falsehoods to gain the power and influence they seek. And who, in the words of Senator Mitt Romney, have "weighed their own political fortunes more heavily than we weigh the strength of our Republic."  

AND in doing so, betrayed their oath of office, and failed to bear true faith and allegiance in defending our Constitution.  Every American has a right and a responsibility to confront the actions and behavior of someone who holds an elected office in their name. We must hold them accountable in this time and place.

DO not accept these actions, call them each and all others who have promoted these falsehoods to a greater accounting. Ask them to seek, tell, and promote the greater truth of this nation. Just as Republican Senator Mitt Romney did when urging the unanimous affirmation of the 2020 Presidential election results.  

AND if they will not honor these sacred obligations and oaths, seek their resignations or remove them from office in due time by electing those who will.  Do not cede to them or to others this power, the power of the people to discern the truth. As conservative Washington Post columnist George F. Will wrote recently; “Trump, Hawley and Cruz will each wear the scarlet ‘S’ of a seditionist.”  

WE need to consider and document how social media and mainstream media played a role in harming our democratic values. And how they helped to disenfranchising minorities, and in disrupting and endangering our political and electoral process through fear, misinformation, misdirection, distractions, false accusations, and blatant untruths. And then take the proper steps to help prevent this from happening again so that we can defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

PERHAPS we need a new variation of the “Fairness Doctrine.” Which was once a firm FCC policy that required broadcasters to present both sides of controversial issues to the public in an honest, fair, and balanced way.  A renewed standard of journalism and journalistic practices must be considered, as it was once before when Yellow-Journalism wreaked havoc in our history.  

IN our fast paced and interconnected world, the truth is far too vulnerable to misinformation and misdirection. We must see clearly how this prevents a discipline of discernment. And how it then aids authoritarian and autocratic leaders who no longer value an open and honest democratic or civil discourse for the greater benefit of societies, nations, and the world.
 
AS Americans witnessed this recent history unfold, we have seen an attack on all our branches of government – justice, legislative, executive, as well as the core institutions and means of our democracy. We must be able to trust that these democratic values will be honored and held sacred by all the people and secured for future generations of Americans. And to ensure that the integrity of our American democracy and our place in it as a free people, will be preserved, if this nation is to long endure and form a more perfect union.
 
 
 
Ron Starbuck
Publisher – CEO – Executive Editor
Saint Julian Press, Inc. Houston, Texas


​

Reduction is forbidden...the whole cruel hour is at stake...and you must answer Him (God as Mystery)...
 
 
Historical Context — November 3, 2020
 
The year 2020 —will be marked as an historical and critical time in America. One must wonder what side of history we'll come down on and how this generation will be judged as a nation. Truly, how will historians see this moment in time? 
 
So, I am remembering the powerful words and work from the 20th century Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. Even though Buber's words and thoughts by today's 21st century standard, are not gender neutral, they are still worth remembering and sharing now. 

​Buber describes totalitarian leaders as persons — who take over the organs of state through “negative charisma,” stripping real freedom and judgement from the ruled, and who are totally immersed in the political ends of attaining and retaining power. 1
 
—Such leaders are so thoroughly egotistical and narcissistic, they are devoid of any real connection to others, to the people, to themselves, and to the divine. They simply do not see themselves as being answerable to a higher power. They see themselves as the ultimate subject, covered in an armor of self-perpetuating clusters of thoughts and self-adulating fantasies that cannot be open to the “hidden light” of the divine. 1

—Such leaders recognize no one as being, so that everything around them becomes an object and subservient to their cause. 1
 
Martin Buber in his book Between Man and Man – talks about The Unique One (God) and The Single One (You, I, Us as individuals) — the relationship between the I and Thou.  In the forward to his book, Martin Buber offers us an important and critical historical insight on --The Question to the Single One. 2
 
“The Question to the Single One, which contains some political inferences, is the elaboration of an address which I gave to the students of the three German-Swiss Universities at the close of 1933. The book appeared in Germany in 1936—astonishingly, since it attacks the life-basis of totalitarianism. The fact that it could be published with impunity is certainly to be explained from its not having been understood by the appropriate authorities.” 2
 
And this it seems is the conundrum we face today across American as a people of faith, any faith or faith simply in humanity, and the forces at play now in the present and within history.  Is this a parallel moment in history, where humankind is being tested once more?  How will we as human beings answer?
 

Speaking of The Single One in Responsibility Martin Buber writes:
 
 
“It cannot be that the relation of the human person to God is established by the subtraction of the world. The single one must therefore take his world, what of the world is extended and entrusted to him in his life, without any reduction into his life's devotion; he must let his world partake unabated of its essentiality.
 
It cannot be that the Single One finds God's hands when he stretches his hands out and away beyond creation. He must put his arms round the vexatious world, whose true name is creation; only then do his fingers reach the realm of lighting and grace.
 
It cannot be that the spirit of reduction reigns in the relation of faith as well. The Single One who lives in his relation of faith must wish to have it fulfilled in the uncurtailed measure of the life he lives.
 
— He must face the hour which approaches him, the biographical and historical hour, just as it is, in its whole world content and apparently senseless contradiction, without weakening the impact of otherness in it. He must hear the message, stark and un-transfigured, which is delivered to him out of this hour, presented by this situation as it arrives.
 
— Nor must he translate for himself its wild and crude profaneness into the chastely religious: he must recognize that the question put to him, with which the speech of the situation is fraught—whether it sounds with angels’ or with devils’ tongues—remains God’s question to him, of course without the devils thereby being turned into angels. It is a question wondrously tuned in the wild crude sound.
 
— And he, the Single One, must answer, by what he does and does not do, he must accept and answer for the hour, the hour of the world, of all the world, as that which is given to him, entrusted to him. Reduction is forbidden; you are not at liberty to select what suits you, the whole cruel hour is at stake, the whole claims you, and you must answer — Him.
 
You must hear the claim, however unharmoniously it strikes your ear—and let no-one interfere; give the answer from the depths, where a breath of what has been breathed in still hovers—and let no-one prompt you.
 
This arch-command, for whose sake the Bible makes its God speak from the very time of creation, defines anew, when it is heard, the relation of the Single One to his community.
 
The human person belongs, whether he wants to acknowledge it and take it seriously or not, to the community in which he is born or which he has happened to get into. But he who has realized what destiny means, even if it looks like doom, and what being placed there means, even if it looks like being misplaced, knows too that he must acknowledge it and take it seriously. 
 
But then, precisely then, he notes that true membership of a community includes the experience, which changes in many ways, and which can never be definitively formulated, of the boundary of this membership. 
 
If the Single One, true to the historico–biographical hour, perceives the word, if he grasps the situation of his people, his own situation, as a sign and demand upon him, if he does not spare himself and his community before God, then he experiences the boundary. He experiences it in such agony as if the boundary-post had pierced his soul.

The Single One, the man living in responsibility, can carry out his political actions as well—and of course omissions are also actions—only from that ground of his being to which the claim of the fearful and kind God, the Lord of history and our Lord, wishes to penetrate.” 2
 

Reduction is forbidden...the whole cruel hour is at stake...and you must answer Him (God as Mystery)...
 
 
 
 
 
 
1. Martin Buber: The Hidden Dialogue by Dan Avon 
Twentieth Century Political Thinkers — 20th Century Political Thinkers
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (May 19, 1998)
Page 161
 
 
 
2. Between Man and Man by Martin Buber
​Publisher: The MacMillan Co. (1964, 1978) 
Routledge Classics eBook (2003)
Pages 76 – 83
 
 

WE  STARTED
 
 
We started in the rumble seat of your friend's car.
On a hot August night
When you were twenty and I was nineteen.
We had not tested life or traveled the hard road.
I didn't know about you and you didn't know about me
When fate stepped in and decided our destiny.
 
The sign of our time were young people of our age.
Starting out to restore what a war had taken
and destroyed.
 
We were young with passion in our eyes
And small change in our pockets.
We hadn't heard of charge cards
Or jet planes or mortgages or split-level
homes.
 
We were in love, life was all new
And we were just beginning.
 
 
 
Edna Katharine Meinert–Starbuck
July 12, 1990



 
SLOW LAZY LOVE
 
 
I like that long slow lazy love
We once had.
It lay there just under the surface.
It was in your eyes when you came in the door,
Or across a room filled with people.
On the drive home from a movie
When you would touch my face
With your fingertips.
That long slow lazy love
It grows because we have been together.

  
Here I go again lord, "Tea Party Religion,"
I wonder just how the church has survived
                                           as long — as it has.
 
Real life is no party.
Real life is reaching out for something inside us.
Real life is hurting, hating, loving, wanting
                                            waiting, forgiving, accepting.
Not little cakes or cookies we can hold in our
                                            finger tips.
 
                                            Tea Party Religion
I don't feel like my life is real, Lord
I feel like it's a cover up.
I am the way I am because people expect me
                                            to be this way.
I would like to say, “who needs it,”
                                            break away, run.
 
                                            Tea Party Religion
Some days are worse than others,
But I put on my face and go.
I can't cover my eyes though.
If anyone ever really looked at me, they could see.
I wonder why I let them use me like this.
Is it because I see this same — image
Not just in myself but in others.
 
Tea Party Religion — with the little finger
                                           sticking out.
Must be careful now; don't stick out anything more,
Just couldn't get involved; who needs to get involved,
There's even a time limit on it;  
9 to 12 – 2 to 4 – 7 to 9.
When all the while — it's already too late.
My chance has passed by — I'm caught
I don't want to be caught, I fight it
Inside that is.                 No one knows.
I want to be free.
Help me to be free Lord, inside.
                                           Tea Party Religion 

RESURRECTION
  
On a dark spring afternoon
In the rising wind and rain of a precedent storm
Men walking by, stopped, and read the sign,
Nodded their heads in approval and went on.
One jokingly saying, “A job well done, —that
one will bother us no more.”
Not knowing God's love cannot be put
to death on a cross.
This is why we have Good Friday
then Easter.


 
DARKNESS
 
It’s so dark in here Lord.
I can't see what's going on,
Can you?
Can't you do something about it?
Can't you turn on the light?
But that's crazy.
I know you've tried.
I know the darkness bothers you too.
I know the closed doors bother you.
I know,
Because you've been standing outside so long
Just outside.
Waiting.
Wanting just one small opening.
It doesn't take much of  Your light
And we can begin to see.
Why are the minds of men so dark?
And — hard to get into?


​
CASSIE & ME
 
I didn't see it coming
The leaving I mean
I was caught up in the todays
I so enjoyed the times with her
The two of us
We baked the cookies,
Walked to the store,
A visit with a neighbor.
Watched the mourning dove
build its nest and hatch
its young
She would get so excited
When she saw the little heads
Come up out of the nest
Each day brought a new flower
a new joy
No, I didn't see it coming
I was too busy
Watching Cassie grow
 

​BE RECONCILED WITH ONE ANOTHER
 
 
—AS we grieve for so many African Americans who have died violently and still endure a systemic oppression that has lasted centuries.  Please take a moment to think about these thoughts in the context of a more profound racial reconciliation that asks us as a people of faith to approach this dialogue with a greater sense of commitment and compassion. In which, we are called every day into a new and renewing relationship with one another by God.
 
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” 
 
Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr.
 
 
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” —John 17:21
 
“There is something more important than dividing a church or a nation into conservatives and liberals. We must be both. We must conserve and liberate at the same time. We can never severe our ties from that part of history, which belongs to us.”  — Robert P. Starbuck, PhD, MDiv, In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions (Saint Julian Press, Inc. November 1, 2018)

Indeed, we live in a “network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

No matter where we may be on our journey in life. As Christians, we are reconciled through Chris. The Holy Spirit dwells within us each.

We live in this spirit of reconciliation.  Indeed, the Holy Spirit is actively at work within the world and within us, teaching us to be as one, to be in union with the divine and one another, across all of humanity.   Just as the Holy Spirit is calling us as Christians to be involved in Social Justice, and the critical social justice issues of our time.
 
“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”  —John 14:26-27 
 
We are one people, created by God, we live within the world and within in this “network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

Do not let your hearts be troubled, do not be afraid. This beautiful concept of Unity and Non-Duality compliments one another intimately. Unity and Non-Duality are spiritual concepts found in Christian scripture, in all the great core religions and wisdom traditions of humanity and human history, in myth and metaphor, in storytelling, and most especially in poetry. All sacred scriptures are poetry.
 
Imagine the literature found in all the books of the Bible, the literature of all faiths, as sacred poetry—Spiritual Poetry.
 
Imagine scripture as a type of software program we are using to program our minds; the Spirit-Soul operating system, the Divine Core Language of Creation (DCLC) perhaps, with many variations or versions.
 
If Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the WORD, the Incarnate Word of God, we must also come to realize that our words, spoken or written to one another matter a great deal. What we say and how we say it matters, because it shapes the reality that arises within our communities and across any society. 
 
Our thoughts and words spoken out loud become litanies, even when, especially when we speak or misspeak thoughtlessly and incompletely, or with intentional deceit. As believers, this makes a mockery of the WORD, dwelling within us each, binding us together as God’s people, and the sacramental spiritual practices we follow. We betray that heritage as a people of faith when we misspeak or misuse language or the Word of God, and in doing so dismiss the suffering of others within the world. We forget, who we are and ought to be as God’s people.
 
We must remember, as in the word —Remembrance, that our sacramental spiritual practices (praxis): liturgy, ritual, prayer, and meditation are an extension of the Holy Spirit working within the world. Such practices and participation in a sacred community are helping us to grow spiritually, programing our mind —reconciling us with one another and renewing us as a people. And they are marked by an outward and visible sign, and an inward and spiritual grace in union with Christ and new life in the Holy Spirit.
 
For many traditional Christians, these sacramental practices center on the celebration of the Eucharist & Great Thanksgiving (Holy Communion), Holy Baptism, Confirmation, Reconciliation & Forgiveness, Healing & Unction, Liturgy & Prayer —literally the work of the people, Marriage & Ordination, and participation in a sacred community of faith, seeing God working within and all around us. 
 
We hold these things to be sacred and life affirming, just as we are asked to hold each other as sacred and affirm one another’s life. We fail to do this when injustice is allowed to reign within the world or across our communities. We fail to do this by not seeing these injustice and continue to do nothing. “Lord, forgive us for what we do not do.”
 
“Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
​
—The Book of Common Prayer
According to the use of
The Episcopal Church.
 
One of the many reasons I love being an Episcopalian—Anglican, is the liturgy we use is poetry. The writing is inspired. It is both spiritual and poetic in nature; it has a literary quality and uses symbolic imagery, which are an invocation to the Holy Spirit.
 
Reading or listening to inspired poetry is a sacramental experience, in this sense, it is similar to the Eucharist, where we receive the body and blood of Christ, the Logos, Christ as the Word.
 
God's sacred Word, Christ as the Logos, the Trinity, as well as the words we hear and pray as liturgies are absorbed into our being, they are what we are becoming, a more Christlike future self.
 
Except there is no time, time is an abstraction, and God is a Verb. God is Spirit and Love; God is eternal loving-kindness working within the world. Here are the Eternal Now and the Reign of God that are both imminent and infinitely present; where God is found here and now, and known in this moment.
 
This future self already is, since God's love is eternally transforming and boundless, without end. This spiritually whole, and holy reconciled, part of us, exists now. It is God's Spirit reaching within us to lead us forward, to discover the fullness of our own humanity. The Holy Spirt dwells within us and is an intimate part of our whole being, moving within us and across all creation.
 
It is a Mystery. We know this, it is written within us, it is part of God’s universal plan. And the close connection our Spirit-Soul  has, an eternal one, to the Divine Ultimate Mystery of God, knows this at the deepest levels of the soul-spirit-self-mind, —our full spiritual consciousness. In a subtle divine memory that flows and moves throughout our whole being.
 
In Christian theology, we speak of Christ as being both fully human and fully divine. Christianity has celebrated this divine aspect for over two thousand years. What has been so often, not understood or celebrated as clearly, is the human side of this equation, this dance, this Perichoresis, and living in the fullness of our humanity and living a more abundant spiritual life.
 
Perichoresis, is an ancient term in Christian theology, which refers to the indwelling of the Trinity, of how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are intimately connected within their unity as one that there is an indwelling between them all. And that this indwelling is shared with us, in and through Christ, in the Paschal Mystery of Christ as the Incarnate Word, the Word Made Flesh.
 
Our presence on this earth, in this reality, is no accident; it is a gift. We are here to learn and, in many cases, to teach or help one another, to love one another in our fragile common humanity, to heal the world, to create heaven on earth.
 
When we take time to pay attention, it is a blessing. It is a blessing to see how God, the Divine Ultimate Mystery is calling us into a relationship with one another. When we stop judging one another so quickly, and start loving one another in the frailness and vulnerability of our humanity, this is a blessing. And in the end, invoking our human nature to love, and to come through with grace and graciousness. Indeed, embracing the fullness of God's love for everyone, is an intimate part of our faith and practice.
 
Being gracious and accepting of others, especially those whom we may not fully understand or appreciate is how we work through our human diversity and come to know and be known.
 
In his interfaith dialogue book titled, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, in writing about Thich Nhat Hanh’s idea of “interbeing,” pluralist theologian Paul F. Knitter tells us that understanding God through relationships is critical and that the source and power of our relationships are driven by the presence of the “Holy Spirit.”
 
Ephphatha, be opened —in the words of Christ, uttered by Christ when healing the man who was deaf and dumb ( Mark 7:34 ). Be opened to the Holy Spirit at work. There is and can be no exclusion of others here. Our lives unfold and happen for a reason. God has prepared and repaired our hearts for this moment in time, this moment of reconciliation, normalization, and acceptance. A moment where we are completely open to one another, just as we are, as who we are now, as God has touched and helped us to form the life we live and hope to live.
 
The importance of this concept is summarized by this:
 
“behind and within all the different images and symbols, Christians use for God—The Creator, Father (Abba), Redeemer, Word, Spirit, the most fundamental, the deepest truth Christians can speak of God is that God is the source and power of relationships.”
 
This is true across any sacred community or faith where the Spirit, unseen and invisible, is moving in and with and through all of humankind, calling us into a relationship with one another, even across faiths, across all of humanity. There have been many times in my journey when I have known this, where I feel the Spirit actively at work in all of our relationships, and in this process opening up new relationships.
 
Another way to view this, as Paul Knitter explained to me once in a conversation, is that in meditation, Buddhism asks us “to let go of all concepts, and to let go, and open ourselves radically and utterly to the present moment, and in the trust, this moment contains all we need.”
 
“This setting aside of words and imagery and opening oneself to what St. Paul calls God as Spirit, letting that Spirit make itself (or herself or himself) felt within us, grow within us, to lead us.”
 
It is ultimately a process of letting God be God, of being itself, and then living abundantly into the promise of our life, where we are truly given all that we need. We find this idea beautifully expressed in these two scriptures from the Gospel of John, and the book of Romans.
 
“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”  --John 14:26-27
 
“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”  --Romans 8:26-27
 
IN this spirit of deep understanding, in how we are intimately interconnected with one another now, these words bear repeating.
 
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
 
Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr.
 

Take some time please to listen to and explore these thoughts from the Ninth Bishop of Texas, C. Andrew Doyle.

​The answers run deep
they have not changed since
I was a child, but I have changed
across all the years
I am older now, and
my father, now more than the 
memories left dwelling within me
taught us that we must ask
the right questions in life
to reveal whatever truth
is seeking its place within the world
I am sitting in a church pew
listening to his voice, speaking
out as an affirmation of life
and as a prophet, in a prophetic voice
in the voice of Amos or Hosea
we are more than we know
if only we could see one another
more clearly, there are
too many people speaking
their own harsh truths today
and falsehoods run riot
across the landscape of
an America we thought
we knew, and now don’t
recognize in the rhetoric
of these times
we have forgotten what
we once knew, or chosen
to forget our own history
the revisionists want to win
and it is up to us to stop them
this is the truth of Christ
he both conserved and liberated
at the same time to challenge
the powers that be, and what
followed was the crucifixion
it does not end there of course
what we have forgotten, what
we are forgetting is that
on Easter morning there
was a resurrection and once
you know and see this
your whole worldview changes
it changes forever, we must
each walk the road to Emmaus
and break bread with one another
we are not our deepest fears or enmity
we are not the hostility and hate we fear
we are something more
found not in the flesh
but in the Spirit flowing within
praying in and with and through us
even when we have forgotten
how to pray on our own
this is what we must remember
and celebrate in our
remembrance of Christ
celebrating Easter everywhere

ON A NEW MORNING
 
 
The sun rose. And afterwards,
As before, it set.
 
And repeated this sequence, as a
Cycle of life.
 
We did not cherish its light or warmth
Often enough. And then it was gone.
 
Too frequently, we were inattentive or
Simply held the world at a distance.
 
Away from the affections of our own 
Hearts, away from one another.
 
Today, time has slowed, and a stillness has 
Descended upon the earth.
 
As if, things not yet seen, have suddenly been
Revealed in an ecstasy of anguish.
 
Something new, beyond agony, has entered our sight
And step by step the world transforms itself.
 
On morning walks, even in our self-imposed
Separation, we find some reassurance.
 
In a neighbor’s presence, a tentative glance, 
A simple acknowledgment becomes a benediction.
 
Even the mockingbirds are singing new songs,
Ones we never heard before, listen.
 
Hidden in the bright melodies, angels call out
Our name. This too, is a blessing.
 

Road to Big Bend National Park

Beyond miles and miles of Sonoran and Chihuahuan desert
Criss-crossing the Southwest and Northern Mexico,
Where local folks know how to stand, tall in the saddle, as they say
Across a landscape that seems to go nigh on to forever
Even beyond the Boundlessness of you, O God,
Here imaginations may touch the beauty of all creation
And horizons meet the very edge of eternity.  
 
Here you may see beyond all boundaries
From Terlingua to Tucson,
Marfa to Manhattan, Edna to El Paso
Across vistas of high desert plains,
Mountains, valleys, arroyos,
Streams and rivers merging together.  
 
Where fingers of saguaro cactus
Point upwards in prayer,
While honey and velvet mesquite,
Whitethorn acacia,
Althorn, ocotillo, lechugilla,
Agave and creosote bush
Bow with grace when touched by the breath of
God traveling on windblown currents.  
 
O Lord, let such a landscape echo back
Through each of us,
Expanding our sight, to become a vision
That comes to see heaven reflected
Through your divine made eyes.  
 
May such a vision arise in us all
As it did for Christ and the Buddha
To echo, again and again
As we view heaven
Through divine made eyes.    
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ron Starbuck


Copyright 2010 and 2020

Heaven    Nirvana   Sunyata    Groundlessness    Openness 

"Might be imagined as a process, indeed the process itself by which in which and through which everything has its being." Chapter 1, Nirvana and God the Transcendent Other from Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian by theologian Paul F. Knitter.

The world arises around us through our relationships across all of creation, we do not exist alone.  In his book, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, in writing about Thich Nhat Hanh and his thoughts on inter-being, Paul F. Knitter tells us that understanding God through relationships is critical and that the source and power of our relationships is driven by the presence of the Holy Spirit. 

The importance of this concept is summarized by this: "behind and within all the different images and symbols, Christians use for God: Creator, Father (Abba), Redeemer, Word, Spirit, the most fundamental, the deepest truth Christians can speak of God is that God is the source and power of relationships."

Another way to view this, as Paul Knitter explained to me once in a conversation, is that in meditation Buddhism asks us "to let go of all concepts, and to let go and open ourselves radically and utterly to the present moment, and in the trust that this present moment contains all that I need.  This is a setting aside of words and imagery and opening oneself to what St. Paul calls God as Spirit, letting that Spirit make itself (or herself or himself) felt within us, grow within us, to lead us." 

We find this idea beautifully expressed in these two scriptures. The Gospel of John, and in the book of Romans.

But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. ~ John 14:26-27

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. ~ Romans 8:26-27 

There Is Something About Being An Episcopalian

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen. ~ The Episcopal Church Book of Common Prayer

​A Theological Introduction

​Our family is a family of readers. Our love for reading began at a young age with stories told from the Bible. In our home and at church, we were taught and encouraged to engage our imaginations through Children’s Bible stories. We first learned of God’s love and the diversity of creation through storytelling. We learned to see these stories as a way of renewal, redemption, reconciliation, forgiveness, salvation, spiritual insight and formation. They became for us a way of living, a way of being and transformation.
 
As an ageless and sacramental story, A White Colt’s Tale, offers children and adults a hopeful message. One which is about the power of love to heal and transform the world through our friendships with one another, and the mystery and grace of God. The story of Jesus and Manuelo’s friendship, is our story too. Their story acts as an invocation of the Holy Spirit; however, you may see the Spirit at work in your own life and friendships. It honors all the   relationships and friendships that move through our lives.
 
Theologian Paul F. Knitter, who was the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture at Union Theological Seminary, NYC, tells us that understanding God through relationships is critical. And that the source and power of our relationships and friendships are driven by the presence of the Holy Spirit. 
 
“What Christians have seen in Jesus of Nazareth is a God who creates and is present to the world through relationships, the same kind of relationships that we say exist in the very nature of God: relationships of knowing, of giving, of loving that bring forth ever more life and existence. Behind and within all the different images and symbols Christians may use for God – Creator, Father, Redeemer, Word, Spirit – the most fundamental, the deepest truth Christians can speak of God is that God is the source and power of relationships. 
 
That sounds abstract. But it’s not. It’s the most basic, and the simplest, thing we can say about ourselves and about God: we exist through relationships of knowing and loving and giving because that’s how God exists.
 
To experience and believe in a Trinitarian God is to experience and believe in a God who is not, as Tillich would say, the Ground of Being, but the Ground of InterBeing.  God is the activity of giving and receiving, of knowing and loving, of losing and finding, of dying and living that embraces and infuses all of us, all of creation.” 1
 
The story of Manuelo and Jesus is timeless. Their devotion to one another helps us to see something beyond ourselves actively at work within the world. In the Christian vocabulary that I learned to love as a child, the power of the “Holy Spirit” calls us into a relationship with one another. These are the interconnections and celestial quantum entanglements at play in our relationships across all creation. God as a Verb. God is InterBeing. God is an intimate part of our Being or InterBeing.
 
In Paul Knitter’s thought — “God is the field – of InterBeing – within which, as we read in the New Testament, “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). — Or, from the divine perspective, there is “one God above all things, through all things, and in all things” (Eph. 4:6).” 2
 
Here we may encounter the greater — Mysteries & Graces of God — dwelling and resting within all humanity. They flow in and with and through us and arise from our relationships with one another. We do not need to name them by the words of any solitary faith. Here we may celebrate the love and compassion that flows through all human faiths, unveiled and revealed in our sacred stories and scriptures. For there is a season and a time to everything under heaven.
 
Ecclesiastes 3 (KJV)
 
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
 
 
1 John 4:16 (NRSV)

So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.
 
1 Corinthians 13 (NRSV)

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
 

1. Knitter, Paul F. – Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian(p. 19). Oneworld Publications. Kindle Edition.
2. Knitter, Paul F. – Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian(p. 20). Oneworld Publications. Kindle Edition.

The concept of InterBeing referenced by Paul Knitter, comes from — The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra – by Thich Nhat Hanh, where he covers Buddhist ideas on Śūnyatā – Emptiness –  InterBeing – Dependent Arising or Origination.  

As a theologian, Paul Knitter, sees a similar parallel at play in these verses from the book of Acts and Ephesians.


Acts 17:28-29 (NRSV)

For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’

Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.


Ephesians 4:4-6 (NRSV)

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

​
In the Anglican Communion — Christian tradition, sacraments are seen as “outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace.”

​
The Sacraments — The Episcopal Church
Book of Common Prayer — An Outline of the Faith (Page 845)
​

• The sacraments are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.
• Grace is God's favor toward us, unearned and undeserved; by grace God forgives our sins, enlightens our minds, stirs our hearts, and strengthens our wills.
• The two great sacraments given by Christ to his Church are Holy Baptism and the Holy Eucharist.

Whenever we engage in an interfaith dialogue one of the first things we must do is to learn and appreciate the vocabulary of that faith. When you consider all our words and images about God, the Divine, or the Presence of a Greater Mystery, such images are "formed by the art and imaginations of mortals."  

These images arise from our interactions and relationships within creation itself, going back to the beginning of humankind. Human beings are seekers, we seek to understand the greatest mysteries of creation through the pursuit of faith, traditions, spiritual formation and practice (praxis), scripture, liturgy, literature, poetry, truth, reason, knowledge, and science.  Scientific studies have shown that wellness, healing, and positive medical outcomes are intimately entangled with our spiritual life, wholeness and holiness are complimentary. 
 

Many Blessings,
​Ron Starbuck 
Publisher/CEO Saint Julian Press

​

Revelations of Divine Love – Saint Julian of Norwich
 
The Last Disclosure ~ The Sixteenth Revelation
A new translation by Ron Starbuck
 
Dedicated to Edna Katharina Meinert – Starbuck

​And at the end of all sadness 
our eyes shall suddenly open
and within this clarity of sight
uncluttered by yearning
our vision fully transformed
our hope made full – our desires silent
in the mystery of creation
 
where – God as spirit
where – God as truth
leads us towards enlightenment
and knowledge
where – Christ 
as noble teacher
reveals creation’s light
in this light we will see 
and understand that 
faith and compassion 
are our radiances in the 
darkness of night: the light 
which is God, our everlasting day
 
God is the ground of our beseeching 
And of our being and becoming
Love is her meaning – Love without end
and all shall be well, and all shall be well, 
and all manner of thing shall be well

John 1:1-5 (NRSV) - The Word Became Flesh

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."

How poetic, beyond all our thoughts and words there is something more, something full of mystery. Take a moment please and think of the Gospel of John, where it is written. 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” Indeed, think about how God brought creation into existence, how God created your life and my life. 

Genesis 1:1-3 (KJV) - In the Beginning

Before there was creation itself, there was a wordless nothingness, an openness waiting to be filled, a formless void.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light, and there was light”. 

And creation was formed out of the formless void, and there with God in this moment of creation, in the beginning of all things, was the Eternal Word, perhaps born from a single desire and thought of God. 

"In the beginning was the Word.” 

As a person of any faith, have you ever thought of how your own relationship with creation is grounded in the Word or words, in poetic symbols and metaphors.  And how your life arises in and through all your relationships, with all creation? 

How words from any culture and sacred tradition form your concept of reality and construct your world. And that words, like sutras, bind the family of humankind together. When we take time to dwell on our relationships, even those beyond our immediate family and friends, we begin to see how life arises from these many interconnections. Words - Concepts - Images - Symbols - Metaphors.

Can you begin to imagine how you have touched my life, even if we have never met or spoken? Can you begin to imagine how you have touched the lives of other people too, and will continue to touch them? 

This is how powerful relationships are in the world. This is the Word, the Holy Spirit, actively at work within the world. And then imagine, please, how our own thoughts become words of our own, shaping our world, shaping our lives, our communities, our reality. 

We are all interconnected, perhaps even more so now, as we listen and come to know one another within any sacred community, as we listen to or even read each other’s words. Words have a life of their own, they shape our lives, and they interconnect us in marvelous ways.

This is why writers love to write and use words to express themselves, it is why people love poetry, good plays, a compelling novel or story, or any appreciable writing in which we form a connection with one another. 

In Buddhism, this concept of our interconnectedness with life, all life, reality itself, out of which our lives arise, is called Dependent Origination or Dependent Arising, Pratītyasamutpāda in Sanskrit. 

Dependent Arising is hard to wrap your mind around, unless you know and have the right vocabulary, unless you have devoted time and energy to understanding Buddhism's beautifully symbolic and complex language, its words. 

For now, let’s simply say that it is a reality of shared interdependence and one that tells us, we are intimately interconnected to everything else in life, with one another, with all of creation. The Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, calls this concept interbeing, in his book, The Heart of Understanding, where he teaches that “To be” is to inter-be, and that “we cannot be alone, exist alone without anything else.” 

In the Christian tradition, there is a remarkably similar and beautiful concept, it is found in a marvelous Greek word used by the early church fathers and mothers, to describe the mystery of the Trinity. It is the word, Perichoresis (peri-kor-es-is). 

Perichoresis is an ancient term in Christian theology, which refers to the indwelling of the Trinity, of how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are so intimately connected within their unity as one that there is an indwelling between them all. And that this indwelling is shared with us, in and through Christ, in the Paschal Mystery of Christ as the Incarnate Word, the Word Made Flesh. 

How poetic, since not one of us can imagine living without words, living a life without words in some form. It is a metaphor that points us towards the deeper mystery of creation, of the divine.

Let me go back, please to the wordless beginning of things, ultimate reality perhaps, to the Buddhist concept of Śūnyatā–Nirvana, emptiness, or rather the openness of creation that is ever changing and expanding.  Endless, Worlds Without End, to use a poetic image.  

I’m struggling for a clear image or a metaphor to use in this dialogue, and it’s hard for me to find one. This is why I love to write poetry, because poetry for me is a transformational and transcending language. 

Perhaps it would help, as Christ or a Tibetan or Zen Master might, to have you visualize the emptiness or openness of an empty cup. The space that can be filled at any time, by anyone, by you, by God. This space, this openness, can be seen as the pure and infinite potential of all eternity, out of which all reality arises in an open universe of infinite possibilities, or even of a given intimate moment within eternity.

Now in this present moment, in these words, even in the spaces between each word. You may also visualize it as an empty cup, a cup that is ready to receive the new wine of life or hot jasmine tea. 

What I’m trying to say, with all these words, is that sometimes we simply need to let go of all our words, all our images, all our thoughts, even becoming lost for a while. Becoming lost can be a goodly thing, a needful thing. 

Because in doing so, we can develop a whole new language, and new images, like an artist, does when they are creating, be it a new symphony, improvisational jazz, a beautiful painting, a poem, a play, or a photograph that takes your breath away and leaves you speechless. 

I love that feeling of speechlessness, of emptiness, of being empty and ready to receive the next new thing. The secret I think is in understanding that each moment is the next new thing. It is a moment that is open and full of infinite potential, a newness that is born out of every moment. 

I love the dialog we may find within any sacred community, and the many gifts it brings us to discover such moments, to discover the newness of a moment, and to discover a new meaning in life within one another, new words even. Words that arise from a single point of emptiness and words that help us to shape the life we live into a new language, a new life. 

Words that help us to breathe together as one body, with one breath, in one spirit. There is something truly sacramental and spirit driven, inspired, by such a dialog, by such relationships. It is an indwelling where we learn to dwell within one another. 

Perichoresis. 

I'm thinking of Jesus now and the words we hear him say in John 10:10; "I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” 

And I'm thinking how much your life enriches my own life; how we enrich one another in our lives that arise within and out of one another. In a life that God has given to us each and that arises out of the mystery we find within creation.  

I just want us to realize this fully, to appreciate it fully, and know fully that we are all a part of that gift too, and to be grateful for the sacramental moments we share together, where we come to know and be fully known by God, where we come to be blest. Where through a greater understanding of how our life arises from our many relationships, we are living a blessed life.

The Buddha would certainly agree with all this, in a sheer Buddhist enlightenment and wakefulness practicing sort of way.  Practicing this way, this journey — this celebration of life in a marvelous divine dance, a perichoresis.


Many Blessings,
​Ron Starbuck



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