CRUMP EXPRESSWAY -a column from The Reverend Steve J. Crump 2015 is a celebration year in our church with the likely groundbreaking for our parking lot and a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the dedication of the first building on our campus. The late John Desmond was our architect in 1965. Fifty years later, serving as consulting architects for our current project, are Johns son and daughter-in-law, Michael Desmond and Marsha Cuddeback. We have splendid improvements coming to our campus, thanks to the contributions of the congregation and friends. Congregational Meeting, January 25 We have a budget to approve at our Congregational meeting on Sunday, Jan. 25 at 12:45pm and hear a report from Great Expectations Steering Team. See you there. Though Martin Luther King, Jr., was born 54 years after Albert Schweitzer, I think of these two great figures in January. King was born on January 15, 1929 and Schweitzer was born on January 14, 1875. Schweitzer was a Unitarian theologian, a philosopher, a medical missionary in Gabon, and an accomplished organist who lived to the age of 90. His philosophical principle was reverence for life. What is your key philosophical principle, distilled in a sentence or phrase? Light is returning, but ever so slowly. We creep through winter and here in this climate, spring shows its signs in good time. A religious community reminds one another that we cant push the river and must learn to dwell in the current season, the fallow season, the season demanding patience. Such doing is done best in the company of others. Heres Schweitzer again, supporting the idea that being together is a gift and of immense support: At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another. As I glance through the days ahead, I see that February 1, being a Sunday, is a perfect time to touch upon a mental health topic for our congregation, one day before Groundhog Day. We carried some slogans into the new year, didnt we? Hands Up, Dont Shoot! Black Life Matters. I Cant Breathe. We need not one national conversation but numerous, in-depth conversations. Face-to-face-sit-down-at-the-table-and-listen-to-one-another conversations. Columnist Clarence Page’s well-crafted sentence sets the right tone: “In an ideal world there would be no contradiction between support for police and opposition to bad policing.” Last month, while searching music channels, I happened upon a R&B classic of James Browns: Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved. In 2015, our country will recount and revisit historical mileposts of the Civil Rights movement. Many of us will be going to see Selma at the theaters. Americans would do well to take the whole year to assess whats been accomplished and whats been left undone, unrealized, unforgotten, unforgiven, and unredeemed. I am hopeful our church will make a contribution of something meaningful in the pursuit of mutual understanding.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 23:02:44 +0000
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