Free Press –
Trinity Great Swamp Church, UBCC & Open Space, EZ Pass, Episcopal Church, Divide Iraq
Dear Friends,
Good morning. There’s much to consider this week…some good news, much bad news, and plenty of in-between news.
First, I was shocked to hear that the Trinity Great Swamp United Church of Christ was vandalized on September 23. Reverend David Ellis is the pastor of this Spinnerstown congregation and also heads this year’s Crop Walk. Why would anyone sink to this barbaric level?
I talked with Reverend Ellis about the vandalism. Sometime before three in the morning, thugs broke into the church. They tossed hymnals from the balcony onto the main floor. Making matters worse, they urinated and defecated in the sanctuary. The vandals used a fire extinguisher, which set off the alarm system, summoning the fire department and the state police. The vandals lighted the candles on the sanctuary alter.
Fine powder from the fire extinguisher filled the sanctuary and Sunday school rooms, which required professional cleaners to come to the rescue. Reverend Ellis expects the clean up to take several weeks.
And there was evidence of drinking.
“I’m proud of my church people,” Ellis continued. “We won’t let this stop us,” the consistory told its pastor.
In his Sunday sermon, Ellis asked, “What can we learn from this? Why did this happen? The folks who did this need to be prayed for. They’re deeply troubled people.”
Troubled people…that’s putting it mildly! If I had my way, we’d jail the parents of juvenile delinquents and bring back public whippings. I wish Reverend Ellis and his congregation well. We’ll keep them in our prayers.
By the way, Reverend Ellis told me that Sunday, October 14 is Crop Walk Day. That’s when the community focuses attention upon world and community hunger. A percentage of the proceeds go to the local food bank.
Item.
The Upper Bucks Chamber of Commerce did itself no favor when it refused to endorse the “Vote Yes” initiative for the $89 million Open Space bond issue referendum on November 6. I haven’t heard of any of the 54 Bucks municipalities and 13 school districts opposing the idea.
Both political parties endorse “Vote Yes.” So do the Democratic and Republican County Commissioner candidates. Even the Lower Bucks Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution supporting the bond issue…but not the Upper Bucks Chamber of Commerce.
I called Deanna Mindler who is the Executive Director of the chamber. She told me that her Board of Directors refused to endorse the bond issue; or follow its colleagues in Lower Bucks; and would not poll its members either.
Why?
I serve on the “Vote Yes” committee. I can’t figure out why anyone with half a whit would oppose the open space bond issue. I’ll bet that within the last ten years, taxpayers have paid $1 billion in new school construction and municipal improvements in Upper Bucks and Upper Montgomery Counties. Think of the cost which new roads, new water and sewer lines, and new schools bring to our communities.
Could it be that some of the members of the Upper Bucks Chamber of Commerce profit from urban sprawl? Is that the reason for the hands off position, which its board took?
Stay tuned.
Do you think that it’s inevitable that the Episcopal Church will split with its Anglican cousins? I do. “Episcopal leaders, pressured to roll back their support for gays to keep the world Anglican family from crumbling, affirmed that they will exercise restraint in approving another gay bishop,” the Associated Press reported (Sept. 26).
“The statement came in the final hour of an intense six-day meeting and at a crucial moment in the Anglican debate over how the bible should be interpreted.”
You faithful readers know my thinking about this gay issue, which divides American congregations. In the four gospels of the New Testament, Christ is silent on this subject. Why can’t Christian churches be as inclusive as their savior?
And now for a scary item.
In The Week (Aug. 24), I read this AP story. “The E-Z Pass electronic toll-collection system, operating in 12 states in the Northeast and Midwest is being used by divorce lawyers to prove that spouses lied about their whereabouts. “It’s an easy way to show you took the off-ramp to adultery,” says divorce lawyer Jacalyn Barrett.”
Friends, remember Mark Twain’s advice about telling the truth. “Always tell the truth,” he quipped. “Your friends expect it of you and your enemies will be astounded!”
And for you adulterers, I’d throw
your
Item.
As I read Richard Cohen’s op-ed piece (Sept.26), I thought about a book, which I’m reading. The Washington Post columnist wrote about a plan to partition Iraq into a three-part federation. Senator Joseph Biden and Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations believe that Iraq would do better with a Kurdish north, a Sunni center, and a Shiite south.
“At the present,” Richard Cohen wrote, “Iraqis are fleeing their homes at the rate of 100,000 a month- Sunnis moving to Sunni areas, Shiites to Shiite ones and the Kurds going nowhere because they already have what amounts to their own state.”
It seemed that no one was paying attention to history.
Cohen believes that Iraq should go the way of Yugoslavia. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia are separate countries today. Like the Middle East, Yugoslavia was created after the First World War. And the results were horrendous.
The Second book, which I’m reading, is “Thinking In Time,” by Richard Neustadt and Ernest May. The book contains 14 examples of American blunders because our leaders were not paying attention to history.
For example, Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson led us into the Vietnam War because they failed to examine history close enough. And so does our stumbling President. Was it John Lee who wrote, “Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.”
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith