I have not blogged in a very long time.  While I was gone from here, I had knee replacement surgery.  The consequent painful rehabilitation and cautions from my surgeon about the kinds of foot/leg impacts to avoid if I want this new joint to last have  solidified in my mind an earlier decision that I my skydiving life is over.

So this afternoon I am sitting in the quiet of my den, the late afternoon sunlight pouring in the window and warming me against the chilly drafts across the wooden floor.  And I am reflecting upon the life lessons I learned while skydiving.  There were many.  But for now, I am thinking of only one.  It has to do with toggle turns.

In very simple terms, the toggles are the lines attached to a parachute that allow a jumper to control the direction and speed in which s/he is flying.  There is a toggle line on both the right and the left of the parachute system.  When a jumper is in full flight and traveling his or her fastest, both  hands  are all the way above the head with hands on the toggle handles, exerting no force on the lines.  Pulling down on the right toggle causes the parachute to turn to the right; pulling down on the left toggle causes the parachute to turn to the left.  Letting up on the toggle stops the turn and returns the parachute to flying straight.  The longer one holds the toggle down, the longer the parachute and jumper will turn, eventually turning in a circle if the toggle is not released upward to intervene in the turning motion.  The more forcefully one holds the toggle down, the more extreme will be the motion of the turn.  Taken to its limit, a sufficiently strenuous input on a toggle can cause the parachute to become unstable, tipping deeply to one side and potentially losing its structural integrity as it begins to drop out of the sky.

Turning the parachute by pulling on either toggle causes it to lose altitude.  Consequently, if a jumper wants to descend quickly from a height, they will pull one toggle down and hold it long enough for the parachute to make numerous sequential circles in the air, thus creating a spiral effect that causes the jumper to descend to earth more quickly than they might ordinarily.

To avoid the loss in altitude caused by pulling on a toggle, a jumper can execute what is called a flat turn.  In a flat turn, the jumper pulls both toggles at the same time to the same level and then either raises or lowers one toggle even further.  This action causes the parachute to turn, but results in a much less severe decrease in altitude.

Why does any of this matter?  Because there are times when one is jumping that the only safe way to turn one’s parachute in another direction is to execute a flat turn.  Failure to execute a flat turn in those circumstances causes precipitous and dangerous decreases in altitude that can potentially lead to serious physical injury or death.  There are times when one is jumping that failure to execute a flat turn is as potentially dangerous as not turning at all.

Which brings me to us folks here in the United Methodist Church.

There are many circumstances in the life of our church where justice is wanting.  There are many circumstances in the life of our church that need the people of God to stand up and say, “no more.”  There are also very complicated issues facing us as we try to discern what it means to be a truly global church and to align ourselves with God in every regard.  It is seeming to me that some of these matters are the church’s right toggle, and some are its left (I’m not speaking as in so-called right wing and left wing politics; that is not the image I am summoning).  If we pull one without the other, we will circle and then spiral, losing altitude and direction. 

I believe our United Methodist Church is a divine gift, provided as a mechanism for drawing people to the light of Jesus Christ and nurturing them in their discipleship and relationship with God.  I believe the church and its mission want more tender handling than we have been affording … not for the sake of the institution itself, but for the sake of every person God has created – every person for whom Christ has died.

Some of us are inclined to pull the right toggle of this single-winged craft we call the United Methodist Church.  Some of us are inclined to pull the left.  And that is fine, as far as it goes.  But only by pulling together can we faithfully and fruitfully navigate these days.

I wish I could remember her name.  Although, I guess its not surprising that I cannot.  I only saw her the one time.

I was a Bronx County Assistant District Attorney at the time.  On a warm Fall night when I was on homicide beeper duty, I was called to her apartment in the North Bronx.

Nice neighborhood; nice building; nice apartment.  And there she was – sprawled on the floor in the foyer in her own blood.

Something she had done or said had angered her husband as she prepared dinner that evening.  He had taken such great exception to it, that he snatched a carving knife from her hand and plunged it into her back.  Their child, who saw the attack, ran from the apartment.  And when the woman tried to follow, her husband slammed and bolted the door.  And then he chased her with a baseball bat, smashing it into her repeatedly before pulling the knife out of her back and using it to slash her throat.

I remember a lot about that night – the flecks of blood like bright, red paint on all the apartment walls.  The blood on the floor as thick as Elmer’s glue around her body.  How even the Detective’s voice quivered as he told me what he knew of the facts.  The look of horror on the dead woman’s face...

I remember everything but her name.

I was once nameless and faceless, in a kind of way.  Years before I married I was in an abusive domestic relationship.  I was belittled, I was maligned, I was bullied, I was beaten.  And I was isolated, because my abuser was charismatic and well-liked and I was not necessarily so. It seemed at the time there was no one to tell.  Although, in truth, there were people who knew because they had heard the sound of his blows on my flesh, his soul-destroying words and my cries.  But even those who knew acted like that did not.

And now here we are.... People of color of both genders are subjected to inappropriate displays of the power and authority of police personnel in disproportionate numbers...but often the outcry is about what is happening to Black and Brown men, without any acknowledgment that women, too, are subjected to abuse and mistreatment.  It seems to me, though, that the reticence to acknowledge what happens to Black and Brown women at the hands of over-reaching police power is akin to the reluctance of anyone who knew of my abuse to offer concrete help, which, in turn, is akin to the nonchalantly aggressive attitude toward women that led to the brutal killing of my nameless sister on the floor of an apartment in the Bronx these many years ago.  

Let me say that more simply: racism, bigotry and sexism are fruit of the same tree of hatred.  Where, then, do you think the greatest vulnerability truly lies when we are speaking of such things as these?

I watched the Sandra Bland arrest video last week.  Before I knew it, I was in tears.  I didn’t cry because of perceived police brutality.  I cried because she was one more woman alone with one more man who had all the control and could not see her as a human being worthy of appropriate treatment.  I cried because she was one more woman who was invited to speak her mind, and, when she boldly did so, was screamed at and manhandled and abused.  I cried because just as I might have, at one time in my life, wound up like the woman in the Bronx apartment, I know I might yet one day wind up like Sandra Bland.  And I don’t feel safe.

I have asked my husband – a civil rights champion – to stop highlighting the plight of men of color at the hands of certain police personnel in ways that ignore how much more vulnerable women are in those same situations.  He has, I think, agreed (or did he just cave in to my tears?).  

That night in the Bronx, after I had done my job in the apartment, I went downstairs to my car.  My husband was there.  I don’t see so well to drive at night, and couldn’t find my way around the Bronx even in the day light, so when I got beeped in the night, he would drive me.

I remember going down to the car.  And, instead of telling him whatever I could tell about the facts – which was my custom – I just began to cry.  And I don’t mean little tears, I mean great big blubbery tears.  Really down from the core of your being kind of crying.

And all I could say to him when he asked what was wrong was: “I Can’t believe this is my job.  I just can’t believe this is my job.”

I have a different job now.  But I still cannot believe some of the things that are necessary as I fulfill my function – things like announcing as wrong that which human decency and compassion should inherently lead folks to understand to be wrong, and which, nevertheless, they do not...at least, not for some.

Sandra Bland, Kindra Chapman, Joyce Curnell, Ralkina Jones, Alexis McGovern, Raynetta Turner, Sarah Lee Circle Bear, Tanisha Anderson, Yvette Smith, Miriam Carey, Shelley Frey, Darnisha Harris, Malissa Williams, Alesia Thomas, Shantel Davis, Rekia Boyd, Shereese Francis, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Tarika Wilson, Kathryn Johnston, Alberta Spruill, Kendra James...

God have mercy on us all.

Professions of shock and astonishment notwithstanding, Wednesday’s massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. was predictably inevitable.  The murderer, who I will not dignify here by using his name, held hate in his heart that was fueled by his purported association with a known White supremacist hate group.  As that hate festered, he adorned and wore a jacket with the flags of two White, brutally oppressive governments on the continent of Africa — yet no one who knew him took meaningful notice.  Of late, he had some drunken rants in which he declared that he wanted to begin a race war, the desired outcome of which would be the segregation of Black people (and, presumably, other people of color) from White people — yet no one who knew him took action to stop him.  Then, oblivious to the indicia of hate manifested in his behavior and his speech, his father gave him a gun.   

The killer gladly took the gun and had target practice with it.  He then went to a Bible study at an historically African American church.  He sat with the people there, who reports say showed him love and acceptance.  And after an hour of receiving what they offered in the name of Jesus Christ, he stood up and methodically shot them.  Because they were Black.  And because he hated Black people.  And because no one who knew him took notice of the evidence of his sin.  And because no one who knew him took action to keep him from harming others as a consequence of his sin.  

...And what does it have to do with you and me?   

Only this: Everybody knows somebody who is wont to engage in hate speech — not just ethnically-oriented hate speech but other kinds as well. When the pus of that infection bubbles to the surface at a social gathering or at the family dinner table or at church, how clearly do we decry it to the perpetrator so there is no question of its unacceptability?  When the KKK comes to a Long Island community to spread its message of hate, how clearly do we condemn that behavior to the public so there is no question that those who speak hate do not speak for us?  

My argument is that hate speech + silent acquiescence + inaction by those who were in a position to speak and act before the fact resulted in last Wednesday’s deaths.  My argument is that, therefore, such atrocities can happen anywhere just as readily as they happened in Charleston.  My argument is that, to quote Edmond Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good [people] should do nothing.”   

The Church cannot be complicit in such barbarousness as occurred last week, but all too often it has been and continues to be.  Church people dare not be complicit in the violence perpetrated against sisters and brothers who God made but who are nevertheless uncomfortably unlike us according to our perceptions; but all too often we have been and continue to be. Those who claim the name of Jesus owe God -- and the world -- more than we have rendered.  We have watched the consequences play out in myriad ways.  Last week's atrocity was but one.

Let’s think on these things and remember them the next time we are tempted to look the other way.  

I went home for a few hours last week.  A final farewell for a fallen skydiver found me back at Skydive Sussex for the first time in many, many months.

Paul's ash dive was well thought out and well executed.  A bagpipe played as the jumpers walked to the plane.  The dude wearing Paul's ashes on his arm stopped at the entrance to the jump plane and each jumper gave their comrade a final "high five" as they climbed in.  I walked behind and to the side, remembering my training to remain with the departed as long as possible.  As the jump plane taxied, turned and took off, I stood nearby watching over my sky friends and saying prayers for their safety.

Paul had recently earned his rating as a skydiving instructor and was on the verge of jumping with his first student when he died.  So one of the skydivers jumped in the student position while Paul's ashes rode on the arm of the skydiver jumping in the spot Paul himself would have occupied.  Ten other jumpers accompanied Paul on this his last jump before he was released into the air.  

The jumpers landed near the spot in the landing area where Paul's D license number was cut into the grass.  His family and friends, who had gathered at the dropzone to watch the ritual, walked out to greet and hug the returning skydivers.  Then the jump plane flew in low over the landing area, dipping its right wing.  Cheers, more hugs, pictures, food, sitting in the warm sun, listening to people talk and laugh.

The beer light comes on once the last jump plane of the day takes off.  In some drop zones there is not an actual light, but it is just an expression.  When the beer light is on it means you can have a beverage if you want to.  So, after one more jump the clouds rolled in and the beer light came on and we walked to the pub at the end of the landing area.  Someone carried a couple of pictures of Paul with us.  We put the pictures on a picnic table outside the pub, ordered draft beers and stood, with Paul's pictures and Paul's family, in a huge circle in the parking lot, toasting him and pouring libations.

As I always do in large gatherings I stood at the edge of things, watching the faces, listening to the laughter, smiling to myself at how good it was to be there, despite the circumstances.

But the best part?  The best part was that I got to be the pastor me in the midst of my sky world.  At another dropzone I once emerged from the bathroom after a jump wearing a suit and my clerical collar so that I could go visit someone in the hospital.  I recall walking across the packing mat to get my rig and my gear bag, and that the reaction was rather comical -- something like the entrance of the villain into a saloon in an old Western.  It seemed everyone stopped talking and the piano stopped playing and the glasses tinkled down to silence... But last week I was able to stand as fully and completely myself.  I read a poem suitable for funerals and invoked some prayers of comfort and commital.

I recall standing in the large circle that had gathered in the packing tent, a circle comprised of skydiving comrades and Paul's family and his friends, and realizing the moment was the perfect intersection of everything that I am.  I felt at peace.  I felt at home.

And God was in it and over it all.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what 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 throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, 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 for war, and a time for peace.  ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

I preached this passage this past Charge Conference season.  Church after church, day after day, most weeks at least seven times a week, I promised the people I lead that not only is change inevitable -- it is the thread that God almighty has woven into the fabric of human life.  I assured them that even though we may not like that we must live through currents of ongoing change, the best way to cope is to keep our attention and energies focused on the work God has given us to do: to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world; to begin building the peaceable kingdom that Christ will complete and inhabit with us when he returns in his final glory.

Believe me -- I meant those words every thime I spoke them.  Sometimes they even moved me to tears. But, oh...oh...

I miss the sky.  I miss crouching in the open door of an airplane that is cruising at nearly 14,000 feet above the ground and hearing the hum of the engine, feeling the force of the wind as it passes over my body, identifying the deeply peaceful place in my heart that asures me that I am ready to jump.  I miss the feeling of liberation that comes with stepping free of the plane into air, playing with friends out there or even just practicing some maneuver I am hoping to improve, if not perfect.  I miss standing in the landing area, hands trembling with adrenalin rush, trying to stow my brake lines with jittery fingers, stopping every now and again to look up and smile (or even laugh out loud) and recall what had just happened, gathering my lines and flinging my canopy over my shoulder to make the walk back to the packing area.  I miss the people I have grown to love and respect and pray for.  I miss the smell of the engine fuel, and the smell of parachute fabric.  I miss listening to long time jumpers tell stories of the "old days," their eyes shining as they laugh their way through accounts of the sky antics of youth.  I miss how good a beer can taste when I'm drinking it while I'm watching the sun set over the landing area and listening to the laughter of the people with whom I am in community.

I am not the most accomplished skydiver by any means.  But, oh...oh...

It takes time and planning and hard work to become an accomplished skydiver.  It takes even more time and planning and hard work to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  If I work to become an accomplished skydiver, that will benefit no one but me.  Yet, if I work to make disciples of Jesus Christ that could potentially benefit the entire world.  So there it is.

A friend of mine, when talking with me about the various things I hold in  tense balance during this time of my life, said of my jumping, "You might need to let that just be something wonderful that happened to you once."  He may be right.  But today, as I watched a skydiving video shot with a friend's helmet camera, I found my grin turned to tears.  And I hoped -- not for the first time, and probably not for the last -- that he is wrong.

To everything there is a season. And my seasons have changed; the wind has shifted. Whether and when and in what form another shift will come is up to the God who has woven change into the fabric of human life.  With my brake lines stowed and my canopy flung across my shoulder, I set my eyes on my destination and begin to put one foot in front of the other.  I look up now and again to smile and even laugh out loud and remember. Behind me: the landing area of my last jump; before me: who knows?  But wherever it is, whatever comes, I am glad to know I will have my God -- and my rig -- with me.

I missed a funeral today.  It was for someone I did not know well but whose presence I always enjoyed, and who -- because we are both skydivers -- I counted as part of my extended family.  I didn't go to the wake service, either.  It is not that I did not care; I truly grieved the loss.  But there was work to do in a place where I would be one of only a few, and there were surely many mourners.  So, just as I had whispered private, tearful prayers for God to receive my friend at the time of his transition, I whispered private, funereal prayers of goodbye and turned my car toward the place where I was expected for a meeting.

The Gospel of Luke tells a story which in some Bibles is labeled, "The Cost of Following Jesus."  The story goes like this:

As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” He said to another man, “Follow me.”  But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”  Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

This text is one of the assigned lectionary readings for one of the Sundays of the three year cycle, so I know I have preached it before.  I cannot recall what exactly I said, but I may have talked about the call to follow Jesus being a call to sacrifice and service rather than wealth and privilege.  I may have talked about the call to follow Jesus being a call away from persuing life's creature comforts.  I may have talked about the decision to follow Jesus being a decision to adhere to a disciplined life of prayer and mission and ministry for the sake of the world to which God has sent Jesus' followers.  Whatever my focus when I presumed to preach, I doubt very much that I unpacked the package of this text with the poignancy of choosing the work of ministry over a friend's funeral in mind. 

Still, I did my duty.  I went on.  I did not look back at where I might prefer to be or the people I might prefer to be with; I kept my furrow straight. At first, the heaviness of something very much like mourning lingered with me as I did what needed doing.  Colleagues asked how I was and I said I was tired, but I had slept deeply and long last night and knew it was not tiredness I felt.  Thankfully, I found that with each routine action, each expressed opinion, each decision in which I participated, each silly joke I giggled at, the burden lifted a little more.  Each element of the day drew me deeper into the embrace of my other family -- my faith family.  Thanks be to God for being merciful to me...

As I write this, I am by myself in the house.  Fred is out doing HIS duty.  Members of my sky family are wherever they may be; members of my faith family are wherever they may be.  The silence is ringing in my ears.  But God is here.  

As ever, that means that all is well.