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PASTORAL PRAYER: In recognition of Orphan Sunday.

Creation Groans

The world is full of orphans

Of disease

Of poverty

Of war

Of addiction

Of abandonment

The numbers are crushing

15 million children have lost both their fathers and mothers

10’s of millions are fatherless

500.000 children are in our national foster care system/

Our hearts ache for children that face the world alone, those who have no

one else to take their side.

It only takes one caring individual to make a difference in the life of an orphan

On this Orphan Sunday, we join with people of faith across our country and beyond to hold all orphans and foster children in our hearts and minds with precious love.

We send out courage and gratitude to all the adults who care for them, who have adopted them who have opened their homes and their heart to them.

We send out hope and care to those alive who have had to let them go. We offer our support to all who are their defenders, their providers, their hope, and their peace.

May we each discover some humble response that can transforms the life of one orphan, physically and spiritually. May we be transformed as we encounter an orphan and their stories.

On this Orphan Sunday, we lift up our focus beyond our own comfort and self-focused interests to live out the mission of this church to transform a watching world and we inspire one another to act on our faith in the larger community. We cannot let them stumble- we cannot fall asleep.

REFLECTION: Warrior Wisdom Rev. Elaine Beth Peresluha

Acknowledge the loss of life and the despair perpetrated by the shooting in TX- the psychologist and the enlisted men and civilian killed

passing of health care legislation

loss of legislation in Maine to assure marriage rights of same sex couples

Who are veterans- we are all veterans of something- of love, of abuse, of disease, wars of spirit and of body- of ambitions, unfulfilled dreams. But this week we focus our attention on one category of veterans- not to diminish the efforts, the challenge or the contributions of the other veterans- but to hold up for one day the sacrifices we have asked of these human beings who’s souls have been for eve r, irreversibly changed by the required action of killing another human being.

How can we best honor the priceless sacrifices of these human beings- only by doing all we can to understand the causes of war, our own conscious or unconscious s perpetuation of the causes of was and a commitment to no less than social and personal transformation. We must each be peace, in all our affairs if we are ever to see peace became a reality in this world. We must seek to surrender all judgments of those who perpetuate violence until our own lives are completely free of all violent tendencies.

In Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life Thich Nhat Hanh shares his sotry.




“In Plum Village, where I live in France, we receive many letters from the refugee camps in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, hundreds each week. It is very painful to read them, but we have to do it, we have to be in contact. We try our best to help, but the suffering is enormous, and sometimes we are discouraged. It is said that half the boat people die in the ocean. Only half arrive at the shores in Southeast Asia, and even then they may not be safe. There are many young girls, boat people, who are raped by sea pirates. Even though the United Nations and many countries try to help the government of Thailand prevent that kind of piracy, sea pirates continue to inflict much suffering on the refugees. One day we received a letter telling us about a young girl on a small boat who was raped by a Thai pirate. She was only twelve, and she jumped into the ocean and drowned herself.

When you first learn of something like that, you get angry at the pirate. You naturally take the side of the girl. As you look more deeply you will see it differently. If you take the side of the little girl, then it is easy. You only have to take a gun and shoot the pirate. But we cannot do that. In my meditation I saw that if I had been born in the village of the pirate and raised in the same conditions as he was, there is a great likelihood that I would become a pirate. I saw that many babies are born along the Gulf of Siam, hundreds every day, and if we educators, social workers, politicians, and others do not do something about the situation, in twenty-five years a number of them will become sea pirates. That is certain. If you or I were born today in those fishing villages, we may become sea pirates in twenty-five years. If you take a gun and shoot the pirate, all of us are to some extent responsible for this state of affairs.

After a long meditation, I wrote this poem. In it, there are three people: the twelve-year-old girl, the pirate, and me. Can we look at each other and recognize ourselves in each other? The tide of the poem is "Please Call Me by My True Names," because I have so many names. When I hear one of the of these names, I have to say, "Yes."”

Please Call Me By My True Names by

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow

because even today I still arrive

Look deeply; I arrive in every second

to be a bud on a spring branch,

to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile, learning to sing in my new nest

to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,

to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, in order to fear and to hope

the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,

and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time to eat the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond,

and I am the grass-snake who, approaching in silence, feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,

and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,

who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,

and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the Politburo, with plenty of power in my hands,

and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to my people,

dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like a spring so warm it makes flowers bloom in all walks of life.

My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills all four oceans.

Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,

so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up

and so the door of my heart can be left open, the door of compassion.

On Wednesday November 11, 2009 may we honor the veterans of all wars respecting their sacrifices, the eternal transformation of their souls by the commitment of our own hearts to a life free of violence, and judgment- opened to compassion by our true names.