Pine Island Pastor Musings

“Earth Prayers Part 2: The Disconnect” Sermon by Rev. Dr. John M. Best to the Pine Island Presbyterian Church Psalm 148                 Isaiah 55:6-13 July 28, 2019 In 1996 during a vacation in the west my family were at Ghost Rance for two weeks.  On the Monday in between conferences, we drove down to Albuquerque to observe  the General Assembly meeting there.  It was   the day committees were working on their various tasks.  My son,  Nate and I observed the committee  considering an amendment to clarify boundary around ordination.   That was the year the church places a clear ban on homosexuals from ordination,   a restriction that took 16 years to undo, finally in 2010.    The committee was in a ballroom with 100s of people like Nate and me, observing. My wife,  Eileen had just attended a week long seminar at Ghost Ranch...

As I write, I am viewing Congressional hearings of the Judicial and Intelligence Committees of the House of Representatives with the former Special Counsel Robert Mueller.  Perhaps you are tuned in as well.  In this context, I offer the following prayer. O Lord, guide our congressional leaders.  Grant them wisdom and courage for fulfilling their responsibilities of providing oversight of the president and his administration and protecting our constitution.  Help the American public to sort through political bluster to understand the facts that have been discovered through investigation.  Protect our fragile experiment of a people governing themselves.  Help us restore the trust which has become so shattered.  Help us restore public confidence in elections in America and elsewhere, which are under attack and at risk. Protect us in this vulnerable time.

Fifty years ago this Saturday, on June 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, one of the greatest triumphs in human history.   Michael Collins, the often forgotten third member of the Apollo 11 crew, remained in the Command Module, continued in orbit around the moon, watched and listened hoping that all would be ok, knowing there was a strong chance of a disastrous descent, and that if so, he would be the loneliest man in the universe and have to return by himself, likely forever remembered as the one who left two crew members behind.  Engineers gathered in NASA's Houston Control room also watched and listened with bated breath, along with Walter Cronkite and other news anchors, and people around the globe, who huddled around televisions and radios pulling for success.  It was a day the world became one human family pulling for "our" success. The 50th anniversary of this human achievement has inspired the Chasing the Moon  series on PBS, ...

The refugee children separated by the U.S. Government from their parents at the Mexican border and held in quickly thrown together detentions centers is on my heart and mind.  It's been happening for months.  Only now, U.S. Representatives and Senators, and journalists are beginning to report what they've learned during recent visits investigating the situation.  The photos and reports are blood curtalling, and have raised a righteous anger in me.  In June on the 75th anniversary of the Normandy invasion, I rewatched HBO's mini series "Band of Brothers," the story of Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army during World War 2.  The series followed their training in 1942 and 43, then their D-Day mission, their subsequent march across France, their heroic holding of Bastogne, in the Battle of the Bulge.  The most harrowing episode was the next to last one entitled, "Why We Fight."  They stumbled onto one of the many c...