Math has meaning
Mode such a useful word
The number that appears most
The data set doesn't need to have one
What kind of function is that
I like it
One of a myriad functions
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Monday, December 30, 2019
Blame
Plenty to go around
Not the end of the world
Just not here that world I had envisioned
20/20 the year a pun
Time = joke
No better proof exists
Pain comes from wrong conditions
Tragic apologies Helen called them
Such a phrase I was never witness
One cut to the bone
Not the end of the world
Just not here that world I had envisioned
20/20 the year a pun
Time = joke
No better proof exists
Pain comes from wrong conditions
Tragic apologies Helen called them
Such a phrase I was never witness
One cut to the bone
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Name Game
At the end of wars there are new names to learn and remember
When things come to an end and rebirth themselves
Names are like the rain and come and go
You'd think you would always be wet
Saturday, December 21, 2019
21
I'm on the other side of many things
Watched the sunset down my shore
Days longer out back across the water to come
We did not always live in building whatever you believe
It used to get darker and we could see farther
We saw the sky circle around
The first obsession
We have all always stared at something
Days longer out back across the water to come
We did not always live in building whatever you believe
It used to get darker and we could see farther
We saw the sky circle around
The first obsession
We have all always stared at something
Friday, December 20, 2019
Vision Twenty One
Here we are together safely on the other side. I always like to mark the time of year when I preach here. Days finally starting to grow longer. Since the first time we looked up we tried to find meaning with every observation.
This time of the year the sun stops moving across the sky and stops a bit and returns back the other way. I often think of a time when the heavens were a very entertaining place to look. When there were no lights and so many fewer distractions.
In my life I mostly notice the sun set move down the horizon and then comes back out from the shore. Six months one way six months the other. This was certainly one of the first things we came to understand about the heavens. It took long term thinking to see the pattern. We used to be better at finding patterns because they were so new.
We have found patterns everywhere we have looked. We found meaning or we gave meaning. The winter solstice in the north feels like the high water mark of the season even though it marks the beginning. The other side feels down hill to spring to me.
I think there was good reason for festival and celebration at this difficult time of year. The long nights getting shorter finally. Almost a rebirth before the birth. Inevitable feeling.
We are also coming closer to 2021 and the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of our first class. They didn't call it church then who knows maybe that's how they got people to come. Sometimes people think they know what church is about. Feel like they don't need it. Superstition and wishful thinking, but when you come into a church you find mostly broken people in need of healing.
The human heart doesn't work without God. In many places it is described as flawed, but that doesn't seem right. A design feature of a creator so in love with each of us that what was created was created dependent. How would you create? The best proxy we have is our children and there is more their than logic. If people who care could stop caring they would. Sometime the simplest of truth sound harsh, but you need to remember the context of the conversation I want to have today.
By objective measure our economy has not been better in twenty years. And also objectively as a world community we are doing less planning for the future than we have done in twenty years. To quote a young woman from Sweden.
"You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.
The first Earth day summit in 1992 I was 21 and already old. It wasn't until 1997 that I began working on the main project that came out of that happening: Local Agenda 21. The core realization was that public polling and expert opinion actually agree when assessing environmental priorities. The implementation made perfect sense to me: every local area would solve its local issues.
By one estimation the Local Agenda 21 campaign has had more people involved on one project in the history of humanity. I like to think that the kingdom of God has involved more people, but the priorities don't always match. Instead of looking to bring people together we often focus on finding ways to divide us.
There are those Christians who will tell you that Jesus coming back kind of is our get out of jail free card. Surely at this point in history Jesus must be well on his way back. So we say it doesn't really matter what we do, We expect the thief in the night to do our dishes. Well there certainly were those among the first twelve disciples that agreed. Course they already 2000 years off. What is it to you if he should tarry?
It is our faith that gives us strength. We seem like those dejected followers of Jesus who thought he would destroy Rome in one fell swoop. We still try to understand that he was the one destroyed. He went one way: death. Then he came back the other way: life. Those stones surely would celebrate as the heavens do these basic truths. Those things that can only be built upon.
The latest meeting, the COP 25 climate change talks, had to be moved from one continent to another due to civil unrest in the host nations. Chile first backed out of hosting then a return to Brazil was not seen as possible. The conference in Madrid was the longest in the twenty-five year process and produced the least. We are failing them. The reason is the same one that lead Jesus to sit with the sinners. The short term all so much smoke and mirrors.
People can be labeled or people can be saved, they can't be both. In the process we need a new beginning Doesn't really make any sense. Grace and love. Easy answers and easy burden. The heart not so much fixed as home and loved unconditionally.
We are focused on finding agreement between states that have little agreement within them. It is the local community that is the foundation of our world. Think global act local we just need to act more local. Nothing wrong with that plan. In a long-term approach it is easy to see the sinner at your table or in your heart can be redeemed.
The natural world is where our faith came from. We were seasonal before we were spiritual. As a species we have taken more wrong roads than right in my estimation. If I didn't have faith in God I don't think I would have faith in man. People say how can you have faith in God, but I would turn the question around ans ask what can you have faith in?
I do love math and telling my students that numbers are one thing you can always count on. There isn't much in this life. I usually find more than one way to tell them. Funny thing about working with children you often hear more about God than in Church.
I don't think evolving intelligent life in this universe is hard, but most I think would destroy itself. There is no way to know for certain that we haven't already polluted this world too much
SO we listen to the prophets :
In all their distress He was distressed The universe such a large place that we make such a small place with all our divisions. If you believe God created you is it much to believe that countless galaxies were also created. There is enough certainly to fill a galaxy full of God's love for each of us. We could find seven billion galaxies rather easily. Maybe those scientists don't really see all those galaxies? I don't think so, but there is plenty of room for God. More unknown about the universe than know. Dark matter dark energy sounds like room to me. The abundance of such a large universe.
In our Mathew reading today we find our Christ a refugee. The be silent night if you will. One thing i will tell you about refugees they gather on the best corners of the world. I've worked with refugees and displaced people for twenty years finding jobs for them here in Cleveland half that time.
You ever wonder how a city like Cleveland can accommodate so many refugees. One thing I have found is there are always jobs around. People here always have drama. Like a clock work universe. Keep winding and you get there.
Drove groups of up to fifteen around town. As the van cleared out to go to work new arrivals from other continents. I drove so many different types of vans, but they only drove in one. I could describe some details more, but words like hearts fail.
Most things fail and not all failure is bad. How something can be flawed and yet be the best thing we know in this large universe. The depravity and the sublime.
Thing about refugees even if you manage to return home like Jesus did, you always a refugee.
Lot of people angry about migrants and refugees and we seem to forget what it mostly says about us. When a stranger arrives we have reason to be fearful and reason to be compassionate. I've been given refuge in a war zone, but I was there for a job. That's not a place to seek refuge, but I found it there so I believe it must be everywhere. We been at peace at home a long time here. The one thing i rarely told any refugee was how much harder the program is in America. Every single country that takes in refugees gives better resettlement services than we do. Maybe it is our luxury. In a sense the other countries must because is so hard to survive. I don't really think so, but that's a point i wouldn't argue. I do know that one person can succeed here.
We got a lot of people that go to church on Sunday. We say many similar things. Some thing we do find disagreement. Many people don't find the story of Jesus as a refugee informative of the current political context. Funny how other small pieces of the bible the same people cling to. This isn't about other or them, this is about our soon to be two hundred year class. It is easy to romanticize two hundred years. If it helps we are talking about seven generations.
I find Isaiah in chapter 46 verse 10:
0 Declaring the end and the result from the beginning,
And from ancient times the things which have not [yet] been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will do all that pleases Me and fulfills My purpose,’
Isaiah was talking about us too. It is a glorious purpose 200 years here 2000 years there, but we might rightly ask what future we see here. What vision do you see?
We need to look better than 20/20 and really ask ourselves what is it that we see here in our own Vision 21. Entering the 21st year of the 21st century I find I see more sevens. Maybe that is just the football fan in me. Maybe seven things we can focus upon in the next year these last seven generations.
When we look closely at things we tend to see the dark side of them, Often we get discouraged and wish not to know. Even this most amazing creation the human heart has a dark side. We have to look at things clearly and make better what we can. We don't need to dread or fear the difficulties. We can be assured difficulties will be ahead. We can know that we will see aspects of things we don't want to see.
The trick here is to let the good surprise you. I often talk about how people wonder why God allows evil while dismissing the miracle that anything good endures. The most people may be working for the kingdom of God, but most people are wrong about their idea of how to make it be. More is done wrong through ignorance than malice. Sometime the simplest of truth sound harsh.
Just because every institution in the world lacks memory doesn't mean we must. I often am guilty of imagining all the jobs that once filled the neighborhood. When I hear the names of the fortune 500 companies that left not so long ago. All those men that supported entire families with one income. All those men no one seems to need here anymore, but that is only a small part of Nottingham.
We have been through greater struggles. We have been a Church at war. Real people who we have a real connection to sent their sons to die in far off lands and our own land.
We did come out of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Ecumenical Church. Six years from the end of the war of 1812. Did they have a vision 21? Well God sure seems to have as we ramble towards 2021 and 200 years mostly on inertia.
We need to tell the story of one of the oldest churches in Cleveland. We need to make a new story for us now. If we can look back into our past with better clarity we can understand better that things have never been and never will be easy.
We could see that change is the only constant force in our congregation. We would not be so amazed by peoples lives that come and go here. I know of numerous people who have lived miraculous lives on this corner or in relationship to this corner. There are more of these lives we don't remember and even more yet to come.
People show up here. You showed up here. People will continue to show up here. We are at a unique point in our history a solstice of sorts. Seven generations and ready to go back around again. Sustainability is planning for the next seven generations now.
We plan for years that become decades that become centuries. Moments add up to more than they were. Today is more than what is to come, but we owe something here as the seventh generation. My heart can only hold a sliver of what would be possible, but I believe that it is outdoors. More green space opened up around our church. More seeds planted. Vineyards that grow like the days of old teaching a new generation to live not only survive.
We need a new openness of heart and mind to take ownership as the seventh generation in this church as we now call it. All churches are more interesting in their beginnings. Their reason for being is that they were not. Our reason for being is that we are. Are we flawed? certainly. Can we make it another two hundred years with Gods help? Undoubtedly.
Let Us Pray
Heavenly Father,
Help us here today hear the lessons of the last two hundred years here at Nottingham. Help us each to catch a sliver of a vision we can bring together. Bring us help. Enter the hearts of people you are planning to bring us right now. Those who don't know if they should stay show them clearly they should. Allow us to see each new and old face that enters our sanctuary for the miracle that it is. Let us begin today to understand better who we have been, who we are and what we can become. We ask in the name of your son Jesus Christ Amen.
Dec 29th, 2019 Nottingham
This time of the year the sun stops moving across the sky and stops a bit and returns back the other way. I often think of a time when the heavens were a very entertaining place to look. When there were no lights and so many fewer distractions.
In my life I mostly notice the sun set move down the horizon and then comes back out from the shore. Six months one way six months the other. This was certainly one of the first things we came to understand about the heavens. It took long term thinking to see the pattern. We used to be better at finding patterns because they were so new.
We have found patterns everywhere we have looked. We found meaning or we gave meaning. The winter solstice in the north feels like the high water mark of the season even though it marks the beginning. The other side feels down hill to spring to me.
I think there was good reason for festival and celebration at this difficult time of year. The long nights getting shorter finally. Almost a rebirth before the birth. Inevitable feeling.
We are also coming closer to 2021 and the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of our first class. They didn't call it church then who knows maybe that's how they got people to come. Sometimes people think they know what church is about. Feel like they don't need it. Superstition and wishful thinking, but when you come into a church you find mostly broken people in need of healing.
The human heart doesn't work without God. In many places it is described as flawed, but that doesn't seem right. A design feature of a creator so in love with each of us that what was created was created dependent. How would you create? The best proxy we have is our children and there is more their than logic. If people who care could stop caring they would. Sometime the simplest of truth sound harsh, but you need to remember the context of the conversation I want to have today.
By objective measure our economy has not been better in twenty years. And also objectively as a world community we are doing less planning for the future than we have done in twenty years. To quote a young woman from Sweden.
"You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.
"You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.
"We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.
"Thank you."
By one estimation the Local Agenda 21 campaign has had more people involved on one project in the history of humanity. I like to think that the kingdom of God has involved more people, but the priorities don't always match. Instead of looking to bring people together we often focus on finding ways to divide us.
There are those Christians who will tell you that Jesus coming back kind of is our get out of jail free card. Surely at this point in history Jesus must be well on his way back. So we say it doesn't really matter what we do, We expect the thief in the night to do our dishes. Well there certainly were those among the first twelve disciples that agreed. Course they already 2000 years off. What is it to you if he should tarry?
It is our faith that gives us strength. We seem like those dejected followers of Jesus who thought he would destroy Rome in one fell swoop. We still try to understand that he was the one destroyed. He went one way: death. Then he came back the other way: life. Those stones surely would celebrate as the heavens do these basic truths. Those things that can only be built upon.
The latest meeting, the COP 25 climate change talks, had to be moved from one continent to another due to civil unrest in the host nations. Chile first backed out of hosting then a return to Brazil was not seen as possible. The conference in Madrid was the longest in the twenty-five year process and produced the least. We are failing them. The reason is the same one that lead Jesus to sit with the sinners. The short term all so much smoke and mirrors.
People can be labeled or people can be saved, they can't be both. In the process we need a new beginning Doesn't really make any sense. Grace and love. Easy answers and easy burden. The heart not so much fixed as home and loved unconditionally.
We are focused on finding agreement between states that have little agreement within them. It is the local community that is the foundation of our world. Think global act local we just need to act more local. Nothing wrong with that plan. In a long-term approach it is easy to see the sinner at your table or in your heart can be redeemed.
The natural world is where our faith came from. We were seasonal before we were spiritual. As a species we have taken more wrong roads than right in my estimation. If I didn't have faith in God I don't think I would have faith in man. People say how can you have faith in God, but I would turn the question around ans ask what can you have faith in?
I do love math and telling my students that numbers are one thing you can always count on. There isn't much in this life. I usually find more than one way to tell them. Funny thing about working with children you often hear more about God than in Church.
I don't think evolving intelligent life in this universe is hard, but most I think would destroy itself. There is no way to know for certain that we haven't already polluted this world too much
SO we listen to the prophets :
In Isaiah 63:7-9 Amplified Bible (AMP)
we hear of
God’s Ancient Mercies Recalled
7
I will tell of the lovingkindnesses of the Lord, and the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,
According to all that the Lord has done for us,
And His great goodness toward the house of Israel,
Which He has shown them according to His compassion
And according to the abundance of His lovingkindnesses.
8
For He said, “Be assured, they are My people,
Sons who will not be faithless.”
So He became their Savior [in all their distresses].
9
In all their distress He was distressed,
And the [a]angel of His presence saved them,
In His love and in His compassion He redeemed them;
And He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
I will tell of the lovingkindnesses of the Lord, and the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,
According to all that the Lord has done for us,
And His great goodness toward the house of Israel,
Which He has shown them according to His compassion
And according to the abundance of His lovingkindnesses.
8
For He said, “Be assured, they are My people,
Sons who will not be faithless.”
So He became their Savior [in all their distresses].
9
In all their distress He was distressed,
And the [a]angel of His presence saved them,
In His love and in His compassion He redeemed them;
And He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
In our Mathew reading today we find our Christ a refugee. The be silent night if you will. One thing i will tell you about refugees they gather on the best corners of the world. I've worked with refugees and displaced people for twenty years finding jobs for them here in Cleveland half that time.
You ever wonder how a city like Cleveland can accommodate so many refugees. One thing I have found is there are always jobs around. People here always have drama. Like a clock work universe. Keep winding and you get there.
Drove groups of up to fifteen around town. As the van cleared out to go to work new arrivals from other continents. I drove so many different types of vans, but they only drove in one. I could describe some details more, but words like hearts fail.
Most things fail and not all failure is bad. How something can be flawed and yet be the best thing we know in this large universe. The depravity and the sublime.
Thing about refugees even if you manage to return home like Jesus did, you always a refugee.
Lot of people angry about migrants and refugees and we seem to forget what it mostly says about us. When a stranger arrives we have reason to be fearful and reason to be compassionate. I've been given refuge in a war zone, but I was there for a job. That's not a place to seek refuge, but I found it there so I believe it must be everywhere. We been at peace at home a long time here. The one thing i rarely told any refugee was how much harder the program is in America. Every single country that takes in refugees gives better resettlement services than we do. Maybe it is our luxury. In a sense the other countries must because is so hard to survive. I don't really think so, but that's a point i wouldn't argue. I do know that one person can succeed here.
We got a lot of people that go to church on Sunday. We say many similar things. Some thing we do find disagreement. Many people don't find the story of Jesus as a refugee informative of the current political context. Funny how other small pieces of the bible the same people cling to. This isn't about other or them, this is about our soon to be two hundred year class. It is easy to romanticize two hundred years. If it helps we are talking about seven generations.
I find Isaiah in chapter 46 verse 10:
0 Declaring the end and the result from the beginning,
And from ancient times the things which have not [yet] been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will do all that pleases Me and fulfills My purpose,’
Isaiah was talking about us too. It is a glorious purpose 200 years here 2000 years there, but we might rightly ask what future we see here. What vision do you see?
We need to look better than 20/20 and really ask ourselves what is it that we see here in our own Vision 21. Entering the 21st year of the 21st century I find I see more sevens. Maybe that is just the football fan in me. Maybe seven things we can focus upon in the next year these last seven generations.
When we look closely at things we tend to see the dark side of them, Often we get discouraged and wish not to know. Even this most amazing creation the human heart has a dark side. We have to look at things clearly and make better what we can. We don't need to dread or fear the difficulties. We can be assured difficulties will be ahead. We can know that we will see aspects of things we don't want to see.
The trick here is to let the good surprise you. I often talk about how people wonder why God allows evil while dismissing the miracle that anything good endures. The most people may be working for the kingdom of God, but most people are wrong about their idea of how to make it be. More is done wrong through ignorance than malice. Sometime the simplest of truth sound harsh.
Just because every institution in the world lacks memory doesn't mean we must. I often am guilty of imagining all the jobs that once filled the neighborhood. When I hear the names of the fortune 500 companies that left not so long ago. All those men that supported entire families with one income. All those men no one seems to need here anymore, but that is only a small part of Nottingham.
We have been through greater struggles. We have been a Church at war. Real people who we have a real connection to sent their sons to die in far off lands and our own land.
We did come out of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Ecumenical Church. Six years from the end of the war of 1812. Did they have a vision 21? Well God sure seems to have as we ramble towards 2021 and 200 years mostly on inertia.
We need to tell the story of one of the oldest churches in Cleveland. We need to make a new story for us now. If we can look back into our past with better clarity we can understand better that things have never been and never will be easy.
We could see that change is the only constant force in our congregation. We would not be so amazed by peoples lives that come and go here. I know of numerous people who have lived miraculous lives on this corner or in relationship to this corner. There are more of these lives we don't remember and even more yet to come.
People show up here. You showed up here. People will continue to show up here. We are at a unique point in our history a solstice of sorts. Seven generations and ready to go back around again. Sustainability is planning for the next seven generations now.
We plan for years that become decades that become centuries. Moments add up to more than they were. Today is more than what is to come, but we owe something here as the seventh generation. My heart can only hold a sliver of what would be possible, but I believe that it is outdoors. More green space opened up around our church. More seeds planted. Vineyards that grow like the days of old teaching a new generation to live not only survive.
We need a new openness of heart and mind to take ownership as the seventh generation in this church as we now call it. All churches are more interesting in their beginnings. Their reason for being is that they were not. Our reason for being is that we are. Are we flawed? certainly. Can we make it another two hundred years with Gods help? Undoubtedly.
Let Us Pray
Heavenly Father,
Help us here today hear the lessons of the last two hundred years here at Nottingham. Help us each to catch a sliver of a vision we can bring together. Bring us help. Enter the hearts of people you are planning to bring us right now. Those who don't know if they should stay show them clearly they should. Allow us to see each new and old face that enters our sanctuary for the miracle that it is. Let us begin today to understand better who we have been, who we are and what we can become. We ask in the name of your son Jesus Christ Amen.
Dec 29th, 2019 Nottingham
Subaghraj
If your going to sub your going to need a good bag
Extra h never bothered anyone ever
Rules in the Sanskrit raj
Ever present in moments
Children will seldom be
Seven years in a wonder
Ever patient for infinity
Children never are
Everyday a practice
Some better than others
But we get better at it
Break our most basic rules
Don't repeat words or place them close
Extra h never bothered anyone ever
Rules in the Sanskrit raj
Ever present in moments
Children will seldom be
Seven years in a wonder
Ever patient for infinity
Children never are
Everyday a practice
Some better than others
But we get better at it
Break our most basic rules
Don't repeat words or place them close
Saturday, December 7, 2019
Celebration
I knew this guy and he lived this remarkable way
First he had this smile for everyone
Hmm, huh? He lived his life a celebration
Objectively people would say what did it get him
He knew pain he knew suffering he knew oppression
He somehow learned to love all I ever knew him to do
Bad things happened to my friend that were not his fault
Bad or just people who didn't know life was a celebration took advantage
They signed his name to words he never said
Most people would have been bothered by that
Most people know when people are owed even babies
I don't know for sure but I suspect he had learned to celebrate
I know he had many battles before I knew him
He had battles the whole time I knew him
I know what it feels like when people you give your heart to lie
We all cry out for justice
Our vision of what that is is where we part
He would tell you his
I saw what it got him
He had the faith the ages were made
He preached a good sermon now but lived a better one
First he had this smile for everyone
Hmm, huh? He lived his life a celebration
Objectively people would say what did it get him
He knew pain he knew suffering he knew oppression
He somehow learned to love all I ever knew him to do
Bad things happened to my friend that were not his fault
Bad or just people who didn't know life was a celebration took advantage
They signed his name to words he never said
Most people would have been bothered by that
Most people know when people are owed even babies
I don't know for sure but I suspect he had learned to celebrate
I know he had many battles before I knew him
He had battles the whole time I knew him
I know what it feels like when people you give your heart to lie
We all cry out for justice
Our vision of what that is is where we part
He would tell you his
I saw what it got him
He had the faith the ages were made
He preached a good sermon now but lived a better one
Friday, December 6, 2019
Daisy
The green light girl
Black and red and blue
Quite a presence
In some dreams we find things we love
In some moments we find them too
I don't really argue which
I see things that I see
Words find themself a nice approximation
Flowery and agenda laced
Like the Daisy in the field
What Grows
Certain thing were sown before we were here
We find all kinds of different things around
In the field here we all grew
Why is no longer of concern unless you want to know
We failed in our diligence to start right
Good seed good soil bad seed good soil
Interchangeable titles of opposite utility
What are you for what are they for
Immeasurable and forever measured approximated
Harvest time comes resolution mostly
More live than die
Asymmetry is what we are most
There is a shortage of anti matter
No shortage of negativity
More love than hate
Their anti matter-matter asymmetry problem
Fifty fifty is a death sentence annihilation
We are here the little left over it seems
The remainder
No really good explanation why
As if the universe doesn't know math that well