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Monday, July 09, 2012

Poetry book sample pages from Seasons of Faith: Religious & Spiritual Poetry by Peter Menkin, Obl Cam OSB

The heart yearns,
Wishes for warmth, finds opening to the Lord
'With tears and the attention of heart...'
This divine love sustains life.
by Peter Menkin



This sample from my book of poetry, "Seasons of Faith: Religious & Spiritual Poetry," can be purchaed in entiretry. Paperback copy available through Amazon.com. Search using, "Peter Menkin" in books for the paperback or Kindle versions.

A sample:


Seasons of Faith

Interview: Shari Karney, Los Angeles attorney and commentator on child molesting in Sandusky case, churches, and other institutions

This interview with Shari Karney, Esq. , attorney and commentator makes remarks of opinion of a kind like a public letter on the subject of child molesting, and in specific reference the recent Sandusky trial. There is American national attention to the often secret subject of child molesting and the child molester. Attorney Shari Karney of Santa Monica, California has been working on this kind of case with others in the United States and especially California, almost in the manner of a Crusade
Interview by Peter Menkin




Crusader for molested children, Shari Karney, Esq. of Los Angeles

This interview with Shari Karney, Esq. , attorney and commentator makes remarks of opinion of a kind like a public letter on the subject of child molesting, and in specific reference the recent Sandusky trial. There is American national attention to the often secret subject of child molesting and the child molester. Attorney Shari Karney of Santa Monica, California has been working on this kind of case with others in the United States and especially California, almost in the manner of a Crusade. Perhaps as a Crusade, for the interview has tones of the Crusade against this evil of the sexual predator.
She writes in her biography written for this introduction to the interview:

Shari Karney, Esq. is an attorney and member of the State Bar of California for 22 years, a survivor of incest, and an advocate for children’s rights. She keynotes at events around the world, speaks on college and university campuses and law schools. Shari is the author of the soon to be released book, Prey No LongerA Step-by-Step Action Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse.

The interview was held recently with discussion of doing same starting the week of June 11, 2012 by this writer and lasted approximately more than an hour by phone from Mill Valley, California to her office in Santa Monica, California. It consisted of two conversation blocks.

June 25, 2012


  1. 1.     Peter Menkin: Let us look at some of the aspects of child molesting issue as you see the matter of the Sandusky trial. Now that the trial has a verdict, let us imagine it is still at deliberation, and imagine that you have an opportunity as a public person to comment from the jury box as one who is a professional commentator on child molesting issues. Also from this imaginary jury box, comment as an attorney who represents people and their families that have been victims of child molesting. Specifics and even a case in subject are invited.
Attorney Shari Karney:  I am so excited and it gives me real hope for victims and survivors that there is justice and they will be believed. This is a great victory for victims. Sandusky had 9 counts against him on deviant sexual intercourse, indecent assault. He is going to jail, and he is never going to get out. I was worried that they wouldn’t convict him. I have represented victims of child abuse for 20 years, and I was a commentator on the Michael Jackson child molesting case in 2005. It was a criminal case for sexually abusing, assaulting, molesting a boy. Michael Jackson’s defense was though I slept in the same bed with the children, I did not touch them sexually. 

In the Sandusky case, coaches shower with kids all the time. And nothing untoward happened in that shower either. Normal, everyday people, the guy down the block…the person who works at Wal Mart etc. The average person down the block can’t get away with that, but beloved idols can. Such [august] are celebrities: Football coaches of winning teams, athletes, and churches.

MSNBC VIDEO OF JURY DECISION FOR SANDUSKY

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If the jury was really listening, I would say to those juries if I was a jury member–these children have [had] their soul raped and…their spirit …raped. This coach started the Second Mile foundation for at risk kids. He was the only father figure they had. Not only was he the only father figure they had, he was the only man they could look up to. Its one thing when a stranger sexually assaults a child—it’s terrible—but its devastation when someone who is supposed to love and protect you, [a child] sexually abuses you. I know that because it happened to me.

As a victim of incest, I understand the long term effect sexual abuse causes to the victim. Even if you take another form of devastation as the holocaust or genocide, the enemy is known and there is a declared war. This is war against an individual, helpless, isolated child.

I would tell those jurors what it is like to experience it, to understand it isn’t about kids in a conspiracy to go after a beloved football coach. The defense they are using is Sandusky worked 17 hours a day, and therefore had no time to sexually abuse these children…the kids have gotten together to make money.

One of the facts the jury was drawn to is Mike McQueary walked into the football locker room and heard the sound of skin slapping against skin in 2002. It made him curious. He didn’t know what he was hearing and walked into the shower locker and saw victim number 4 with his hands up against the shower wall and Sandusky behind him anally raping him. That is what McQueary saw. That is what was said to the grand jury. They have to practically eyewitness [an event], otherwise the jury perceives it as she-says she-says, or in this case he-said he-said—for all the victims were children and they were boys [in their childhood, some 13 and also under]. 

…Even when there are multiple victims, often we as human beings and jurors don’t want to believe the horror of it all. We [and that means pretty well all of us] say we love and cherish and … give our lives to children, but in reality children have no rights. Children are perceived as second class citizens. Children in the law are considered unreliable, they are untrustworthy, not believable, are going to make stories up, and can be coached to tell a certain story. 

But the truth is, I find children believable, trustworthy, unlikely to make a lie up that is so embarrassing. The lie that children tell is that everything is okay. The truth is [children especially who are sexually assaulted and molested] don’t like that about being sexually assaulted.
They don’t have the information to provide the details of this kind of sexual assault. A child in the Sandusky case told the same facts over and over again in the same way. [Yes, there is no credibility for that child, even at the time of the event’s afterward.]

Anybody who has been in this field knows when they’ve heard the real deal. In my entire practice, first I represented abused children, then adult victims… Only one case [appeared] where I believed the father, and didn’t believe the child. I [start out to always] believe the child, and listen to the children. They don’t have a reason to make this up. Do you think an 8 year old is thinking about money, or a conspiracy, or hurting someone they love or have a relationship with. Why are we throwing our commonsense out the window? The reason we are throwing commonsense out the window, is children who have no rights, they are second class children. We pick the families the coaches, the churches over our children.

One thing I want to say to the jury [while in the jury box]: Spend five minutes walking in the shoes of the victim. Put yourself in the place of that child whose football coach who is your idol who has been grooming you for months for sexual abuse, and [I ask] who has more to get out of telling the truth. Who gets more out of lying? 

Five adults knew about the sexual abuse since 1998, and they didn’t listen. Or if they did listen and did get the idea they didn’t want to tarnish the reputation of [that highly] valued institution which is Penn State. You’ve got kids going up against universities, coaches, and priest. It is David and Goliath. 

[Assistant Coach at Penn State, an inspirational man in the history of the school, founded a non-profit for disadvantaged children and worked with them personally, as well…] These children in Second Mile were at risk children who didn’t have a community, this town, this coach took them in and – the Sandusky family and his wife took these children n and made family of them. 

It was if Naomi took Ruth in and assaulted her. It was an illusion of Ruth and Naomi. It felt like someone cared. It was if the community through Sandusky turned on Ruth, and less of the community supported Ruth. That is Biblical evil. That’s what happened here. They stayed in his home…the community allowed him to bring these community less children in—as if Sandusky turns and cannibalizes Ruth, [unlike Naomi did, who cherished and aided her in her vulnerability and aloneness]. [In this case, Penn State] community stands by and lets it happen.


  1. 2.     Peter Menkin: It occurs to this Religion Writer that the American press runs a child molesting story, stories, on their pages every day. Popular reading is child molesting in the various Churches, especially the Roman Catholic Church in America where that Church is a kind of boogie-man. Why do you think the various churches, that is those of different denominations and persuasions have this problem, so prevalently noted in our decade?
Attorney Shari Karney:  Because they have unauthorized and unsupervised access to young people. And I believe that people who are child molesters or pedophiles are drawn to places where there are lots of children. The other aspect of this is religious leaders and brethren are authority figures and people trusted by parents. Churches were considered safe places and where children are going to be given good values, be loved and protected. They are places where you are safe with God. If you are not safe with God, you are not safe anywhere. 

Religious organizations think it should be dealt with within the Church or Synagogue. It should be dealt with either with forgiveness, or that the community should resolve the problem themselves. It is not an outsiders business. This is certainly the case with the Roman Catholic Church, with the insular Hassidic Community, and with ultra-conservative Jews. 

I believe this is a failure of the internal mechanism of the community of religion. And I think they fail to have a responsibility to even report child molesting as crimes—[The idea is obtained and held] that this is a private affair to be taken care of in their own community or their own family. They don’t want to deal with the issue. It is easier to be in denial. They don’t want to deal with the pain. They don’t want to deal with the failure on their part to keep children in the family or the church safe.

One of the failures we have is a case in Williamsburg, [a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City.] [The incident is called that of] Jungreis. He was 38 years old and he wanted to talk about his child being abused. It was a Hasidic community. He wanted to be cooperative with the police. He reported his son had been abused in the Hasidic community. He received stony looks in the street, people walked past him (Brooklyn); they said he was turning in a fellow Jew. He got kicked out of his apartment, and his mother in law was confronted saying her son was abused and she didn’t report the crime. Why did your son have to report it, [was asked of her by the Jewish community of Hasidism.]
That community is ultra-orthodox. 

Everybody focuses on the Roman Catholic Church, but they aren’t the only organization that has a problem with child sexual abuse: 99 percent of Williamsburg is orthodox Jewish…Where the United Talmudic Academy in Williamsburg is located. 

I have not received any cases of Rabbi abuse, or an ordinary Synagogue abuse. I don’t know anybody who has. This follows the ultra-orthodox, repressed, and similar to Priests in the Catholic Church, in the Mormon Church. It is that participation [in the closed community] and action that where their community can’t interact with the outside community. It leads to a kind of us-against-them mentality.
What attorneys who represent the victims are dealing with now are first amendment and penitent priest issues. Priests who are confessing to other priests cannot talk to the police because that communication is privileged. The person who heard that priest cannot go to the police or testify because the accused priest can protest use of a privileged communication. They confess in such a way that it’s a forgive-me-father-for-I-have sinned: I have sexual feelings for a child, sexual desires, urges and even if they admit to sexual crimes. The Priests are still exerting their privileges. 

They say they are not a judge and jury, [as Priests, they are] not the police. They are there to help your soul and your spirit. I think he is really confessing to God and the Priest is really confessing to God. 

Sandusky asked his defense attorney, in his closing argument, to please read this quote from Mother Teresa to the jury: “What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyways … In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”

  1. 3.     Peter Menkin: Is there something about the Roman Catholic Church, or the Anglican Church (Episcopal), that invites child molesting and molesters?  More importantly is the question, What is being done to meet this problem in Churches and by clergy and lay people today? And if you will, speak with us about the current practice of the Roman Catholic Church, who it appears has begun an even more vigorous defense of the accusation from alleged victims charges.
Attorney Shari Karney:  One of the things that …is happening is in the churches–it’s almost as if Bishops, clergy, and ministers [have a right to] access children. 

The Church of England had a very good response to Priest abuse and minister abuse. I think they are the right track. The acting bishop of Chichester, Mark Sowerby, said that they are committed to making sure that the churches are safe communities for children and vulnerable adults. They are giving the highest priority to the Church of England policies of same guarding vulnerable adults and children. 

We owe this to those who have suffered abuse. And most especially to those who have suffered abuse at the hands of people exercising a ministry in the name of the Church. We are resolved to do whatever is necessary to prevent the abuse of vulnerable adults and children, [Bishop Sowerby says].
The problem with that is, What is necessary to safeguard children and vulnerable adults? And What specifically, are they doing? It is easy to say, We are going to safeguard children and vulnerable adults: What is the enactment of that? Taking the cases in the media in the United States, one of the mothers of the Penn State University coach Sandusky trial said that her son told her [about the acts] and she didn’t want to know. That’s the problem in the Churches. In order to do whatever is necessary to prevent child sexual abuse the leadership of the Churches, and the membership, must be willing to tackle this head on and face it. I am saying this as someone who comments and has experience with this. 

It’s that the children are telling us: But we don’t want to know. All of that denial completely puts the whole system on the side of the perpetrator.


[INTERVIEW CONTINUED FOR SECOND HOUR ON THE DAY OF THE SANDUSKY JURY VERDICT, AT THE TIME OF THAT ANNOUNCEMENT.]

Attorney Shari Karney:  Today within the Sandusky trial where the jury found him guilty of 45 counts out of 48.  It is a victory today for child survivors and a victory for all survivors of child sexual abuse. These were childhoods that were ravished. This is a case where the jurors said we are not going to allow [Sandusky and even the community] to turn on Ruth. We are going to support Ruth [individually, and the community of children]. 

It’s also a message to churches, colleges, athletic departments that child sexual abuse is a crime. Had one of these parents [paid] attention to what occurred, some of the people Sandusky [would not have been molested]. These ravished children’s lives would have been saved. We have the power in the Churches to become a place of healing … and love. 

We must listen to … children and take appropriate action immediately. Some of the churches involved in sexual abuse cases, Roman Catholic Church, Church of England in the schools (I don’t want people to think these incidences are only in America. It is worldwide.) 

One of the problems with the Catholic Church is they transfer the priest to South America, or Mexico. Then you start seeing victims in every place they’ve been transferred. This is a fact. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Episcopal Priests, Quakers, Mormons, Church of Latter Day Saints, Seventh Day Adventist, Southern Baptist, and Baptist Churches are not [always] the first reporters [in cases of the acts of child molesting in their ranks of care]. 

SNAP is the leading organization in the United States that deals with victims of clergy abuse (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests www.snapnetwork.org ). Recently they got together for a charge against humanity at the Haig against the Catholic Church.

  1. 4.     Peter Menkin: Probably the sad part of this story of the churches and this practice of child molesting is the extent and kind of damages done when clergy are involved. I know you have something to say on this subject, since there is a special need people who attend church hold for their clergy. There is a significant responsibility for the caring of the spirit and the work with souls—calls this the spiritual dimension of the damages done by this evil practice of child molesting in the churches. Is this spiritual rape, as some have called it?
Attorney Shari Karney:  When a clergyperson, man or woman of the cloth, a representative of God sexually abuses you, you feel spiritually raped. Both your body is ravished and so is your soul. The damage is even more profound because not only is the child victimized [physically by assault and sexually by assault] by a person, but now the child is victimized by God. There isn’t any legal remedy or damages for spiritual abuse. The law doesn’t have a special category for that as remedy. [The remedy] is included in general damages. But a jury is likely to include it in punitive damages. It’s what the law calls a fiduciary relationship. Which means you’re in a relationship with a person where there is trust. If in a relationship like a student/teacher, a congregation member, and a minister, a member of the Roman Catholic Church and a Priest…they’re in a relationship where they are in a higher responsibility to protect. That is called a fiduciary relationship. 

In the Jehovah witness case, the jury gave the victim $21 million in punitive damages, and $7 million in compensatory damages. The Catholic Church in New York is behind the movement to not aid the statute of limitations of children’s rights. The church is fighting against victims to shorten the time that a victim can sue as a way to protect the perpetrating Priest and to protect the financial institution of the Roman Catholic Church. In California the Catholic Church just won in legislation in the California Supreme Court to deny victims of Church sexual abuse justice by shortening the statute of limitations where the victims can sue.
  1. 5.     Peter Menkin: As we come to the end of our interview, with this last question, speak to anything you will that may have been left out or missed in the questions by this Religion Writer.

Attorney Shari Karney:  Instead of the Roman Church and other religions really getting together to see what can be done to stop child sexual abuse, some are taking the lead from the Catholic Church and stop victims from being able to sue them and seek justice. My question is, Why not turn resources to prevention, to what to do when you know it’s a crime (how to stop it). Why use not these billions and millions of dollars to stop the victim from getting justice.

Why not each separate religion ask, What would Christ do…What would Moses do…What would God want us to do… The answer is to do God’s work on earth. I do not believe that Christ would watch a child being sexually assaulted by someone and turn his back. What are the Churches doing [if not] doing Christ’s work as men and women of God.
[Attorney Shari Karney’s website is here.]



Uploaded by rabbitimes on Sep 11, 2009
Shari Karney (Melissa Gilbert) is an attorney who becomes involved in some incest cases, which cause her to suddenly bring up memories of having experienced incest herself when she was a child. Her family (Shirley Douglas, Dick Latessa, Patricia Kalember) refuses to believe her, and this starts to ruin her relationship with her sister, Linda (Patricia Kalember). Shari decides to work toward trying to get a law passed which would allow incest victims to sue for damages when their memories of the incest return, even as adults.


ADDENDUM
From book proposal, The Girl Behind the Curtain, by Shari Karney, Esq.

Incest and child sexual abuse by their very nature are hard to quantify. The
National Center for Victims of Crime reports that “father-daughter and stepfather/daughter incest is the most commonly reported, with most of the remaining reports consisting of mother/stepmother-daughter/son incest.” It estimates that up to 20 million Americans have been victimized by their parents, and further estimates that one out of three girls and one out of five boys are sexually abused by the time they reach the age of eighteen. In Canada, which has stricter reporting laws and more accurate government studies, child sexual abuse is believed to happen to one in two girls and one in four boys. There are legions and legions of child sexual abuse survivors worldwide. (UN Study conducted shows there are 150 million girls and 73 million boy survivors worldwide with 90% unreported.)

Over the last decade, and even in recent months, the number of high-profile child
sexual abuse narratives portrayed in the mainstream news media has been overwhelming.

There was the case of Elizabeth Smart in Salt Lake City, the 14-year-old girl abducted in June of 2002 and found alive 18 miles from her home nine months later. Over those
months in captivity she was sexually molested hundreds of times. A few months after the Smart abduction, Shawn Hornbeck, an 11-year-old boy from Union, Missouri, was
kidnapped while riding his bike near his home. He and another boy were discovered alive in January 2007, having been brutally molested in the home of Michael J. Devlin.

And finally, in June of 1991, Jaycee Dugard, an 11-year-old girl from South Lake Tahoe, was abducted from a street while she was walking from her home to a school bus stop. She remained missing for more than 18 years. When she was discovered, she had borne two girls, ages 11 and 15, for her captives, in Antioch. The stories go on and on and occur across racial and economic backgrounds. From fringe Mormon groups to Catholic priests to football coaches, child sexual abuse is an evergreen issue. All of these stories have been told in book-length narratives and continue to find readers, because childhood sexual abuse is a festering sore.

Film review: David Petersen's 'Let the Church Say Amen,' a cinematic work about a Store Front Church in Washington, D.C.

The movie directed by David Petersen is a moving and extraordinary documentary in sometimes verite style both in color and black and white. Message gets through to the audience in this film, as does action, attitude, and scenery of places in Washington, D.C. that are known for store front churches–like Pastor Perkin’s in the neighborhood where his is on a corner.
Film review by Peter Menkin



 

Brother C by the Church


They dance. They sing. They speak in tongues and shout—so the Reverend Bobby Perkins elicits.  Dauntless, a stand-up Christian, Reverend Bobby Perkins preaches in the subways of Washington, D.C. where he has a heart for the drug addicts.  His church members preach on the streets and speak to the lowly; real conversation goes on in this documentary. These are real people, and you may not have met them before.

Can one call what is done in his church, “Performance Preaching,” as in “Performance Poetry?” In any event, his work is a performance of being filled with the Holy Spirit, as are those in the pews moved and moving to the Holy Spirit. This is certainly a life of following the dictum, minister where you are, where they are.  The movie directed by David Petersen is a moving and extraordinary documentary in sometimes verite style both in color and black and white. Message gets through to the audience in this film, as does action, attitude, and scenery of places in Washington, D.C. that are known for store front churches–like Pastor Perkin’s in the neighborhood where his is on a corner. There are other churches like his in their neighborhood. 

Not solely a religion film about a Church, the movie, “Let the Church say Amen,” is David Petersen and friends vision of a life in the poor, Black, neighborhood of forgotten people and streets with crime, drugs, and just ugly nastiness. There is more than the message of church, religion, and community alone here. There is cinematic depiction of what is in the genre of dramatic and artful reality show. .

Pastor Perkin’s message in the movie goes this way: Thank God for the Holy Ghost! His is a church of promise—that is what one sees in the film, “Let the Church say Amen.” No doubt this reviewer and religion writer was drawn in to look a little deeper at this Black church in the documentary. Produced for release in 2004, I viewed the show on the computer in streaming media from the website Netflix. Just ran across the film while browsing Netflix’s inventory, and decided to watch the film at home one night. It was worth it, and the price was right.

There is a lot of shouting! in this movie. Adults shout a lot in the film. Darlene Duncan raised eight children. This was her job. And she had a job at a nursing home, too. 


Darlene Sleeps


Hers was a tale of grit, struggle, overcoming enormous odds to get that job. As one of the downtrodden in life, this Black woman is in the character sketch shown as someone with a sixth grade education. She is a woman of strength—strength garnered from her Church community. She says so. The film plays the documentary to tell her story as she states it, and her story is both real, and true about her life. Can one ask for more than that in a documentary film?

Character is part of what the film is about, and by that I mean taking a look at someone in a more detailed sketch than not. This is a fulfilling achievement by the film makers of the work.
David is another whose character sketch of a poor, Black Christian in a downtrodden neighborhood shows aspirations and dreams. His is a human life of a humanity that holds hope—a particular version of hope coming from the neighborhood of downtrodden and poor Blacks that holds violence as everyday activity. Though David has nothing, for as he says, “I’m homeless,” he has a home in that neighborhood, store front church. If you as a potential viewer don’t know this world, and not so many make films of it, and not ones that are as poignant and genuine as you’ll find this one, rent the movie. It is not only on Netflix, but also available in Video rental stores. As a small budget film costing $250,000, the very strength of its work and credibility introduces it to distribution and thereby availability. It even remains for sale as a DVD. And that’s eight years after release for a small budget documentary shot in real life, on the scene, in the neighborhood and in the Church itself. See the real worship action itself in this film and learn something of the Christian experience while being introduced to the scene in  entertaining if not fascinating ways.

This church on the corner in the neighborhood of poor and some misbegotten Blacks and others has a mission for the outcast, the marginalized, the sick, and the addict. All are called “Brother” or “Sister” during their compelling and hard-to-believe if you didn’t see it on film depiction. Christ-is-there and the-Spirit-is-at-work: Remarkable! Maybe, but you judge their ministry and mission. For this Religion Writer, the primary theme is the Church is a bulwark against evil, a home of worship, and a place giving hope. This documentary, “Let the Church Say Amen,” shows reality in experience that is a kind of come-as-you-are of Black people, White people, and people of Color. No this isn’t a kaleidoscope but a streaming media depiction of skilled documentary work, and that kind of strong camera work that allows the lens to tell a story. Faces alone tell much in this documentary.
This Church is one of many in the various neighborhoods of the dark places that can be Urban America in big city living. In this case for a jumping off point about people, life, and hardship met with compassion and resilience, the place is Washington, D.C. and the people are the Church. Does Christ shrink back, does Christ exist here? Is there Christian hope among the evil, the grief, and death? Yes! 

Let the Church Say Amen!



INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR DAVID PETERSEN
This interview by phone and Skype from this Religion Writer’s home office in Mill Valley, California (north of San Francisco) to David Petersen’s home in Brooklyn, New York.


Film Maker David Petersen


The interview took two hours in two one hour segments. David Petersen had an opportunity to add to his remarks and clarify some statements from the manuscript transcript.


  1. 1.      Peter Menkin: At the age of 45, your career as director and filmmaker has been engaged with films that make a social statement. So it is with the 2004 release of “Let the Church Say Amen,” which was short listed for an Academy Award. What brought you to make these kinds of films, a film like the one in case of discussion in particular? How did such a film about faith, God, and Church capture your imagination initially, was it because you are a religious man?
”Let the Church Say Amen” was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as “one of the best films of 2004,” and I was invited to screen the film at the Academy with the other films nominated for that year. The films was not an official nominee for the Academy Awards, but was short listed. I was officially nominated for an Academy Award for my documentary “Fine Food, Fine Pastries, Open 6 to 9” which was about a coffee shop in Washington, D.C … not very far from the church featured in “Let the Church Say Amen.”. I have said many times, I make films about small, outsider communities, communities that are self containing that I find beautiful and compelling as a result. The communities in my documentaries include: a diner, a small town, an opera company, a small church congregation. In the church film, I looked at community through faith, through the bones of faith that came to bear in a community that faced many challenges. 

These challenges required a lot of faith…It was a fascinating world like so many of the worlds that have fascinated me in my work. The small diner was called Sherrill’s Restaurant and Bakery and hadn’t changed since the 20s (1924), but sadly closed in 2001 when the owners retired.
I make movies about people who search for home, which is very moving to me. Maybe because I grew up in a fairly volatile home, and my brother — who is mentally handicapped — lived in an institution part of his life, I’m drawn to this idea. 

So for the people in my films, they find home in a place where they establish a community, and this community usually exists outside of traditional society. They find a community in a church, a diner, they find community in an opera company.

Most importantly, I’m interested in people. I’ve always said, “people are more interesting than ideas.”  As an artist, I feel my most important responsibility to the people I film is to pay attention, and this responsibility seems inseparable from a spiritual or religious discipline. The spiritual philosopher Simon Weil wrote, Paying attention is prayer, and that idea governs all my films, especially “Let the Church Say Amen.” My friend Julia just made a film about Simon Weil: “An Encounter with Simone Weil” by Julia Haslett .
It’s a very powerful film, that ruminates extensively on Simone Wiel’s statement that “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” While Julia Haslett’s documentary differs in style from mine about the storefront church, it shares many of the principles that governed my film. Here is the link to “An Encounter with Simone Weil” by Julia Haslett: http://www.linestreet.net/index.php?utm_source=%22An+Encounter+with+Simone+Weil%22+Newsletter&utm_campaign=d027e94b91-Newsletter+-+July+2011&utm_medium=email

An Encounter with Simone Weil: trailer (documentary feature)
David Petersen told this Religion Writer this film is important to him because it depicts Simon Weil telling readers something of the Film Maker Petersen’s worldview
Another work by a Film Maker from David Petersen’s same school of friends
.


My grandfather was an Episcopalian Minister, so I grew up with a certain level of religious education and thought. But my mid-western background, and the staid formality of my grandfather’s church in Stillwater, MN, was a very different kind of  experience than the evangelical, Pentecostal faith you see in ”Let the Church Say Amen.” No one fell down in rapture, danced in the aisles, or spoke in tongues at Ascension Episcopal Church where my grandfather preached.
My mother was a Buddhist, but now has turned back to Christianity. My mother encouraged much of my reading in theology and spiritual philosophy, so at the age of 16 I was reading I and Thou,  by Martin Buber, and reading a lot theological essays and poetry by people like Thomas Merton and Jiddu Krishnamurti. In undergraduate school at the University of Maryland, I got very interested in philosophy and theology, fascinated by how much of the last 2500 years of philosophical thought dwelled on metaphysics.

  1. 2.      Peter Menkin: I remember your saying to me over the phone that the Church in the film is still in business. That is the business of God, the business of Christian work, and the business of helping others. Have you been back to the Church? Tell us a little of how you found this Church in Washington, D.C. and how long it took you to make the film in actual filming time. Who is the star, or what is the star?
I’ve been back to the church (World Missions for Christ) a number of times, and I’ve also stayed in touch with members of the church…As with many of these store front churches…some members are not with the church any more or have moved on to do their own missionary work. I think Pastor Perkins and his sister (Dr. Joann Perkins), are connected with the church, but I’m not sure the pastor is a regular preacher at the church, because his sister runs most of the activities and outreach of the church, and has returned to preaching there. She got her PhD in Education, grew up in a deeply religious home, and her mother raised her family purely on faith with very little money. I know she had around 11 children to raise as a single mother, and they lived in a farm in North Carolina before moving up to Washington, D.C in the 1970’s. 

Pastor Bobby Perkins continually calls upon his past, growing up with these kinds of challenges, and this is what compelled me about this church. It seemed to me that when filming them street preaching – handing out tracts, delivering people salvation — they tried to reach the most indigent, what they call “the lost sheep.” They would search the streets for those who were forgotten: the crippled, the addicted, those who had given up hope…

As we filmed with our cameras, I realized this was a fundamental precept of Christianity, to reach those society has thrown away. As members were handing out tracts, shouting to people on the street, they called on their own backgrounds, they talked about being saved, literally saved from death (by drug abuse or crime) , so the notion on being saved was a question of survival for each member, and in this way they could relate to those same people on the street. That was for me as fundamental as Christ going to Galilee to heal the sick, to help his own group of lost sheep.. 

The core of “Let the Church say Amen” is the bones of that kind of faith. 

In our research for the documentary, my producer (Mridu Chandra) and I looked at over 200 churches both in Washington, DC where I used to live, and in Brooklyn where I moved years later, I probably went to more churches and heard more preaching in one year than most people experience in a lifetime. I went to services nearly every day of the week. Some services lasted 2, 4 hours. On Sundays, some lasted over 8 hours. I’d try to go to 2 every Sunday. Then I would go to day and evening services during the week. 

In New York I went to the poorest neighborhoods where few whites ever would go., and not once in these black or latino churches was I ever discriminated against. In fact, these churches almost universally welcomed me, as well as my producer Mridu Chandra

As with all my films, it takes a long time to form a trusting  relationship, which is absolutely necessary before I bring a camera into a community, and this was especially true with World Missions for Christ Church, whose members were very wary of how an outsider filmmaker would portray their faith.

Generally PBS or other filmmakers who make films about deeply religious people end up being critical of the faith and it’s followers. I didn’t want to do that, I wanted to show their world through their own eyes, without judgment, so that. The community could be better understood. During the filming, we used hand held cameras, and set up small lights in the church, doing our best to stay unobtrusive, but that was difficult, since it’s a very small church. 

You can’t really hide. There are about 30 members and it’s the size of a shoe store, because it’s a store front church. These kinds of churches usually get formed when a business district becomes impoverished, almost abandoned. …Small churches can then rent a store front very cheap. That store front church in the film was actually once a shoe store… 

We wanted to film almost constantly throughout the service since they were so riviting, about three or four hours. sometimes we’d film two services back to back, for 8 hours non-stop. There would be other public programs sponsored by the church that we also filmed, including a health drive, food giveaway, all day programs for the community. There was a lot we’d film,  and a lot never ended up in the final documentary. …We filmed events in other churches…we filmed in members’ homes, public housing communities, in the police station…We put a tremendous amount of work into making this film, and I can easily say that it was the hardest, most demanding documentary I’ve ever made. 
The film budget was about $250,000, which included money for a mentorship program. This program, sponsored by ITVS, allowed us to mentor two young people from the community to teach them filmmaking. One was a young graduate, Mario Lathan, was a graduate student at Howard University, who grew up in a religious household, strongly tied to the kind of church we featured in the film. He was actually the one who first found World Missions for Christ, the church we featured in the film. He keeps in touch with me all the time. Another mentee, Kandis Jamison came from the Anacostia church community in Southeast Washington, a very violent neighborhood. Her brother was killed by street violence so working on “Let the Church Say Amen” had special significance for her. She was involved in research, production, and helped quite a bit with the editing. Living in that part of D.C. was a huge challenge for everyday and we did out best to help her through many struggles she faced, ranging from housing to family, and she developed as a filmmaker as a result, even making a documentary about her brother which I helped her shoot.

I think storefront churches like World Missions serve as a bulwark against the violence in these urban communities, but more importantly these churches serve as an anchor of strength and hope for families who want the same things for their families that any American dreams about. They want their children to go to school, get a good education, have a home, be able to provide for their families. They join a church to strengthen that sense of community, and faith is central to empowerment.
In these communities, faith is central to people lives..Empowerment doesn’t come as easily to communities that face the extraordinary challenges of unemployment, low income, crime, substance abuse, and so on.  Faith is a very strong force against these challenges, especially against the allure of drugs. Drugs help make people feel better in a very bad situation.  But faith can offer stronger, more potent relief from hardship. So empowerment is one reason why many people join an evangelical church, but they also join for love. Simple, human love. Speaking in a religious context, love has transformative power.

  1. 3.      Peter Menkin: This writer has heard this film, “Let the Church Say Amen,” was done in cinema verite style. Talk to us a little bit about the style of film making you offer in your work. A criticism of the film has been that as a result of its style, the film drags in parts. What do you say to that, and in retrospect after all these more than five, now 8 years, do you think so and if not what do you think of the film in retrospect?
Every time I see “Let the Church Say Amen” with a different audience, I see the film in a new light. I’ve seen it scores of times in dozens of settings with audiences that vary from  a few filmmakers to thousands of people from other countries. I can’t speak to the length at his point, since I believe once you’re done with a piece of work, as much as you’d like to change it, it isn’t advisable to do that. The moment the film was created and finally completed, that’s the length it should be. I did shorten it for PBS by three and half minutes, but Netflix shows it at the original length that premiered at Sundance and received accolades in festivals all over the world. Let the critics decide. What do artists really know about their own work anyway?

In terms of the verite style of the film it doesn’t strictly adhere to the traditional notion of verite, as made famous by filmmakers like Ricky Lecock or D.A. Pennebaker, since there are some black and white sequences, that are a bit more stylized than what comes out of that tradition.
This was my first film using a DV, so I used a series of small video cameras in a verite style, but I also shot in 16 mm film, often in slow motion. I still clung to the thought that I would do at least part of the movie in film. Do you remember the black and white parts of the film? [Peter Menkin replies:Yes, I do. In fact, I did so when first noticing the opening, I thought the movie was a black and white documentary.] 

Those black and white sequences were shot in Super 16, which is a wider format than the standard definition video I was using. I thought those Super 16 sections allowed me, as a filmmaker, to include my own voice in the film. It wasn’t verite. It was done in a style that was very impressionistic: Elegiac. In other words, the sequences were created so the viewer could step back from the verite narrative, reflect on it, maybe, and watch the city through its beauty, subtlety, even irony.. I wasn’t trying to distance myself from the scene, but get closer to the lyric beauty of a place and its people.
I’m glad people have strong feelings about the film. I would never part from those black and white sequences. They were central to my vision for the film. Many people countered the criticism that the black and white sequences slowed the film down, by saying they remembered those sequences most.
The scene with the child on the carousal with his father riding behind him…that image of a father playing with his son appears very rarely in the media’s portrayal of urban life, but we saw it, filmed it, and it became very meaningful for many people from that community.

The black and white sequence of Brother C, the character who pursues a musical ministry, is also very important. It shows him walking out his house and staring with a fixed gaze down street, which he did countless times. This time, though he looks at an ambulance as it races up Georgia Avenue, symbolic of the same ambulance that carried his son who was stabbed and killed by street violence.
The woman looking out of the bus looking at the dignified figure of a  man on a steam grate, the kid running to church in slow motion, the man carrying party balloons across a vacant lot: all are  images that you don’t often see in films about the inner city. 

I just hate to say ghetto. I don’t like the term because it feels derogatory, because it isolates the community with a term. … That’s not respectful of the people or their community, and it doesn’t reflect its strength or similarity to every American’s daily life.
It was important to me to show children going to school, the  quality of people living their daily lives. In Washington, D.C., this daily life is full of contrast, contradiction, and humor: on the one hand you will see a guy walking his pit bull and on the same block as a woman jogging with her white leopard hounds. Or a government bureaucrat crossing paths with an inner city hip hop artist exiting the subway. These black and white sequences show the daily lives of Washington, D.C. that people don’t see. And I’m happy that they step away from the verite narrative.

  1. 4.     Peter Menkin: To a degree it is unmistakably so you are an artist, maybe more than “to a degree” the artist. Tell readers a little of your own life and faith, how you live your life and what projects if any you have going that are similar in their statement of faith and works as this film—even if not about a Church? When you were 24 or 25 you made a conscious decision about your work. Do you think your own style and form as a director remains similar today to the work made then in the film at question?

My decision to become an artist was a very conscious one. At the age of 25, I knew that if I were to become an artist of integrity, I would have to organize my job, my income, my expenses all in service to my artwork.  I could have become a journeyman filmmaker, one who works for hire, directs for television and so on, but that’s very different from governing my entire life toward artistic work and that sort of vision requires  a level of discipline, intensity, and commitment not unlike that of the priesthood. In fact, I’ve often compared the calling of an artist to the religious calling of a priest. To me, both require a devotion to something greater than one’s self, and, in turn, a relinquishing of the ego. In my work, I try to remain in service to a deeper, spiritual realm, rather than any glorification of talent or craft. I suppose you could call it a secular or humanistic mode of inquiry, the kind of faith that comes from paying attention, of becoming a mindful observer.

I’ve had numerous artist fellowships at the MacDowell Colony, a place where artists can work in solitude and quiet, not unlike a monastery.  The staff quietly drops off a lunch basket to your cabin in the woods. All day you work without any disturbance from the outside world. You hear crows, the wind through the pines. The discipline of working like that for five or six weeks feels like as though you are in service to a creative power  beyond the self. In the best of times, an artist can feel like a vessel receiving message from a creative force. The muse becomes the savior, I guess.  And you’d better have faith in her, otherwise she’ll fly out of your cabin and leave you stuck with a black canvas and white sheet of paper.

Since my work focuses on communities that are separated from larger society, I’m now working on a documentary set in a favela community in Brazil. called Vila Aliança. ABrazilian favela is often referred to in American terms as a slum, but it is so much more than that. It’s a self-sustaining community filled with music, dance, neighborhoods, and a character unique to Brazilian life. the documentary is  about an art school in Vila Aliança and in the same manner as the church film, I follow on four characters in pursuit of their goals; in this case four children. As a filmmaker, I can show the beauty of their community through each child’s art. I’m also working on another film about a group of homeless and low income children in New York who learn classical dance at a ballet company in Manhattan.

So all these films share a story in which I follow people on a kind of quest for fulfillment, similar to the quest by members of the church in “Let the Church Say Amen.”

Money for my documentaries is always a problem. Money for any non-commercial filmmaker is a problem. I don’t have a trust fund or any private source of income. I go to the same trough as any filmmaker and one competitive source of funding that has been very generous to me is ITVS (The Independent Television Service). ITVS serves as a vital source of funding for many filmmakers and receives its support from the congressionally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting or CPB, which also funds PBS.

ITVS has a mandate to reach underserved audiences with the documentaries they support and program on PBS. ”Let the Church Say Amen” fulfilled this mission, because normally public television doesn’t reach a deeply religious, evangelical audience like the members of  a storefront church.  When I approached World Missions for Christ about participating in the documentary, I made it clear that wouldn’t promote a specific faith, but would honor, with dignity and honesty, how their expression of faith serves as an anchor for their community. That faith expression, it seems to me, is fundamental to the human condition, whether it be through Christianity, the Islamic faith, Hinduism, or honoring the spirit world of nature in the tradition of Native American Indians.  For this reason, PBS broadcast the film which reached more varied and diverse set of viewers than I could have imagined, including, no doubt, some arch conservative evangelical viewers which the network would love to reach.

My first documentary, ”Fine Food, Fine Pastries, Open 6 to 9” I finished in 1989 and made for about $45,000 mostly through a grant from the DC Humanities Council and numerous piecemeal contributions from the community who ate at Sherrill’s where the film was set. Other documentaries of mine include: “If You Lived Here You Would Be Home Now” (1994) about an artist and his community in small Delaware town; I scraped together about $60,000 for that one largely through a Delaware Humanities Council grant and the generosity of Russ and Nancy Suniwick who own a film lab in Washington, D.C. That documentary took five years to make. I wasn’t paid and everyone volunteered their services. My most recent documentary, Journey of the Bonesetter’s Daughter, premiered on PBS last year on Mother Day and cost about the same as the church film [$250,000].

 [The director David Petersen can be reached through his email: beaufort9films@earthlink.net ].



  1. 5.     Peter Menkin: My pleasure has been to get to see your film, “Let All the Church Say Amen.” As you know, I found it on Netflix. Tell us where else this film can be found, and also as we come to the end of our interview, is there something I’ve missed or something you want to add?

“Let the Church Say Amen” is distributed primarily by Film Movement for DVD purchase, and you can find it in many video stores, such s Blockbuster. It’s actually my most accessible film. You can also find it on Netflix through both streaming and DVD rental. Before it went to video, the film also had a brief theatrical release, which qualified it for Academy Award consideration. No doubt that may have helped get the attention of the Academy when they honored the film by screening it in Los Angeles in 2005.

Many people have asked me what was the one thing I learned from making this film. I always explain it this way. In the documentary, Brother C, the singer in the film, loses his son to street violence when his son is stabbed two blocks from where the family lives.  Tragically, after we finished filming, Brother C lost a second child to street violence, his older daughter who was shot in her apartment. It’s hard to imagine how a father could endure such loss and still retain his faith, but every time I talk to Brother C and ask him how he’s doing, he answers the same way: I’m blessed. With his measure of gratitude, every day for me is paradise, and I thank him for teaching me such joy.











Sunday, July 08, 2012

Frustration, depression, dilemmas, and unhappiness of the Church: Archbishop's sermon at York Minster



Guest sermon: Archbishop says....Most of us are frustrated with the structures of the Church, and are feeling that the way in which we do our business is, at the moment, preventing us from doing what we actually want to do as a Church
posted by Peter Menkin, Obl Cam OSB




In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

From this morning’s gospel ‘And he could do no deed of power there’. Frustration is one of the commonest of human experiences. Get two human beings together in almost any circumstances and sooner or later they will begin to talk to one another about what has frustrated them. And I dare say that if you got any two members of General Synod together the conversational material wouldn’t be that different.

So let us name it this morning: many of us in the Church are feeling profoundly frustrated. We’re feeling frustrated with each other of course, and that’s more or less routine. That’s part of the shadow side of life in the Body of Christ and the mysterious incapacity of other Christians to see that we are right. Many of us are profoundly frustrated at the bishops – and I shouldn’t wonder if some of the bishops weren’t as profoundly frustrated with each other and with others in the Church.

Most of us are frustrated with the structures of the Church, and are feeling that the way in which we do our business is, at the moment, preventing us from doing what we actually want to do as a Church. A lot of people will be frustrated with the media and the way in which the Church’s story is told in the media – and I know for a fact that the media are very frustrated with the Church.

But when we’ve said all that about the General Synod and the Church, we can look more widely and remember that, to paraphrase the words of the prophet Isaiah, we are a Church of frustrated hearts, dwelling in the midst of a people of frustrated hearts, living in a society where frustration becomes more and more acute and painful day by day. The frustration of people unsure about the value of their pensions, the frustrations of graduates not knowing if they will ever find steady employment, the frustration of those not listened to, not attended to, the frustration of well meaning, well intentioned people in public life trying desperately to solve sixteen problems at once.

And this morning the Holy Spirit has provided us with three readings about frustration.  We begin with the call of the prophet Ezekiel, a call not just to be a prophet, but to be an extremely unsuccessful prophet. We forget that the prophetic call in the Old Testament is not simply to be a blazing figure of admired public integrity, it is to be a despised eccentric (no wonder Jonah ran away). We hear about the frustrations of the apostle Paul, a frustration of whatever it was that he called ‘the thorn in the flesh’, which prevented him not only from making the impression that he wanted to make, but still more frustratingly - and isn’t this the greatest frustration that we can ever have – prevented him of thinking as well of himself as well as he wanted to. We have the frustrations of the twelve foreseen by Jesus in the gospel, those occasions when they seem to have no option but to dust off their sandals and move on. And then most terrifyingly and soberingly, we have the frustration of the incarnate word of God ‘He could do no deed of power there’.

And those words bring to a head all that we have been reflecting on, seriously and not so seriously, because at the heart of it all lies one terrifying fact: there is no power that can force the human heart. That is both the glory and the bitter problem of our human condition.  The glory of our human condition: the dignity of freedom and conscience that God has bestowed upon us.  And the bitter problem of our human condition: because we cannot force our neighbours to be with us any more than God can force his creation to be with him. As we gather for worship we may very well repent this fact of our human condition, and yet, at the same time, remember to give thanks for it. This is the glory of our condition.   Our freedom, our dignity is God’s greatest gift and is what makes us human. The possibility of frustration, in other words, is part of the price we pay for being in the image of a God whose power is made perfect in weakness.

How are we to respond? No power can force the human heart. So how does the human heart change? It changes when it is broken by love. It changes with the revelation that nothing is too costly to be expended upon us.  That is the nature of the love of Christ – that, and that alone, is what breaks and remakes the human heart. That moment when we recognise ourselves afresh and know our worth, our dignity, at a completely new level. And somehow, if that is what changes the human heart, that is what we seek and struggle to enact with each other. What changes my neighbour’s heart? The recognition that nothing matters to me more than my neighbour’s joy. That is how God changes the neighbourhood of creation - and that is where we fail again and again. It is not surprising that we fail, because what exactly that means in the particular dilemmas and challenges of our life together, is not crystal clear. How are we to love unconditionally without betraying what is most real for us and in us? Issues of conscience that divide us are not idle or arbitrary, they are about that question. And yet, nagging away again and again at all of us, is that basic truth – nothing will change unless my neighbour knows that her or his joy is what, most deeply, I care about. I have said it is where we fail - we make anxious calculations, we mass defensively against each other, we try desperately to find ways around love, and very often in the history of the Christian Church we have cut that Gordian knot through schism. And we live, it is worth remembering again, in a society where it doesn’t very much look as though anyone’s joy is much in view, and where so many people are profoundly convinced that the last thing in their neighbour’s heart is the longing for their joy.

But to speak of joy underlines the great risk that we run in all this. Frustration leads to anger and indignation.  And, of course, for well brought up Christians, anger and indignation are normally internalised as depression. And the last thing our society or our world needs is a depressed Church. That is something which I trust we shall bear in mind and heart in the days ahead.

So, where do we turn? We turn to St Paul who appealed to the Lord about this: ‘But he said to me “My grace is sufficient for you for power is made perfect in weakness”’. ‘My grace is sufficient’ – one thing to hold onto, because frustration at least reacquaints us with our humanity in its glory and its difficulty.  And reacquaints us, most importantly of all, with why exactly it is that we need the love of Christ, and how it is true that we cannot ever love ourselves into healing and into life.  Instead of simply allowing our frustration to turn inwards into anger and unhappiness, let us at least remember that we are brought up against the reality of a humanity – rich, mysterious, exciting, enduring and worth the very life of the Son of God himself. ‘My grace is enough’.

But one final thought on what from this morning’s scriptures we might lay to heart: ‘He could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them’. Just as inNazarethwe don’t, it seems, very often let Christ do what he fully wants: the great work of making us free, the great work of making us human, reconciled to his Father and one another. But Christ passes on, I imagine, with a wry smile at the people ofNazareth, like the wry smile he bestows on the people of the Church of England and theChurchofGodmore widely. And he acts anyway.  Maybe we won’t let him do what he really wants, but Christ – subtle and secret as ever – slips behind our defences and, just wryly smiling, touches a few people into life, perhaps whispering to them ‘get on with it’. With that wry smile before us, perhaps we can remember that we as a Church may yet be a place where he lays his hand and heals.  Whatever the frustration we feel with each other, however many the ways in which we feel helplessly that we are stopping Christ and ourselves from achieving his will, nonetheless he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. Mysteriously he managed to get in touch with those people who knew they needed healing, and he gave them what they wanted.
I came across in reading this morning an image that I have been struggling to fit into this sermon because it seemed to be something that needed to be said, though why I’m not at all sure. It is an image from a remark made by a Welsh farmer’s wife in a very poor area of westWales, struggling to make ends meet. Asked how difficult it was she shrugged, perhaps with another wry smile, and said: ‘Bread comes down the chimney’. Our eucharist is perhaps a celebration of that bread that comes down the chimney – that mysterious slipping behind our defences that manages to feed us, frustrated and quarrelsome as we are, and to make healing possible. But if he is to move on, to touch us, to lay his hands and heal, we have at least to sit still - still enough to let it happen.
 © Rowan Williams 2012


Monday, July 02, 2012

Guest sermon: Jan Robitscher speaks of What is the Trinity--its meaning


“For God so loved the world...”
(Jn. 3:16)



Trinity Sunday
Jan Robitscher
St. Mark’s Church
Berkeley, CA
June 3, 2012

Isaiah 61-6
Psalm 29
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1-


In the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

Today is Trinity Sunday. It has come to be seen as the logical conclusion to the celebrations of the half of the Church Year, beginning in Advent, when we hear again the story of our salvation, through Christmas and Lent, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost last week.

In some parishes, there is a curious tradition on Trinity Sunday. You see, nobody wants to preach on this day because the doctrine of the Trinity is so complex, indeed, such a great mystery that it is impossible to preach on it without falling into one or other heresy!

So this impossible task is usually given to the youngest or most recently ordained person on the parish staff. Well, I am none of those, but I’ll be brave, trusting that God: Father, Son and Spirit, will keep me on the right path.

This day has been called an “idea feast” because it celebrates a doctrine rather than a person or historical event. I remember seeing a stained glass window once which was the ancient symbol of the Trinity. In the middle was a circle “God”. Then there was a triangle: at the top, “Father”; at the bottom left, “Son”; at the bottom right “Holy Spirit”.




On the connecting bars of the triangle were the words (all in Latin) “IS NOT” On the bars connecting Each part of the Trinity to God, the word “IS”. So, while the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Spirit, they are all God. Confused?


The window is essentially correct in it’s theology. But I would say that this is NOT an “idea feast”. The reasons why we are confused are at least two. First, that wherever we are on the religious spectrum, we are all products of good old rugged American individualism. We can’t help but think of the Trinity as three individual beings.

This is where, if we kept going, we would fall into one or other heresy, and, if we struggled at it long enough, it would surely end in an argument. But let’s not go there. The second reason we are confused is that we think that “mystery” is something we don’t understand, or a riddle to be solved. In Christian theology, “mystery” means “a divinely revealed reality that words can never fully express.”1 Perhaps a little history might help.

Though the Bible [teaches] the truth of the Trinity of God implicitly
in both Old and New Testaments, the development and delineation of this doctrine was brought about by the rise of heretical groups or teachers who either denied the deity of Christ or that of the Holy Spirit. [They actually had “hymn wars”--the Christians won!]

This caused the early church to formally crystallize the doctrine
of the [Trinity]. Actually, Tertullian in 215 A.D. was the first one to state this doctrine using the term, Trinity.2


By the early sixth century, the Rule of St. Benedict speaks of ending the Psalmody of the daily Offices with the Gloria Patri--Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit... and the prayers of Celtic Christianity were strongly Trinitarian. By the 11th century this feast was sometimes celebrated on the Sunday before Advent--at the end of the Liturgical Year.3

But we owe it to no less than St.Thomas Becket for obtaining permission to celebrate a Feast for the Trinity, his first act after his consecration as Archbishop of Canterbury on the Sunday after Pentecost, and this practice spread quickly through England and beyond so that by Pope John XXII in 1334 Trinity Sunday became a universal feast. OK.



So if the history, though interesting, does not provide us a way into this Feast, what about today’s lessons?



Isaiah and Nicodemus each had encounters with God. Isaiah’s call was in the course of a vision of the heavenly court: angels calling out so that their sound shook the air, incense, and the very hem of God’s robe. Rightly, Isaiah feels himself unworthy to be there.


Yet in love God does not condemn him, but rather sends an angel to touch his lips with a live coal. It must have been terrifying, but Isaiah seems to have survived unhurt. With this “absolution”, God asks for a volunteer to deliver a very strong, prophetic message, and Isaiah answers, “Here am I; Send me.”



Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. He is a Pharisee, of some learning, and he came to “sound out” Jesus as far as his questioning faith would take him. With more questions, Jesus begins to teach him of “being born of water and Spirit”. This makes little sense to Nicodemus. Although Jesus seems a bit exasperated, he does not send Nicodemus away, but, in love, the passage culminates in perhaps the best known verse in all the Scripture:


“For God so loved the world that he sent his only Son,

so that everyone who believes in him may not perish,

but may have eternal life.” (Jn. 3:16)



I like to think that Nicodemus eventually got, by faith, what Jesus was trying so hard to tell him...

Each of these encounters with God shows a part of God’s love for, “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:16). Love is that force that differentiates and unifies.4 That’s how God can be three persons while being one.

The persons of the Trinity give themselves to each other in love, and God shows us that love in different ways. We are invited to enter into that love through the Incarnation. It is Jesus who showed us the full extent of love, giving himself in death and resurrection.

This is not the mushy, fickle love we know, but it is a reflection of the self-giving love that dwells between the persons of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit;

So where does that leave us, right here in the community of St. Mark’s? Whether we know it or not, we are surrounded by the Trinity and we see many reflections of this expression of God’s love. And this love affects us in both an “inward” and an “outward” way.

Although we do not have a Trinity window here, we have only to look around and count three’s to remind ourselves that God the Trinity is here. Or we can listen to the choir or as we sing the hymns to hear the Trinity expressed in poetry (perhaps the only way possible), and the notes of chords blend to form beautiful music that is a reflection of God’s love for us. Perhaps the poet George Herbert said it best:


My music shall find Thee,
and ev'ry string Shall have his
attribute to sing;
That all together may accord in Thee,
And prove one God, one harmony.


Although we need the Scripture, history, charts, music and poetry, ultimately all of these fall short of naming the mystery that is God the Holy Trinity. However we try, from the traditional Father, Son and Holy spirit to Dame Julian of Norwich, who (as we will hear in today’s anthem) attributes feminine qualities to the Trinity5, in the end we are left in that silence which is our “wonder, love and praise”.

But this silence is the beginning of our deepest relationship with God. For the way into this mystery is in the Christian life, itself. From birth--and rebirth in the waters of baptism--to death--we are signed with the cross--that very ancient representation of Jesus’ sacrifice for us and reminder of the Trinity.


And this liturgy, from beginning to end bears the Sign of the Cross. We speak the Trinity in the Nicene Creed and we will hear it when the choir sings the Te Deum: “We praise thee, O God...” Bread and wine are blessed to become for us the Body and Blood of Christ, using a prayer that is addressed to God, includes Jesus’ own words and invokes the Holy Spirit.


And we sign ourselves at various times as a way of saying “Yes, I receive this blessing and gift and remind myself of the Trinity”. All these are the “inward “ reflections of the Trinity. But every act of love we do here, whether in worship or with and for each other or at Hot Meals or the Prayer Shawl group or any other ministry we do--all of these are outward reflections of the love of the God the Holy Trinity. As a fellow preacher put it,

The loving mutuality of the Church has its source in the loving
mutuality of the eternal Trinity.6

So I invite you: Look around and see God’s creative acts! Hear the music! Receive God’s redemptive acts: the Life of Jesus in bread and wine-become the Body and Blood of Christ! Feel the power of the Holy spirit’s sanctifying acts to console us, guide us, gifts us and lead us into all truth as we are sent out to “love and serve the Lord”! Feel the baptismal water as you go by the font! Know that, while we can never exhaust the reality of the Trinity, this Love of God, that we live.


This one-day season of Trinity Sunday is far more than an “idea feast”, or the celebration of a theological doctrine. It is a “Faith Feast”--a recognition that the Trinity--God the Three-in-one--the love of God--surrounds us on every side. It is the air we breathe and in all creation; the water in which we “swim” in baptismal rebirth; the Eucharist, in which we receive the very life of Jesus; the gifts of prayer and service poured out upon us by the Holy Spirit,who will lead us into all truth as we take the next steps in our life together.


All of these are the reflection of God’s love in and with and for us, here in the community of St. Mark’s. And in this creating, redeeming and sanctifying love of the Holy, Triune God we are sent out to the wider Church and to the world, and this is Good News, Indeed!


To God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit be glory for ever and ever.


AMEN.