I have been remiss in posting on this site. Instead, my energy has been put into my other blog called "Improving Police" on Wordpress. My spirituality has gotten some traction here with the crisis within our nation's police. I find Jesus' gospel teachings in my work on this site on which over the past four years I have written over 500 posts.

I have also been outspoken both nationally and locally about police use of deadly force in confrontations with young black men and the mentally ill months before the Ferguson tragedy. Reform is needed.

Parallel to this quest to help improve our nation's police is an awareness of how far we have fallen as a people with regard to racial reconciliation and harmony. Jesus himself prayed that we would one day "all be one as he and the Father are one." And Paul does likewise in his letter to the Galatians -- "no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free... but all one in Christ Jesus."

So you can find my spiritual activity over on the Wordpress site and you can also follow me on Twitter: @bocougar.

In the meantime, any as the prophet Amos declared, "Let justice roll on like a river and righteousness like a never-failing stream."

Peace.

GPS: God's Positioning System!

The Hope Church in Orlando, Florida

You can't always rely on GPS to get you to where you need to be.It happened to us this week in Florida. It was Sunday morning and we were headed east from Orlando and we looked for the closest Episcopal Church to attend. On the Internet -- St John's, Kissimmee at 10:30 am. 

I put the address into my GPS and off we drove. On the way, passed a large church called "The Hope Church" and Sabine agreed it was a great name. We also noticed they had an 11 am worship time. W\

But we continued on to St John's and found ourselves in an industrial park. We checked the address and entered it again. Still no church. So we decided to drive on to Hutchinson Island when Sabine reminded me about the church with the 11 am worship time. 

Okay. Let's try that one we said, it's always good to see how other folks are doing church. When we pulled into the parking lot we saw a lot of black people. And when we got inside, we found we we were the only white folks present among a congregation of more than 200. 

Now you get to know a church community pretty fast in the first seconds you enter. And this church was not only alive but welcoming as we were continually welcomed by various members of the congregation.

And the music! Wow! High-energy praise, young girls doing a liturgical dance, communion with what some Protestants often overlook that this is more than just a remembrance as the pastor prayed that this bread and wine would be unto us the body and blood of Jesus!

Oh yes, there were the hugs. I think we are a hugging congregation at our church in North Lake -- but The Hope Church had us turn around and hug our neighbor, pray for him or her, and give out encouragement at least three times during our worship together.

There was an altar call for healing prayer, recommitment, and strength to "press on." Tears came to my own eyes when I saw Sabine heading up the aisle for prayer. You know, it doesn't get much better than this.

The preaching was powerful, relevant, spoke to us and was deep into the African-American preaching tradition on Philippians 3:14 -- have real self-view, who you really are, leave self-sin-success-sex behind, press on, press on to those things which are ahead -- the mark of the prize in the high-calling of God in Jesus! Press on! You're weary -- press on! You're tired -- press on!

Maybe that's what we need in Christendom today to break down the walls which separate us -- to worship together black and white. Maybe one Sunday a month should be inter-racial worship; two congregations black and white -- 1/2 stays in place while other half joins a racially different church. We need to remember that we are one in Christ -- this is one way to do it; clasp hands and give a hug and affirm the teaching of Jesus and his Gospel!

That Sunday morning I came away feeling that God had something different, that he was going to move me from what was familiar to me to what he wanted for me. GPS will never mean the same thing to me again -- I need to keep tuning in to God's Positioning System.

Spiritual Rumblings

The Power of Forgiveness

Where have I been? Hmmm... life is what happens to you while you are living. It's been six months since my last post here. I have to confess that I have been immersed in the police side of my life since the tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri. You can see all that on my police blog which has been active since 2011 and has now over 350 posts on police and their improvement.

Along with my role as police author and blogger, I remain active as an Episcopal priest and pastor of a small, faithful flock of Christians who attend St. Peter's in North Lake, Wisconsin. My third role is that of "nurse practitioner" as I partner with my beautiful and longstanding, best-fried wife-companion Sabine beginning our 8th year fighting a pernicious cancer of the blood called "multiple myeloma." The cancer came upon us in the form or Sabine's kidney failure -- in which we also try to control through home hemodialysis five days a week.

In spite of all this, we remain active (except for a couple of falls and cracked bones during the past 18 months) as hikers, boaters, travelers, and family matri and patri-arches! Life is still a hoot and we go by our family mantra -- "It doesn't have to be perfect to be wonderful."

Spiritually, I deeply feel that I have been called to plant the first seed in a potentially abundant field. It is a seed that some of my colleagues in policing have called "the bitter pill." But I believe it is a healing pill that while it may first seem bitter has within itself the ability to heal.

A few weeks ago my faith and my former professional came strongly together. Some of you may know that since my deep journey into Christianity I have tended to focus on the immense power of forgiveness. This has taken the form of writing a piece in Bob Enright's book, "Exploring Forgiveness" in which I mentioned how I had used forgiveness to heal a breach with people of color in Madison when I was the chief. Those of us who call ourselves Christian know in our heart that it is one of the foundational pieces of our faith.

Throughout my life spiritual, I have been fascinated by the power of forgiveness. I have seen its power in my family and among my friends and parishioners. I was awed by what the Amish did in Nickel Mine, Pennsylvania. And I witnessed and experienced accounts of  it during my time in South Africa hearing accounts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission during the Parliament of  World Religions in 1999.

I was also recently reminded that the Christian movement, Promise Keepers, did facilitated an apology from it's white Christian men to those men of color. Certainly, we in the church have a lot to apologize for in the way in which we have historically supported slavery and the Jim Crow system. A recent essay on reparation by Ta-Nehesi Coates brought all this home for me once again.

What I have seen and experience about forgiveness is that it WORKS!

So, my mission, my passion, is to press the recommendation I made to Pres. Obama's task force on policing. 

I am totally convinced that the only way forward regarding police-community relations and the restoration of trust between minorities and police is for the police to begin the journey forward by first apologizing, then building on a change in their behavior, seek forgiveness from those whom the domination aspects of our system has tended to oppress. It, of course, can be a personal apology from police who know that they have acted improperly, but it is also a matter of apologizing for the past. Last month I wrote about this in the Capital Times.

As a man of faith, I am putting all this to prayer as I am reminded of an old song from my childhood days during World War II: "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition."

My "ammunition" is my experience, knowledge, and (hopefully) wisdom.

My "praise" is prayer.

Will you join me?