A few weeks ago, a friend who’s
a minister invited me to go fishing with him. Well, I’ve never been interested
in fishing, but he was insistent, so I agreed to go. When I arrived at Chebbaco
Lake, I was pleasantly surprised to find that he’d invited an Imam to join
us. So we went down to a little dock, threw our gear in a boat and rowed
out to the middle of the lake where we fished for awhile. Before we knew it, we started
to get hungry and realized we’d left our lunches on shore. So I said, ‘Don’t
worry, I’ll go get ‘em.’ And I got up and walked across the water to the shore.
But I couldn’t find our lunches. So I shouted, “I can’t find the lunches. Where
did we leave ‘em?’ The Imam shouted back, “I’ll come take a look.” So he,
too, walked across the water and we looked but still couldn’t find them. So we
called out to the minister, “We need your help!” Well, he stood up in the boat;
and for a minute he looked nervously at the water; then, he gingerly
stepped out of the boat, into …
Today is a day of forgiveness, and so I am going to begin
with saying I am sorry.
I am not going to talk about what is going on in Washington. I am not going to talk about the Israeli election. My apologies. Can you forgive me? Instead I want to continue talking about the theme of walking through the world, individually, as a community, and as a people. I read a moving story recently that I couldn’t wait to tell you. Unfortunately, I’ve since learned that it may not be exactly -- what’s the word??? – True. But I’m going to tell it to you anyway, because sometimes a myth can be just as valuable as the truth.
By far the most terrifying Yom Kippur of many of our lives occurred 46 years ago today. I was just six years old when Egyptian and Syrian forces came crashing into Israel from north and south on this, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. All across America, Jewish people stood in synagogue parking lots, huddled around transistor radios, straining to hear the latest news from the Mi…
I am not going to talk about what is going on in Washington. I am not going to talk about the Israeli election. My apologies. Can you forgive me? Instead I want to continue talking about the theme of walking through the world, individually, as a community, and as a people. I read a moving story recently that I couldn’t wait to tell you. Unfortunately, I’ve since learned that it may not be exactly -- what’s the word??? – True. But I’m going to tell it to you anyway, because sometimes a myth can be just as valuable as the truth.
By far the most terrifying Yom Kippur of many of our lives occurred 46 years ago today. I was just six years old when Egyptian and Syrian forces came crashing into Israel from north and south on this, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. All across America, Jewish people stood in synagogue parking lots, huddled around transistor radios, straining to hear the latest news from the Mi…