A Review of the Book "Helter Skelter" by Vincent Bugliosi

Title: Helter Skelter

Author: Vincent Bugliosi

Publisher: WW Norton and Company

Year: 1974

670 pages

From the Back: In the summer of 1969, in Los Angeles, a series of brutal, seemingly random murders captured headlines across America. A famous actress (and her unborn child), an heiress to a coffee fortune, a supermarket owner and his wife were among the seven victims. A thin trail of circumstances eventually tied the Tate-LaBlanca murders to Charles Manson, a would-be pop singer of small talent living in the desert with his "family" of devoted young women and men. What was his hold over them? And what was the motivation behind such savagery? In the public imagination, over time, the case assumed the proportions of myth. The murders marked the end of the sixties and became an immediate symbol of the dark underside of that era.

    Vincent Bugliosi was the persecuting attorney in the Manson trial, and this book is his enthralling account of how he built his case from what a defense attorney dismissed as only "two fingerprints and Vince Bugliosi." The meticulous detective work with which the story begins, the prosecutor's view of a complex murder trial, the reconstruction of the philosophy Manson inculcated in his fervent followers...these elements make for a true crime classic.

Personal Thoughts: As I read through this book, I had to keep reminding myself that it was true crime, not a fiction novel. This could have been a really dry read but Bugliosi was able to tell the story without drowning the reader in facts and timelines. He wrote it almost like a detective novel which actually made it an enjoyable read, until you remembered the subject matter. Helter Skelter and the story of Charles Manson is not for the faint of heart, but it certainly wasn't boring.

A Review of the Book "The Next Person You Meet in Heaven" by Mitch Albom

Title: The Next Person You Meet in Heaven

Author: Mitch Albom

Publisher; HarperCollins Publishers

Year: 2018

210 pages

From the Back: The accident that killed Eddie left an indelible mark on Annie. It took her left hand, which needed to be surgically reattached. Injured, scarred, and unable to remember what happened, Annie is forever changed by a guilt-ravaged mother who whisks her away from the world she knew.

    Bullied by her peers and haunted by something she cannot recall, Annie struggles to find acceptance as she grows. She feels everything she does is a mistake. When, as a young woman, she reconnects with Paulo, her childhood love, she believes she has finally found happiness.

    But, as the novel opens, Annie is marrying Paulo, and her wedding night ends in an unimaginable tragedy. Annie is whisked into her own heavenly journey - and into an inevitable reunion with Eddie, one of five people who will show her how her earthly life touched others in ways she could not have fathomed.

Personal Thoughts: I really love Mitch Albom's writing. His stories are very easy to read and are so relatable. In this particular book, Albom uses Annie's story to help the reader consider what it might be like to exist in the moment between life and death. How do you think it will feel? Who do you think you would meet? Albom is very gentle in his writing, pulling at your heart-strings with every word. The Next Person You Meet in Heaven is the sequel to The Five People You Meet in Heaven. You don't need to read them in any order, but I do recommend them both.

A Review of the Book "Fatty Legs" by Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret-Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton

Title: Fatty Legs

Author: Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret-Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton

Publisher: Annick Press

Year: 2020

136 Pages

From the Back: Eight-year-old Olemaun Pokiak sets her sights on learning to read, but even her father's dire warnings can't prepare her for the reality of residential school. At school Olemaun is made to answer to the name Margaret. She soon encounters the Raven, a cruel nun who forces her to wear bright red stockings when all the other students wear gray ones. Margaret becomes an instant laughingstock. But she will not let herself be worn down - even in the face of torment.

Personal Thoughts: As with any book about residential schools, this was an emotional story. You can feel the tension between the child's desire to learn to read and her father's need to protect her from an education system that was built to destroy Indigenous people. Jordan-Fenton does an incredible job of sharing her mother-in-law's story, giving it honour while also making the read feel the emotions being experienced by Olemaun. Yes, this is a children's book but sometimes it is from children's stories that we learn the biggest lessons.

A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 44

Chapter 44 – Judging Others

 

“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For the judgment you give will be the judgment you get, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” Matthew (7:1-5)

 

I enjoyed Anthony de Mello’s contribution to this chapter. De Mello talks about the possibility that when we judge others, we are actually judging something about ourselves. He states, “Every time you find yourself irritated or angry with someone, the one to look at is not that person but yourself.” (282) De Mello reflects that perhaps the irritation we see in others is something that we find irritating about ourselves, therefore we project that irritation back to the other person.

 

No matter what, it is not our place to judge. People make their own choices in life and who are we to judge what they do. That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t call someone out when they are being harmful or hurtful to another person, or if they are breaking the law, or are about to find themselves in danger. Not judging does not mean not confronting sin.

 

However, the speck and the log in our eye that Jesus talks about certainly comes into play if we deem ourselves better than another for whatever reason. A better person. A better parent. A better Christian. It is not our place to determine what is “better”. Only God will be our ultimate judge. In the meantime, our job is to live in the best way we can, love as much as we can, and do all that we can to take care of our neighbours.

 

In these verses, Jesus is calling us to worry more about removing the plank from our own eye than from the eye of others. As they say on airplanes, put your own mask own before trying to help others.

A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 43

Chapter 43 – God’s Kingdom First

 

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” Matthew (6:33-34)

 

Jesus wasn’t a king, nor did he want to be. Jesus was sent to us to teach us how to love. He didn’t ask for worshipers and wasn’t looking to start a new religion. He wasn’t asking anyone to call him “your majesty” or to fall to their knees before him. Wealth and fame meant nothing to him. I mean c’mon! The guy rode to his death on the back of a donkey! No luxurious horse or carriage to be seen.

 

At no time did Jesus claim to be a king. He was certainly a leader, a great leader, but he was not a king. In fact, he reflected that question back at Pilate in Luke’s chapter 23 verse 3: “Then Pilate asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ He answered, ‘You say so.’”

 

Jesus was mockingly labelled as the King of the Jews and ridiculed by the crowds, the soldiers, and even the criminals hanging from their own crosses next to Jesus. Everyone mocked him, asking why as King and Messiah, he didn’t save himself. The crowds were furious because they believed that if Jesus wouldn’t save himself how on earth could he save the people of Jerusalem?

 

But Jesus does not come down off his cross to prove his supposedly kingly status. Instead, he remains on that instrument of torture and humiliation as a representative of all who suffer unjustly. And he does not promise a better tomorrow but instead offers to redeem us today.

 

Jesus was not sent to rule the people of Israel and all the earth. Jesus was sent to be a teacher…a mentor…a leader…to show us how to love ourselves and how to love one another in order to find peace. Peace and reconciliation for all of creation are signs of the kingdom of God in Jesus. Whether it will reside above the clouds, beyond the stars, in our hearts or, most likely, in a dimension well beyond our current comprehension: Christ’s kingdom will come. Jesus will reign in love and peace and serenity: King of Kings, Lord of Lords. That’s the kind of king we have. The question now becomes – what kind of subjects will we be?

A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 42

Chapter 42 – Beyond Worry

 

‘“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the gentiles who seek all these things, and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.’ (Matthew 6:25-32)

 

Do not worry. This is the message from Jesus in this bit of his sermon on the mount. Do not worry. Not exactly the easiest statement. It is in our human nature to worry – about food, clothing, money, other people, etc. We humans worry about everything! What Jesus wants us to do is lay our worries at God’s feet. Hand our worries over to God and let God do the worrying. Easy as pie, right? Ha!

 

It's not easy, but it can be done. Through prayer, we can lay out our worries and ask God to walk with us, to help us carry the burden so that some of the weight can be lifted. We can pray to God to help us find someone willing to share the burden with us. We can talk it out with our family and/or our friends. We can release our worries to our therapist or our psychiatrist. There are many ways that we can use to relieve ourselves of the worry that we have in our hearts.

 

And sometimes, we need to realize that there are worries that we can’t do anything about. We can only control what we can control. Anything else is out of our hands. It’s of these things that Jesus calls out to us, “Do not worry.” Knowing the difference between what is and is not in our control will mean the difference between crumbling under the worry and working our way through it.

The King’s Subjects: A Sermon for Christ the King Sunday

May only truth be spoken and may only truth be heard. Amen.

 

I had to double check the calendar to make sure that we were in November and not April. The passage from Luke’s Gospel today sure seems like something out of the Easter season, didn’t it? Today is the last Sunday of the church year and being Year C, the lectionary has landed this beauty of a reading in our laps. Although it seems out of sync with the rest of the church calendar, it is an important set of events that perhaps really does deserve a second look as we head into the season of Advent.

 

Not only is today the last Sunday of the liturgical calendar, it’s also Christ the King Sunday. It’s a celebration of the all-embracing authority of Christ as King and Lord of all things. Officially called "The Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King," these festivities were instituted by Pope Pius XI in the 1920s as a way to fight the rising secularism in Europe by reminding Christian faithful that Christ must reign in our hearts, our minds, our wills, and our bodies. The feast is celebrated on the final Sunday of Ordinary Time, the Sunday before Advent.

 

Actually, it is quite fitting that the feast celebrating Christ's kingship is observed right before Advent, when we liturgically wait for the promised Messiah. During Eastertide, the Passion narrative emphasizes the trials, pain, and suffering that Jesus endures as he makes his way to his gruesome death. The point is to show how he suffered and died to atone for our sins and then there is the celebration of his resurrection as he is risen from the dead to be with God for all eternity. And I could talk about that again as it is important for us to remember what Jesus has done for us. Instead, let’s talk about kings.

 

What do we know about kings? Today, the language of kingship is outmoded and sometimes offensive. There are good reasons for this. We don't live under kings, so the metaphor feels irrelevant. And we're rightly repulsed at how the reigns of kings, at times, meant a reign of terror for most subjects — massive wealth and power attained by cruelty and exploitation, which was then passed on by birthright to people who did nothing to deserve it.

 

Kings have become almost obsolete, a way of leading that no longer holds much of our attention, at least here in Canada and here at St Peter. But, once upon a time, Christ was hailed as king in the midst of a people who did understand kingship, and particularly Christ’s kingship over them. But what kind of king was Jesus?

 

Each of the synoptic Gospels presents a slightly different picture of Christ as King. In Mark, Christ is Israel's true king, but his kingship is hidden in suffering and rejection. In Chapter 15, a centurion declares, "Truly this man was God's Son!" but yet Christ dies on the cross under the mocking banner "King of the Jews."

 

In Matthew, Jesus is the God-authorized Son and Israel's Messiah who teaches with heavenly authority concerning the will of God and performs miracles that give authority to his teachings. Jesus as King in Matthew is, in the words that both open and close his gospel, "God with us".

 

In Luke, Jesus is the Son of a God who, through Jesus' ministry, grants forgiveness of sins to the repentant and the gift of salvation through the bestowal of the Holy Spirit. In today’s Gospel reading, three times Jesus is mentioned as king: by the soldiers at the cross in verse 37 “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”, on the inscription nailed to the cross in verse 38 “This is the King of the Jews”, and by the criminal asking to be remembered when Jesus comes into his kingdom in verse 42.

 

But really, Jesus wasn’t a king, nor did he want to be. Jesus was sent to us to teach us how to love. He didn’t ask for worshipers and wasn’t looking to start a new religion. He wasn’t asking anyone to call him “your majesty” or to fall to their knees before him. Wealth and fame meant nothing to him. I mean c’mon! The guy rode to his death on the back of a donkey! No luxurious horse or carriage to be seen. At no time did Jesus claim to be a king. He was certainly a leader, a great leader, but he was not a king. In fact, he reflected that question back at Pilate in Luke’s chapter 23 verse 3:

            “Then Pilate asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’

            He answered, ‘You say so.’”

 

Jesus was mockingly labelled as the King of the Jews and ridiculed by the crowds, the soldiers, and even the criminals hanging from their own crosses next to Jesus. Everyone mocked him, asking why as King and Messiah, he didn’t save himself. The crowds were furious because they believed that if Jesus wouldn’t save himself how on earth could he save the people of Jerusalem? But Jesus does not come down off his cross to prove his supposedly kingly status. Instead, he remains on that instrument of torture and humiliation as a representative of all who suffer unjustly. And he does not promise a better tomorrow but instead offers to redeem us today.

 

Jesus was not sent to rule the people of Israel and all the earth. Jesus was sent to be a teacher…a mentor…a leader…to show us how to love ourselves and how to love one another in order to find peace. Peace and reconciliation for all of creation are signs of the kingdom of God in Jesus.

 

I found a poem that I would like to read to you. It is by Alyce M. McKenzie.

What kind of King is this? Who is crucified at a place called the Skull?

With a criminal on his left and a criminal on his right?

What kind of king is this who forgives rather than executes judgment on those who contest his power?

What kind of king is this? Who allows himself to be disrespected and abused without speaking a word in his own defense?

What kind of king is this who allows even criminals to mock him without putting them in their place?

What kind of king is this whose thoughts are on others rather than his own pain at the peak of his own undeserved suffering?

How can a crucified king bring us life?

How can a forgiving king right the wrongs done to us and that we have done to others?

How can a peaceful king end the wars that rage within us and around us?

How can a compassionate king find the strength to lead us?

 

From the very beginnings of all the gospels, the “the kingdom” is proclaimed repeatedly. It is clearly more than a metaphor. It is a state of mind. It is a destination. Whether it will reside above the clouds, beyond the stars, in our hearts or, most likely, in a dimension well beyond our current comprehension: Christ’s kingdom will come. Jesus will reign in love and peace and serenity: King of Kings, Lord of Lords. That’s the kind of king we have. The question now becomes – what kind of subjects will we be?

 

Can you feel how the world has changed this year? Over the last few years? Can you feel the tension growing, the fear? Stories of racist graffiti spray-painted on Mosques, Synagogues, churches, and schools. Governments working to remove access to gender-affirming care and safe spaces for the transgender community. People being taken from their homes and places of work to be deported to their country of origin. Shelters for the unhoused being torn down without a plan to help the people affected.

 

Are these the types of subjects the Jesus wants? I highly doubt it. Now more than ever we need to listen to the Gospels and take to heart Jesus’ emphasis on loving all people, not just a select few. No one person or group or ethnicity is better than any others. We are all human. We are all God’s creation. And we all have the right to exist, to have beliefs, to love, and to be loved. That’s the kind of subjects we need to be. If we are calling Jesus our king and he is the king of love and kindness, then as his subjects, we are meant to be the givers of love and kindness, as it is through love and kindness that we will reveal the existence of Jesus’ kingdom here on earth.

 

Amen.