Prairie Musings

Icon from the Kano Healing Chapel at Church of our Savior, North Platte, written by Jane Tan Creti of Omaha Psalm 28:8-11 The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I have been helped; Therefore my heart dances for joy, and in my song will I praise him. The LORD is the strength of his people, a safe refuge for his anointed. Save your people and bless your inheritance; shepherd them and carry them for ever. Today is the commemoration of Fr. Hiram Kano, Nebraska priest and saint, who was arrested by the FBI in 1941 on the steps of his parish, Church of Our Sa vior, North Platte, just after celebrating Eucharist. When imprisoned in a Japanese Internment Camp, he rejoiced in his "special" calling to minister to the other imprisoned Japanese immigrants and American AWOL soldiers there, also teaching English and agriculture. Forty years later, when the US Government acknowledge the imprisonment to be false and offered money in reparations, Fr. Kano ...

I know almost everyone here is old enough to remember a series of commercials for E.F. Hutton that went like this: Some young professional is talking with a friend at a loud, public event, one, for example, was a boisterous dinner party.  The speaker remarks that his stock broker is E.F. Hutton, and immediately the party is silenced—all conversation stops, and everyone leans in to hear what he has to say. This is the scene I imagine in today’s Gospel. For weeks now, the Pharisees have been trying to lay a trap for Jesus, to trick him into saying something that will incriminate him with the Roman authorities or alienate him from the crowds that support him. Today’s attempt at trickery is especially pernicious. In asking Jesus about paying taxes to the Emperor, they use the specific word for the individual, personal “head-tax” that was particularly degrading to Jesus’ Jewish listeners, because it was the standard day’s wage, specifically the day’s wage specified for the Roman sold...

Have you ever just started out on the wrong foot in some situation, or in some new relationship? I had that happen recently when I started my chaplain internship at the hospital: It was about two weeks in, and my first night working with a particular chaplain I had not yet met in person. When I got into the office, she was out in the hospital somewhere, and so I picked up the phone on a desk and called her to let her know I was reporting in for duty. “WHY ARE YOU CALLING FROM MY PHONE? WHO WOULD CALL ME FROM MY OWN PHONE?” she said, in a voice just like that…Let’s just say it went downhill from there; it took a lot of time and effort to fix this relationship that started off all wrong. Very sadly, I think that’s what our relationship with the Ten Commandments is like. From the beginning, because we call them “Commandments” and because we have childhood memories of Sunday School material with those two tablets of stone that start off with either “You shall…” or “You shall not…” we’ve...