stfranman Holy Days and Holidays

On National Clergy Appreciation Day

Today is National Clergy Appreciation Day and I’d bet a Prince’s Ransom that only a very few people of faith are aware of that.

I’ll hasten to add that there may be more preachers, pastors and priests enjoying Sunday dinner as a guest of their congregants as I write this; that’s a good thing.

If you didn’t know that today is that day, it’s not a bad thing if you make note of it. After all, we’re only 354 days away from Clergy Appreciation Day, 2021!

Brother Ben

© 2020 The Fellowship of St Francis, Inc.

stfranman Peace and Peacemaking, Social Justice, Spirituality/Religion

The Leader’s Dark Picture

As the 2020 Elections get closer, we can see conflicts raging in a few of our country’s communities.

In most of our cities, there are no protests marked by violence or any unrest causing serious disturbances.

In a few of our communities–a very few, truth be told–there are serious problems and it’s not certain when the unrest may abate or what a successful strategy for a resolution might look like.

The President is using fear in an attempt to frighten voters into giving him another term to quell the violence that has happened on his watch, the violence which has been worsened by his failure to address long-ignored issues of social justice and of equal treatment for all citizens.

The dark picture of America that he’s trying to paint for his supporters does not reflect the true reality.

The irony is that if he is re-elected, the dark hues we can see around the picture’s edges will intensify, spread and despoil the fragile image.

We must not allow anyone to wield fear as a weapon and convince the American people that the entire nation is wracked by explosive, uncontrolled mob violence from Portland all the way to D.C.. It’s simply not true.

Furthermore, we must reject the proposition that the protests and unrest–in the few communities where there has been actual violence–calls for Federal shock troops outfitted with military-grade weaponry cracking the skulls of citizens who are looking to their elected officials to respond to their grievances.

The unrest will be eased and moved toward better outcomes when all communities believe that our elected leaders and those in law enforcement, in particular, are serious about reform.

Unless and until that happens, there will be tension, unrest and, it must be said, actual violence.

Two things that will never ease, much less resolve, the problem of violence in our streets: first, ignoring the urgent calls to address long-ignored issues of social justice.

And secondly, trying to quell the unrest at the point of a gun.

Brother Ben


© 2020 The Fellowship of St Francis, Inc.

stfranman Living Life, Spirituality/Religion

Mr Falwell is out at Liberty

August has been a really tough month for Jerry Falwell Jr. That’s putting it mildly.

And things got worse in the last 24 hours. Much worse.

He just resigned as the President of Liberty University, the Virginia school founded by his Father.

As you know if you’ve looking around here on this blog lately, I have been following this matter. My time in seminary was at a well-known University which was also led by a charismatic leader who garnered headlines on a daily basis.

Sadly, we often discover that ministers, evangelists and University Presidents in powerful positions lead lives that are not consistent with what they preach.

When that’s the case, they’re rarely successful at keeping the secrets secret.

I don’t wish Mr Falwell ill. But it’s a good thing that the charade is over.

Rev. Falwell has a myriad of tasks ahead of him. It will be a difficult, arduous process. A lot of sorrow, some humiliation, no doubt, and–most of all–a lot of work. That’s true for the University community as well.

I’m hopeful that it will make possible some measure of healing for everyone whose lives are touched by all of this.

I wish him, his family and the University well.

Brother Ben

© 2020 The Fellowship of St Francis, Inc.

stfranman Uncategorized

Jerry Falwell scandal, a follow up

In a post two days ago, I laid out a brief accounting of the recent scandal around the conduct of Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr.

It was set off by a photo Rev Falwell posted to his Instagram account. As scandals go, it was a pretty big deal.

I said in that posting that I thought he would escape any serious consequences for what he did.

I was wrong about that. He has now taken an indefinite leave of absence from his post. As you probably know, that’s usually what happens just before a high-level leader or CEO gets fired.

The tendency to look the other way when powerful men do something really over-the-top is so common. I was certain that this would be another episode.

It looks like the University has done/is doing the right thing.

Although we can’t be sure about where this may go from here, it appears that I was way off as far as my assessment of how it would all turn out.

Happy to have been wrong about this sad situation.

Brother Ben

© 2020 The Fellowship of St Francis, Inc.

stfranman Spirituality/Religion

What will happen next in the Falwell scandal?

By now you may have seen the photo of Jerry Falwell Jr that has been widely circulated on social media.

It’s certainly not my place to chastise Rev Falwell. I’ll merely say that I fully expect others associated with the University and the ministry on which it was built to give him a pass here.

It brings to mind the scandal that engulfed Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart back in 1991.

Some are leaping to Falwell’s defense. Others–as you might well imagine–believe this is a very big deal and that he should be held to account.

For me, there’s an irony at play here that is a bigger deal than what actually happened.

For many people–and I am one of them–Falwell is now most closely associated with Donald Trump. It’s impossible not to think of how he’s embraced Trump from day one in spite of Trump’s seemingly endless deplorable and cruel actions.

He has failed to call out trump for anything; anything at all.

He said nothing about trump’s outright cruel treatment of brown children whose “crime” was being brought to our southern border by their desperate parents fleeing danger in their homeland.

Falwell stood idly by while Mr Trump sullied his office in a myriad of ways. Sullied it over and over and over again for the last three years and nine months.

Here, I’m sad to say, is where I think this situation stands: unless the University and the ministry possess more discernment and integrity than I think they do, they will enable Falwell and give him the same unmerited kid-glove treatment that their leader has been giving our president.

That’s where I think this is heading. I certainly hope I’m proven wrong.

Brother Ben

© 2020 The Fellowship of St Francis, Inc.

stfranman Compassionate Living

Herman Cain has passed

Former Presidential candidate Herman Cain has passed.

He died today after battling COVID-19 for the last month.

If Mr Cain and I had ever had a chance to talk about this pandemic and the way it’s taken so many lives, I’m quite sure the discussion would reveal that we were seeing things very differently.

Having said that, it’s a tragedy that Mr Cain has passed from the scene too soon. It’s tragic when anyone is laid low by this horrible disease. Anyone here in the US–anyone, anywhere.

But it’s also true that Herman was clearly in the denialist camp. When he attended Donald Trump’s Tulsa rally, he and his party sat proudly in the Bank of Oklahoma Center with no masks.

I certainly understand that it’s possible that Mr Cain became infected in some other way. That’s true without a doubt.

Nevertheless, I seriously doubt whether he and his family did anything that would put him at greater risk than attending that rally back on June 20th.

There have been many large gatherings in the last few months that have put people at great risk. And many Americans are paying a steep price for their apparent rejection of the facts about this pandemic. About the pandemic and ways to lower your risk.

It’s not too late to put the politics around all of this aside, embrace the science and protect yourself.

Do it for your loved ones. Do it because you have something to live for.

Do it even if you get no support–or even opposition–from family and friends.

So many have died because of this accursed virus. Please take the precautions you can to make it less likely that you’ll be one of them.

Brother Ben

© 2020 The Fellowship of St Francis, Inc.

Follow this link to see the guidance from the CDC on ways to lower your risk.

stfranman Ecology/Environment

If you love your Mother

One of the urgencies humanity is facing at the present time has to do the way we’re degrading our Planet. The Planet that is our common home.

There are so many indicators that Mother Earth is suffering. Suffering badly, truth be told.

One of those clear signs that this is happening is that it’s been unusually warm in Siberia this year. Scientists are now seeing temperatures that have never before been recorded north of the Arctic Circle.

It’s just one more piece of evidence. As though more were needed.

Stay engaged. Don’t let yourself slip into hopelessness and despair.

We’ve got to keep shining a bright light on the crises we’re facing on the environmental front.

We’ve got to learn all we can, stay engaged and put our hands to the work.

There are so many on the front lines–volunteers, laymen and professionals–engaged in this work, giving their all to make a difference.

We can support them by contributing our time, contributing financially and by refusing to let other priorities–as urgent as they are–keep us from addressing the singular problem that can render all of the others insignificant.

Brother Ben

© 2020 The Fellowship of St Francis, Inc.

stfranman Compassionate Living

Where Common Sense and Compassion Meet

As you no doubt have noticed, there has been a lot of discussion — and a lot of legal fights, as well — about what places of worship can or should do while COVID-19 is ravaging our communities and our churches.

For me, it’s really just a matter of common sense. Of common sense and compassion.

To gather for corporate worship is a right, of course. It’s a right in our Constitutional Republic and it meets an essential and deeply-felt need for so many.

But it’s also true that churches — like any other entity or enterprise in our communities — also want to help keep their members and friends from contracting or spreading a serious and sometimes fatal disease.

Some houses of worship did not like restrictions put in place while the epidemic raged. And they took the route of legal action.

Some churches have unwittingly become incubators of this opportunistic virus and have been deeply affected; many have lost members to coronavirus.

It’s going to make this ordeal better — or at least mitigate the damage we’re experiencing — if we take common sense precautions and do all we can to safeguard the health and the lives of all our friends and everyone in the communities where we worship and work.

Brother Ben

© 2020 The Fellowship of St Francis, Inc.

stfranman Bible/Sacred Literature, Living Life

It’s a Happy-Sad Thing

13 A happy heart makes the face cheerful,
    but heartache crushes the spirit.

Proverbs 15:13

I came upon this familiar verse from Proverbs this morning and it got me to thinking.

Its message clashed with my dour mood of the moment — there is certainly no shortage of things happening here and all over the world right now that can really undercut our serenity and leave us emotionally and spiritually drained — and so I found the verse comforting.

Like so many of us, I have my share of life’s ups-and-downs and get into a funk fairly often. This passage reminded me that whether or not I stay in those occasional foul moods for very long depends, in no small measure, on my response.

As a younger man, I tended to stay trapped in that depressive space for what seemed like very long periods of time.

It’s a good thing indeed that I’ve progressed as I’ve moved along life’s path and I’ve developed the skill of turning, or re-orienting myself when “trapped” in these dark spaces, turning in a more positive direction.

If you’re anything like me, you may well find yourself navigating those decidedly unpleasant places often. It may seem that you’re more acquainted with the heartache part of that brief verse than that happy heart way the verse begins.

If so, you’ve got plenty of company. Don’t forget that we all experience those sometimes heart-wrenching highs-and-lows and that we can steer ourselves towards the happy heart end of the polarity by thoughtfully, consciously turning towards the light.

It’s a good thing indeed, to turn in that better direction — even when we feel as though the last tiny shred of happiness has been torn from our grasp — and ready ourselves for the return of those moments of blossoming joy.

Brother Ben

© 2020 The Fellowship of St Francis, Inc.

stfranman Bible/Sacred Literature, Spirituality/Religion

The president and the Bible Photo Op

Because this regrettable and surreal scene played itself out on Monday, I’m thinking that many of you are well-aware of what happened by now. And here — for what it’s worth — is my take on this disturbing event.

It’s clear now that America’s Divider-in-Chief thinks he can use faith for his own purposes. Just like he has been using so many other things, people and events.

He uses people and things to try to improve his terrible image; he uses things and events to sow confusion and deflect blame; he uses people and things — way too often — to punish and wreck revenge on his political enemies or merely on people he doesn’t like.

All of this is — it hardly need be said — to the Nation’s detriment. So now we can add Faith to the things this selfish and spiritually-dead man believes he can use to further his own ends.

Brother Ben

Postscript: for a more detailed look at some of the fallout from Monday’s events — the reactions of Faith leaders, in particular — follow this link.


© 2020 The Fellowship of St Francis, Inc.