Greetings!  

   It's a cool crisp November morning with bright sunshine and blue skies. The river is still. Walking along its bank, we can barely hear the sound of a solitary tugboat as it slowly pushes a loaded barge north toward Albany. It reminds us of you, a dear one quietly going about your morning, your life. We pray that all is well, that the waters of your life are calm and still and that you can hear God's tender voice of love pushing you up river.

   Ahhh, love - I love my big brother with whom I've had the joy of journeying with via emails this week. He has always inspired and challenged me. I'll be forever in his debt for that.

   Speaking of inspiring and challenging - that's one way to describe next week's gospel reading. Next Sunday is known as Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday in the liturgical year. Pope Pius XI instituted The Feast of Christ the King in 1925 for the universal church in his encyclical Quas Primas. He connected the denial of Christ as king to the rise of secularism. (A lot of other folks agree with the Pope's analysis of the sorry state of world affairs. How about you?)

   The reading - John 18:33-37 - is a short but powerful one. In it, we find Jesus in a face-to-face meeting with Rome's Top Dog in the Eastern Mediterranean. Pilate was not a nice guy. He was the sort of fellow who would - and did - have people slaughtered at the drop of a hat. It's hard to imagine what might have been going through Pilate's mind when into his presence came what seemed to be an itinerant, uneducated, homeless rabbi who wouldn't give Pilate a straight answer. In fact, Jesus answered Pilate's question with a question of his own . . .

   Pilate wanted to know - Who are you? After our minds bounced to the posed to Alice by the smoking caterpillar in Lewis Carrol's 1865 novel Alice's Adventure in Wonderland  and then to The Who's 1978 recording Who are You? , we connected with the real power of the moment which John was sharing with us. There were two very different men in that scene. One man got there by working his way up through a very corrupt and violent structure by doing to others before they did anything to him, by winning (buying) the trust of an Emperor upon whom he depended for his very life. 

  The other man got there by doing nothing other than telling the truth, by being who he was called to be, by bring good news to the poor, release to the capitives . . . freedom and God's favor. He owed his

allegiance only to God and did not fear what others would think, say, or do.

   The Freudians among us would look at the scene and say that Jesus had great ego strength. In Freud's psychoanalytic theory, ego strength is the ability of the ego to effectively deal with the demands of the id, the superego and reality (hey! Stop yawning!). Ego strength is a term that can be used to described one's ability to maintain her/his identity and sense of self in the face of pain, distress and conflict. Someone with strong ego-strength meets challenges with a sense that s/he can overcome the problem and even grow as a result. Those sorts of folks  can handle whatever life throws at them without losing their sense of self, of who they are.

   On the other hand, people with weak ego-strength see challenges as things to avoid. Sometimes reality can seem too overwhelming for them. They struggle to cope with problems and challenges, and may try to avoid reality through wishful thinking, substance abuse and other forms of escape.

   Jesus is a model for what it means to have exceptional ego-strength, to maintain stability, to be calm, cool, and collected in the face of a life-threatening situation. He does it by knowing exactly who and whose he is, who he has been called to be, and what he has been called to do.

   Verse 37 really struck us. In the NRSV, Jesus says, "For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth."  In addition to making his ego-strength obvious, the statement challenges us to ask ourselves - For what was I born? Why did I come into this world? Was it to live a life of quiet desperation? Was it to become the person others wanted meus to be, wanted us to study, or to take on some job because it made financial sense? Have I ignored my own interests to make the crowds around me happy? Have I accepted hand-me-down dreams?

   Who are you?

   

We wish you abundant joy!