On the Friday evening after planes flew into the sides of the World Trade Towers, on that clear Friday evening a few years ago, I listened to a high school chorus sing, "The Star Spangled Banner" and I wept. I cried for all the horror their eyes had seen. I cried, for the dream I thought they would inherit seemed to have fallen into huge piles of smoking ash and destruction. I cried because we, as adults, had failed them so. It looked on that clear night like the dream was over. These children could never carry a banner of hope, a banner of freedom. If the racial divide of the 60s and the cynicism of the 70s had so deeply affected my own generation, how could these young people believe in anything? So I wept. Week after week and even year after year, I have listened as they sing and I have wept.

But on this day, cold and clear, I see hope and passion reborn. I sense the hearts of the next generation rising to answer the call of freedom and possibility for those in this land and for the children of all lands. Once again there is a vision to be seen, to be known, to be felt, to be chased with passion. Once again the dream is out front rather than down under our feet being trampled by cynicism, greed, and fear.

I remember the day Martin Luther King, Jr. died. I remember 1968 and its hatred and division. I remember the ugly, hate-filled shouts and gestures at my father, the sailor in his "Crackerjacks". I remember the removal of our Alabama license plates out of fear in an unstable country. I remember the signs that read, "Colored" and "White". These things I remember.

On this day, those are memories that shape and form our country's past, but they are no longer chains of bondage and prisons of hate. On this day, the dream lives on, guiding us, empowering us, filling us with hope and promise. On this day I shed tears of joy as the children sing, for the promises of the next generation. "From every mountain, let freedom ring."

When I was a teen-age girl we spent our weekends at "the river", Weiss Lake with my favorite people: Aunt Jayne, Uncle Bobby and their son, Richey. From before the sun came up until the law-required-hour-past-sundown, we swam and water skiied as long as anyone would drive the boat. Then at mandatory quit boating time, we would all pile into the shelter and eat our fill of hamburgers, hotdogs and boxed macaroni and cheese. Sometimes we'd play cards, or "kick the can", or just sit around and talk.

As the night surrounded us we would go for a walk. My cousin Richey and I walked and talked as we made our way to a neighboring fish camp with a store that was still open. We went time after time for the delicious treats only found there, in mid-summer, on starry weekend nights. There they would be, banana flips and to my delight, chocolate flips as well. Richey ate banana and I ate chocolate, along with a Mountain Dew or RC Cola, and as we ate we walked back to the shelter on the other side of the cove.

Time moves on like it always does, we grew and married and raised families. Now, though we live hundreds of miles apart and much more than just a snack cake has faded from our lives, the love and laughter, the joy of being with family and the closeness of a favorite cousin still live sweetly in my heart.

This morning, when I got up, the world I knew was different. Having been born in 1960, I grew up with civil rights, or the battle for this mythical ideal. I remember when Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered. I was a child, but I remember the loss I felt. I did not live through integration because I was in places that were already integrated when those deeply profound moments happened in our country. I spent a couple of years as 3% other in a school, filled to over-flowing with people of color and then moved to a place that has yet to know full integration and at that time was COMPLETELY segregated. Through all of this I carried, deep in my heart, what at times seemed only to be a dead man's dream.

As reality continued, things changed and they stayed the same. But my journey led to learn first hand the difference seeing someone like me, doing a particular job could mean. I never heard a woman preach until I was in seminary in 2001, and until that moment it was never a real possibility for me. One day after Tiger Woods was famous I watched a little African-American child pick up a stick and strike a pine cone just as a golf club strikes the ball. His mama was hurrying him along and he was saying, "But I'm gonna play golf like Tiger Mama." Without Tiger there was basketball, but with Tiger there could be golf.

No matter where you land on the political spectrum or what you believe is important for our country's leaders to do, this day isn't yesterday. On this day a bit more of the dream has been realized. On this day there are children everywhere suddenly able to see themselves with hope to lead, to be the President. On this day the next generation has caught the fire of passion for the American possibility. And that changes everything. We are a great country built on freedom, liberty and opportunity....only in America.

If you copy the link found above and paste it in your browser, you can take a look at "Ike" from the International Space Station. "Hanna" is a disorganized mess trying to get her act together before she arrives at Myrtle Beach. "Josephine" is still a great unknown moving slowly across the Atlantic Ocean from the coast of Africa's tropical womb. I love hurricanes. They are big and beautiful and ferocious and unpredictable. Of course, I love the weather. Last week I was reminded that it has only been in my lifetime that humanity had the privilege of seeing our planet from space. Maybe my love for weather is just a love of satellite images of our blue and green planet? I'm not sure.

It may be that hurricanes are thrilling to me because they are big and mysterious like God is. They move almost unpredictably, becoming stronger and weaker on a whim. No one regardless of wealth or power can tell a hurricane what to do. A hurricane has good and bad; they provide much needed rainfall and give people a dose of humility. At the same time they flood and ravage islands, destroying homes and businesses, and taking lives. Those who are safe make remarks about the hows and whys of another's suffering; kind of like Job's friends. Those who suffer loss seem to either blame God or bask and grow in God's tender care. Hearts harden, hearts soften, seemingly without rhyme or reason just like the hurricane.

This week has been filled with discussion of how much rain or wind will hit which coast and how much destruction will be wrought. Last week "Fay", this week "Gustav" and "Hanna", next week "Ike", it's hard to keep up and impossible to understand. But I don't have a book to explain the inner workings of a hurricane. I don't have a book to explain the inner workings of God either. There is no plan written for how hurricanes relate to people and how people are to relate to the monster storms.

There is a book that tells the story of God and people. It doesn't explain everything God has done or is doing and it really doesn't say why hurricanes happen. But the Bible, does assure us from its very beginning that no people do all that God desires. No people are deserving of favor. Instead, we are all the recipients of unearned grace and pardon, strength and comfort, from the hands of a God that could end all suffering, all storms, all death, and all sin; but doesn't.

I can trust and believe that hurricanes will continue to develop, grow and destroy while they stir the oceans, water the land and thin the shoreline trees. With even deeper certainty I can trust that God is in control of everything, aware of hurricanes, living with people as they fear and struggle to survive. God brings good at every turn, in every season, we just need to watch for it as closely as we watch for hurricanes.

I'm not sure if wilderness should be capitalized. A proper noun has a particular place or time in mind and the wilderness is much too general, with so many varied locations and styles to be particular. Jesus endured temptation in the wilderness; a barren place that only Satan visited. No friends. No food. Just temptation via Satan and the "wilderness".

This week we are preparing for Vacation Bible School, a great week in which we tell the story of Jesus' amazing love to a group of children. Few of these children will become Andrew Chapel regulars unless they are already regulars. So why do we bother? What difference can it possibly make? Well, when those kids aren't young anymore, when they face difficulties and trials, when they find their lives in the wilderness, they will remember the story of the One who loves them. Maybe they'll remember the craft, game, puppet, or snack and have a warm feeling that says, "Try the church. It was safe. They loved me."

We just tell the story, plant the seed and hope. We host VBS for the future hope of our children, but God loves you and me just like the children. Today, I marveled at a little girl who was using a coffee stirrer as a straw to suck the juice from a fresh tomato. She was so original, so creative, so messy! God made her to be her. God loves her and her tomato and always will.

It's not easy to feel special or loved. It's not easy to appreciate all the things that make each one of us unique. We often forget that God made those differences and wants us to live fully into who we are rather than being swallowed up by the wilderness.

Let's pray that VBS offers a chance for a child whose family is in the wilderness of rush and hurry, fighting the temptations of greed and selfishness, missing the moment. Let's pray that into that wilderness each family will see come the Holy Spirit saying, "Shhhh, slow down, I'm here with you, giving meaning and hope."

That's the LIGHT shining, giving glory to the Father in heaven!