Vacations are fun, and Connie and I had a good time, these last three  weeks.

 I appreciate Don Felt filling the pulpit while I was gone. He brought neat insights from his hospice experiences.

 And I appreciate Kathy. Her knowledge of first century Christianity and experience with prayer are a real gift for Northbrae.

 We went up to the San Juan Islands, and among other things, went whale watching.

This, for me, was the highlight of the whole trip.

Taking a boat to the boundary of the wilds – a neat way to feel grounded.

We motored past an island that John Wayne, the actor, once owned.

He purchased it and stocked it with exotic animals for hunting purposes.

That didn’t set well among local residents; they discouraged that usage. 

The CEO of some company stores old airplanes on the Island. A hanger, runway, and resident keeper. Otherwise, the island is left alone.

There, we saw osprey, and an eagle on it’s nest.

Otters and harbor seals and all sorts of other birds.

And we also saw Orcas, those huge and beautiful, black and white whales that travel in pods around the waters of the Northwest.

 Connie’s son took a liking to the young naturalist, on board.

He took more pictures of her than he did the whales.

Our boat captain knew the waters and the rules, very well. 

 No one is suppose to get within 100 yards of these animals, nor in any way, disrupt their natural behavior. 

The whale excursions know where to go. Private boats tend to follow them and their manners are not as good.

 A couple of private boats followed us. We ended up with several boats around us. And somehow, the pod of whales got in the middle of us all.

The rule then is to cut off the motors and just float, which we did.

The whales did what they call, "spy hopping," coming up out of the water to see what was going on.

 And then, it seemed, they began showing off for us.

One mother whale came to the surface and rolled over on her back.

The calf laid its head on its mother’s stomach, and above water, let out the characteristic cry of Orcas. It was like this proud mother was showing off her baby.

There was a collective sigh on board our boat.

The naturalist said she had never seen anything like that.

We all wondered who among us had brought the "good whale" karma.

 The awe of that moment lingered with us, the whole trip.

In my understanding, this was a "religious experience."

No elaborate theology was necessary.

No rituals nor dogmas or anything like that.

Just a deep sense of unity – the sense that an animal so different from ourselves, living in a completely different environment, can have the same feelings as we …

 All religions, rituals and creeds, in one way or another, are born out of some kind of intense "religious experience."

 On our vacation, we had a contrasting experience.

Nothing intense, but something that preoccupied our minds and stole some of our "whale watching" enthusiasm.

It consumed much discussion.

 We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast.

We made reservations. Two rooms with a bath in the middle. Space for all six of us.

It wasn’t anything fancy … a little run down … but adequate for our purposes.

When we arrived in Portland, preparing to leave for the San Juan Islands, Kevin had his daughter with him, and we couldn’t leave her behind, so there were seven of us.

No problem, we thought. We had rented the space.

But when we walked in, our host counted heads and became a little upset.

He approached me during our stay. More than a little concerned.

I assured him that we could manage … kids sort of lay down on the floor and fall asleep where they land. I told him I would skip breakfast. And besides, teens sleep through breakfast, anyway. I told him I’d give him a little extra.

 There was a little tension between him and me through our whole stay.

Coming so close together, the contrast between these two experiences was sharp.

On the one hand, the beauty of the islands -- whales, eagles, harbor seals.

On the other hand, I had let myself become preoccupied with the logistics of one tiny moment and one small space on this earth.

 This seems to be a choice for all of us.

To hold an awareness open for religious experience.

Or to let our awareness become preoccupied with the logistics of living.

 Personally, I’m not real comfortable with the scripture lesson that we read this morning.

Putting on the "Whole armor of God." That is a military image.

Put on the belt of truth.

Take on the breastplate of righteousness.

Take up the shield of faith.

And with the "sword of the Lord," we are ready to do battle.

 We are ready for the "powers and principalities" that challenge us from all sides.

The scripture is true enough. Evil is a reality. Terrorism. Corruption. Injustices.

Institutional forces bigger than any one person. Like an invisible power. Principalities.

Still, for me, something in the text is missing.

I wanted to omit this text, and pick another.

But instead decided to use it. And look for what I sense is missing.

For unless we have some kind of ground-experience with our religion, we won’t have the strength to carry all that armor.

Life will eventually wear us down.

And that ground experience comes from deepening our ability to sense AWE, WONDER, MYSTERY.

 We had an interesting speaker at the Berkeley Breakfast Club, last Friday.

He was from the Graduate Theological Union, and spoke on Religion and Ethics.

On what basis do we make good ethical decisions?

He stressed a rational approach … thinking through issues theologically, with due consideration for utility, and justice and values and human rights.

I liked what he said. It was very good.

And I appreciate the value of reason in understanding our lives and making good decisions.

 But for me, the heartbeat of ethics, as well as happiness itself, is beyond reason. It is learning how to have deep experiences of awe, and wonder, and mystery.

A husband takes his wife by the arm and lead her down the corridors of a hospital.

They put their noses up against the glass and look at their newborn infant.

Something turns over inside of them. Awe. Wonder. Mystery.

The ethical implications for that are built into the experience.

They may purchase a book, later, and rationally debate the best way to raise a son or a daughter.

 Ethics, as well as happiness, begins with sensing God’s Presence.

And the identifying signature of that is awe, wonder, mystery.

On our way back from whale watching, there was discussion on our boat about the environment, and how important it is to protect our whale habitats.

 The other day, Connie and I went to see the movie, the World Trade Center, about 9/11.

It was a powerful movie. Heart wrenching. And I tend to agree with critics that say it may be a little too soon for such a movie to come out.

Emotions and memories are still raw … but than again, it is something we will have to deal with. And movies like this can help.

It was about a port patrolman caught in the collapse of the twin towers.

He and his team were in the elevator shaft, the strongest part of the building.

They became trapped beneath the rubble.

The movie was about their rescue.

The subplot was about the relationship between the port patrolman and his wife.

Their relationship had grown stale. Things were working, but they had grown bored with one another. Each lived in his and her own world.

 When the disaster struck, they came to realize just how much they valued each other.

The narration at the end of the movie said … sure, there is evil in the world.

But what invites our focus more is just how good people can be, just how ready we are to reach out to one another, just how precious things are that we sometimes take for granted.

There is a cliché: "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."

You get a picture of a cow, in a lush green pasture, stretching his neck through a barbed wire fence to eat the grass on the other side.

The metaphor is about people who get bored with their lives, and search elsewhere for meaning, getting wrapped up in all kinds of pursuits and collecting a few scratches along the way, only to discover that their real gift is in what they already have.

The awe we experience with whales is the same as the awe in the face of a rose, budding in our own back yards.

 There is a Jewish parable, the source of which escapes me, about a man in Prague.

He had a reoccurring dream that there was a treasure buried under a certain bridge in London.

He could see the bridge perfectly … its rock arch over the water, the towers at each end. Even a guard at one end, politely greeting people as they crossed.

But he couldn’t see, exactly, where the treasure was buried.

He just sensed that it was there.

The Jew dismissed the idea. It’s just a dream and everyone knows dreams are not real.

But the dream continued.

He eventually decided to make the journey to London to see if it was real.

He left his house and made his way to London.

When he arrived in London, he found the bridge, exactly as he saw it in his dreams.

There was the rock arch over the water. The towers at each end. And even the friendly guard.

He poked around the bridge, dug holes here and there, but found no treasure.

The guard approached him. "What are you doing."

The old man decided to tell the guard his dream.

After all, it was just a dream.

The guard laughed. "That’s funny. I, too, have had a reoccurring dream.

That one day, a strange Jew from Prague would come to my bridge looking for buried treasure. When the treasure is really buried at the end of a rock wall in front of his own house."

"But," said the guard. "It’s just a dream, and everyone knows dreams are not real."

The old Jew returned home, and dug up the treasure at the end of the rock wall, in his own back yard.